Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson was reportedly accused of delivering phony electors for Donald Trump on the morning of January 6, 2021, only minutes before the US electoral vote count favored Joe Biden. According to the committee’s most recent hearing on January 6, Johnson reportedly sought to deliver phony election paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence just before he started counting ballots.
Casey Lucier, the House committee’s Investigative Counsel, expounded on the claims against Johnson in an eight-minute video earlier this week, describing the several occasions in which he sought to utilize phony electors to influence the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential Elections. However, Lucier said that the White House Counsel’s Office did not take the efforts into account. He also highlighted a number of text exchanges sent between Johnson and Pence’s respective staffers to back up the charges.’
Kind of undersold in all this Ron Johnson stuff:
Wisconsin GOP executive director Mark Jefferson referring to “freaking Trump idiots” while deriding the fake-elector effort. pic.twitter.com/fqRge4WPYm
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) June 22, 2022
An investigation into Ron Johnson’s Fake Electors scandal
According to the January 6 House Select Committee, Senator Ron Johnson sought to coordinate a handover of phony Trump electors to former Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021, before Congress accepted the 2020 electors and ruled the president in favor of Joe Biden. According to the committee, Johnson’s senior staffer, Sean Riley, texted Pence’s legislative director, Chris Hodgson, and stated the senator needed to “deliver something to the VPOTUS.”
When questioned, Riley said that the paper had a list of fictitious electors from Michigan and Wisconsin that Pence might bring during the vote-counting before the decision ended in Biden’s win. The message stated:
“An alternate slate of electors from Michigan and Wisconsin since the archivist did not receive them.”
Pence’s assistant told Riley not to transmit the material to the then-vice president shortly after receiving the text. On January 4, a series of tweets sent to Wisconsin Republican Party Executive Director Mark Jefferson alluded to Trump campaign staffers apparently seeking to fly bogus electors to Washington before January 6. Jefferson stated:
“Trump fools want someone to fly authentic Electoral College documents to the Senate President.”
Johnson’s phony elector scandal arose when Trump and his followers repudiated Biden’s presidential victory and moved to overturn the election results. Despite not being one of the 139 Republicans who voted to submit Trump’s claims, Ron Johnson convened a hearing in December 2020 when Trump supporters advocated their conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election.
Ron Johnson Charges
Prior to the present scandal, Johnson was sued in March 2021 for claimed rebellion and conspiracy against Biden. He was charged with “undermining the outcomes of the 2020 election,” which is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Disqualification Clause.
As the phony electors’ story unfolded, Johnson’s spokeswoman, Alexa Henning, rushed to Twitter to say that the senator was not engaged in the process of producing false electors and had no previous knowledge of the paper handed to their office:
While speaking to CNN, Ron Johnson made similar remarks and said that he had “no knowledge” of the other slate of electors:
“I was aware that we had received this box and that someone wanted us to deliver it, so we contacted Pence’s office.”
Meanwhile, Committee Chair Bennie Thompson informed the magazine that authorities have yet to contact Johnson on his role in the false elector incident. It was also said that the “committee has not taken a decision” on whether or not to summon the senator to testify on the incident.
