Jan. 6 committee says aide for Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson tried to give fake elector info to Mike Pence
An aide to Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson attempted to hand off fake, pro-Trump electors from Johnson to Mike Pence prior to the then-vice president counting electoral votes.
Revealed in video and live testimony, Sean Riley told Pence's legislative director Chris Hodgson that Johnson wanted to hand Pence lists of the fake electors from Michigan and Wisconsin for Pence to introduce during the counting of electoral votes that certified Joe Biden's win on Jan. 6, 2021.
The bombshell was disclosed during the fourth day of a public hearing held by the Jan. 6 select committee on Tuesday. The attempt was discovered through text messages.
Johnson had "planned to object to accepting electors in states where he said the results were in dispute." During the hearing it was revealed that Johnson signed on to the objection of Arizona's electors prior to the Jan. 6 assault on Congress by Trump supporters, and then voted to accept the same electors later. Two other GOP Wisconsin congressmen accepted the state's votes while Johnson never did, nor did he object to them.
The text conversation on Jan. 6 goes as follows, as revealed during the hearing:
“Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise,” Riley texted Hodgson.
“What is it?” Hodgson replied.
“Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Riley wrote back.
Hodgson responded: “Do not give that to him.”
In late November 2021, Johnson told Wisconsin Public Radio that he believed that state lawmakers should "take over control" of federal elections in the state because he "completely lost confidence" in the state elections agency.
Johnson's spokeswoman, Alexa Henning, downplayed the texts after they were publicly revealed. However, Henning didn't deny that Johnson wanted to hand-deliver the slate of fake electors to Pence.
“The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office,” Henning tweeted. “This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office. The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story.”
In March, the state's bipartisan elections commission declined to punish the fake electors. The outcome stated that "no election laws had been violated," the Associated Press reports. A liberal law firm is now suing the fake electors, seeking $2.4 million in damages.
The discovery further details the attempt made by President Donald Trump and his GOP allies to lean on Pence to make a push towards presenting false results of the election. The investigation showed that Trump pushed the Republican National Committee to help identify and coordinate fake slates of electors.
According to newly revealed video of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel's testimony to the committee, Trump called McDaniel and handed the phone to attorney John Eastman, an architect of Trump's plan to remain in power. Politico reports that "Eastman urged her to help identify fake electors to meet and cast votes for Trump when the legitimate members of the Electoral College were required to meet and vote on Dec. 14, 2020."
No state legislature responded to Trump's request, which made Pence reject the plan as well.
Many political figures are now calling for Johnson to resign from his position. Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes tweeted that Johnson's "hypocrisy knows no bounds" and that he's "a danger to democracy."
"I would say it's unbelievable that Ron Johnson tried to overturn the election with fake elector information. But those of us in Wisconsin can believe it just fine," Barnes said in another tweet. "He has always lied and cheated to serve his own interests."
Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, who called for Johnson to be subpoenaed to testify before the Jan. 6 select committee, called Johnson "a seditious traitor." He noted that it "goes beyond anything I could have imagined for how far Ron Johnson would go to overturn our Wisconsin election result."
