Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV), who describes herself as “America’s #1 Most Bipartisan Member of Congress,” posted and later deleted a profanity-laced response on X to an Associated Press (AP) story about President Donald Trump’s planned attendance at Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. ET on April 1, Lee replied to an Associated Press post that said Trump would attend Wednesday’s hearing on birthright citizenship, adding that the visit would make him the “first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.” In response, Lee wrote: “So fucking fucked up. I’ll pray they fuck him to his face. Sorry, I say fuck a lot these days.” She subsequently deleted the message.
During the 2018 campaign for Nevada’s Third Congressional District, long viewed as a battleground seat, Republican Danny Tarkanian said Lee was closely tied to then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, telling Breitbart News, “Nancy Pelosi helped recruit her to run, she’s raised her millions of dollars, she’s raised twice as much money as the incumbent race for the last election. It will probably be the most expensive congressional race in the country.”
In November 2019, Lee argued Trump had engaged in “clear obstruction” and “abuse of power” over Ukraine, telling a Las Vegas town hall that she supported an impeachment inquiry because she believed there was “ground enough for me to support further fact-finding.” Lee also said she was acting to uphold her oath to the Constitution, arguing that “democracies live or die by the integrity of their elections.”
The next month, Lee announced she would vote to impeach Trump, saying in a statement, “The facts are clear: the President abused the power of his office and blatantly obstructed Congress.” She added, “I took an oath of office to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” At the time, Breitbart News noted that Lee represented one of the congressional districts Trump had carried in 2016 before Democrats flipped it in the 2018 midterms, and that polling in her district suggested her impeachment stance could carry political risk.
Lee has also faced years of ethics scrutiny. In June 2020, she became the subject of an outside ethics complaint after pushing for a change to federal pandemic loan requirements that later benefited her husband Dan Lee’s company, Full House Resorts. Two weeks after the change, the company received $5.6 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. Lee said she had no influence over whether the loans were approved, though a spokesperson later acknowledged she had been made aware of the application and its approval.
FACT, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, stated that Lee’s involvement with Full House Resorts created doubt about her impartiality and raised questions about whether she had acted in the public’s best interest. Days later, Joni Ernst proposed legislation requiring lawmakers, their spouses, and congressional employees to disclose PPP loans within 15 days. The proposal followed reporting that Lee was among the lawmakers or spouses of lawmakers connected to PPP benefits.
Lee again drew scrutiny in 2021 over her financial disclosures. Business Insider reported that she had failed to adequately disclose more than 200 stock trades since early 2020, valued between roughly $267,000 and $3.3 million. The trades involved companies including Planet Fitness, Wayfair, Marriott International, Carnival, Williams-Sonoma, and US Foods.
Lee’s office said the trades had been executed by a third-party money manager without her input and that she worked with a financial adviser and the House Ethics Committee to file the transactions once she became aware of them. Breitbart News reported that the late disclosures did not appear to trigger automatic penalties.
Later that year, FACT called for an investigation into Lee, contending that her repeated failures to disclose stock trades on time could amount to violations of the STOCK Act and House ethics rules. FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold said the disclosure law must be strictly enforced to determine if members of Congress are using their positions for self-enrichment. Breitbart News also included Lee in a 2021 roundup of 11 Democrats alleged to have violated the STOCK Act.
Additional questions followed in 2022. Business Insider reported in August that Lee and her husband had traded eight stocks during 2021 worth up to $155,000, including Ally Financial, Dollar Tree, and Synchrony Financial, and that the transactions were not disclosed until August 13, months after the STOCK Act’s required 30- to 45-day reporting window. Lee’s office said a financial adviser had identified an inaccuracy in the list of trades and that she relied on a third-party money manager.
The following month, FACT filed another complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics, asking for an investigation into the late disclosures. The watchdog argued that whether Lee personally executed the trades was irrelevant because the law still requires timely reporting and because conflicts of interest can exist regardless of who makes the transactions.
Lee has remained a top Republican target in Nevada’s swing Third District. In a March 1 Breitbart News interview, former Trump ambassador Dr. Jeff Gunter, who is seeking the GOP nomination against her, said Lee “aided and abetted Joe Biden in flooding our country with illegal aliens” and charged that “she’s out of touch” after voting against the “Big Beautiful Bill,” including provisions for “no tax on tips” and “no tax on overtime.”
