BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Lee Snover is Chair of the Northampton Republican Committee,and a vocal supporter of Donald Trump. Before the election, she told WLVR that the only way that the President could lose was in the event of massive fraud.And she’s continued to assert on social media - without factual evidence - that the Presidential election was somehow ‘fixed’. She took part in the protests Wednesday in D.C.
WLVR’s Brad Klein spoke to her by phone as she was leaving Washington. TheCapitol building was still occupied by Trump supporters at the time of the interview. This is a lightly edited transcription of their full interview.
Transcript:
Brad Klein: This is Brad Klein from WLVR in Bethlehem. Would you be willing to talk to me for a minute and tell me a little about what you saw?
Lee Snover: Yeah, I got up pretty close to the Capitol. I wasn't part of the people that stormed the Capitol. I got to the Capitol steps. I did get a little bit of tear gas, um, but there was not any violence all day. The people that went inside the Capitol were an isolated group. It was one small group. So I'm actually disappointed that all of these lawmakers and all these people everywhere are talking about all this violence where there wasn't all this violence, it was isolated incidents.
BK: So the president has called on protesters to go home...
LS: Yeah. And I'm in my car and I'm getting ready to get on the highway. So we're going home.
Brad Klein: Do you have any message to North Hampton County Republicans for how they should interpret what they're seeing on TV today?
LS: Well, I mean, obviously I do not support violence. However, it was an isolated incident and the violence I did see was the Capitol Hill police tear gassing Patriots, who weren't doing anything wrong. Patrons, just standing on the lawn of the Capitol were being tear gassed for no reason. So, you know, my message to them is to, again, to weed through the news and don't listen to the fake news or the fake media, because the violence was small and was isolated. It was a billion people. There wasn't violence all day.
BK: Understood. There's a small percentage of those who are actually inside the Capitol, right now?
LS. Yeah. It was such a small group. I don't even know. Was it two people I heard?
BK: Uh, no, I think it's clear from the pictures. There are hundreds of protestors inside the Capitol building.
LS: Okay. So it was, but anyway, they're allowed to be in the Capitol building. Okay. We own the building. That's our building. We're allowed to be in that building. We shouldn't be doing anything violent and we should be behaving, but we're allowed to be in the building.
Brad Klein: Okay.
LS: I own as much of the Capitol building as Vice President Mike Pence does,
BK: Um, although probably storming the doors and, you know, forcing a way...
LS: But I'm just saying you have a right to be in the building.
BK: What is the outcome that you hope for as the days move forward?
LS: The outcome is, we want a new Republican party. We're never going back to the old Republican party. Never. We want a new party, a Patriot party. We want the Republican party to come our way or a new party. We don't want any spineless Republicans. We want only Trump Republicans.
BK: And let me ask you, do you accept that Donald Trump will no longer be president as of the 20th? That, that Joe Biden will be, presumably sworn in on the 20th?
LS: I do because, uh, Donald Trump did not concede and will never concede and we didn't lose. We won.
BK: So are you expecting that the Congress will not certify the election and there will be no transition of power in the United States?
LS: I mean, I don't know that they're going to do that or not going to do that. I'm just saying they shouldn't.
BK: What is the outcome you'd like to see?
LS Well, I'd like to see Donald Trump serve a second term as President of the United States.
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