MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) – An aide to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson told former Vice President Mike Pence’s staff that the Wisconsin Republican wanted to hand over to Pence the votes of his state and neighboring Michigan’s fake voters. as revealed by text messages at Tuesday’s meeting. meeting of the select committee of the House investigating the insurrection of January 6, 2021.
Johnson’s spokeswoman Alexa Henning downplayed the texts after they were first publicly revealed during the committee’s hearing in Washington, but did not deny that Johnson had wanted to hand over the list of fake voters to Pence.
“The senator had no involvement in creating an alternative voter list and had no prior knowledge that it would 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 we had not given it to him and we did not. has taken no further action. End of story. “
Johnson had planned to oppose accepting voters in states where he said the results were in dispute. He signed the Arizona voters’ objection, which passed before the attack, but then voted to accept those voters later. He did not oppose accepting the Wisconsin votes, but two of the state’s Republican congressmen did.
The evidence presented showed an exchange between Johnson’s assistant Sean Riley and Pence staff member Chris Hodgson at 12:37 on January 6, 2021.
“Johnson has to deliver something to VPOTUS, please let me know,” Riley sent to Hodgson.
“What is?” Hodgson replied.
“Alternative voters for MI and WI because the archivist did not receive them,” Riley wrote.
Hodgson replied, “Don’t give him that.”
Wisconsin Republicans gathered at the State Capitol on December 14, 2020, the same day that 10 Democratic voters cast their ballots in Biden, which brought the state of the battlefield to just under 21,000. votes. They sent their votes for Trump to the National Archives, arguing that they were trying to preserve Trump’s legal options in case a court overturned Biden’s victory.
The Wisconsin Bipartisan Electoral Commission refused to punish fake voters, saying no election law had been violated. False voters are being sued in Wisconsin by a liberal law firm claiming $ 2.4 million in damages.
Other evidence at Tuesday’s hearing indicated that Trump’s campaign team wanted fake Wisconsin voters to blow up documentation in Washington.
“Trump idiots want someone to send the papers of the original voter to the Senate president,” Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, sent a text message Jan. 4. “They’ll call one of us to tell us what the hell is going on.”
Johnson met with Wisconsin lawmakers later in 2021 and talked about dismantling the state’s bipartisan election commission and getting the GOP-controlled legislature to take over the presidential and federal elections.
Johnson’s Democratic opponents jumped in front of the revelation at Tuesday’s hearing and asked him to resign.
“Ron Johnson was actively trying to undermine this democracy,” Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said in a statement calling for Johnson’s resignation. “He literally tried to deliver fake ballots to Mike Pence. Once again, Ron Johnson has proven to be a danger to our country and our fundamental rights.”
Other Democratic candidates, including State Treasurer Sarak Godlewski and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, made similar comments calling for his resignation. Alex Lasry, a Milwaukee Bucks executive, called Johnson a “seditious traitor and a danger to our democracy,” but declined to call for his resignation. is defeated in November.
Nelson, who had previously called for Johnson to be summoned to testify before the Jan. 6 commission, said the revelations “go beyond anything I could have imagined how far Ron Johnson would go to overturn the Wisconsin Election Results “.
He asked the Justice Department to investigate Johnson.