How Ron Johnson tried to steal the 2020 election
A timeline of events leading up to January 6, 2021
From the start, Johnson was deeply-involved in undermining the 2020 election, setting the table for his and others’ coordinated efforts to overrule Wisconsin voters and keep Trump in power
As Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson defends his role in the fake elector scheme to block Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory and throw the election to Trump, we’re revisiting Johnson’s actions in the days leading up to January 6, 2021.
Timeline
Dec. 16, 2020 — Johnson holds a taxpayer-funded committee hearing focused on undermining trust in the 2020 election.
Jan. 2, 2021 — Johnson announces he will vote against certification of the Electoral College results, baselessly claiming that a “large percentage of the population don’t view this election as legitimate.”
Jan. 4, 2021 — Johnson attends a meeting led by conspiracy theorist and Trump ally Mike Lindell focused on strategies for delaying and preventing certification of Biden’s win.
Jan. 4, 2021 — Johnson said he was coordinating with Trump campaign election lawyer Cleta Mitchell on her legal efforts to interfere with 2020 election results. (Mitchell has since been subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 Committee.)
Jan. 6, 2021 — Misrepresenting the facts, Johnson’s chief of staff tells Vice President Mike Pence’s team that Johnson wants to give Pence documents on Wisconsin and Michigan’s fake “electors.”
Those “official-looking documents falsely affirm[ed] former President Donald Trump won Wisconsin and Michigan as Pence prepared to affirm Joe Biden’s electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021,” and appear to have been part of a Trump campaign and RNC scheme to block certification of Biden’s victory and attempt to replace duly-elected Biden electors with sham Trump representatives — with the ultimate goal of overruling voters and throwing the election to Trump.
After the bombshell text messages revelation in Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing, Johnson tried to get out of answering reporter questions by pretending to be on a fake phone call. And when that charade fell flat, Johnson notably did not deny his desire and intention to knowingly hand-deliver the fraudulent “elector” documents to Pence.
But that Johnson story collapsed by Thursday afternoon, when Just the News published text messages to and from Johnson on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. The messages show Trump lawyer Jim Troupis texting Johnson that morning, and requesting that Johnson help him to “get a document on Wisconsin electors to you for the VP immediately.”
The messages then show that Johnson personally took steps to arrange for his chief of staff to contact Pence’s team. Each of those revelations contradicts Johnson’s initial story, showing that this effort from Johnson was NOT “staff to staff” at its inception, despite Johnson’s claim on Tuesday. And they further show that Johnson knew — from the start — that this was about “Wisconsin electors,” which undercuts his claims that he had zero ideas about what it was about and that he was unaware of where the “package” came from.
These latest revelations and Johnson’s actions to help pressure Pence in the run-up to Jan. 6 show that he was deeply involved in and complicit in the Trump campaign scheme to overturn the election — and that his role in this Pence pressure campaign is just the latest shoe to drop.
