Today is a very rough day for sure and I will be touching upon the Supreme Court decision today in an upcoming diary. But I wanted to highlight this:
After initially claiming to be "basically unaware" of an effort by his staff to get fake presidential elector documents to Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday he coordinated with a Wisconsin attorney to pass along such information and alleged a Pennsylvania congressman brought slates of fake electors to his office — a claim that was immediately disputed.
Evidence presented this week by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showed Johnson's chief of staff tried to deliver the two states' lists of fake presidential electors for former President Donald Trump to Pence on the morning of the U.S. Capitol insurrection but was rebuffed by Pence's aide.
Johnson initially told reporters this week he did not know where the documents came from and that his staff sought to forward it to Pence.
But he said in a Thursday interview on WIBA-AM that he had since discovered the documents came from Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, and acknowledged he coordinated with Dane County attorney Jim Troupis and his chief of staff by text message that morning to get to Pence a document Troupis described as regarding "Wisconsin electors."
And of course Kelly is pushing back:
Mr. Johnson told a conservative Wisconsin radio host Thursday that a fake elector document meant to reach Mr. Pence allegedly originated with the Pennsylvania Congressman’s office.
“We found out now this came from Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Kelly’s office. Couldn’t even remember who delivered this to us,” he said.
In a statement Thursday, Mr. Kelly’s office categorically denied the accusations.
“Senator Johnson’s statements about Representative Kelly are patently false. Mr. Kelly has not spoken to Sen. Johnson for the better part of a decade, and he has no knowledge of the claims Mr. Johnson is making related to the 2020 election,” the statement said.
So here’s a recap:
Kelly, first elected to the House in 2010, tried to file an emergency lawsuit at the Supreme Court to decertify the results of President Joe Biden's win in his state. The court eventually turned that back in a brief one-sentence order.
Johnson again dismissed the situation as a "non-story" and minimized his involvement in it. "My office's entire involvement in this thing lasted 70 minutes. My involvement was probably seconds, maybe a minute or two," he said.
More text messages posted by Just The News of the exchange between a top Pence aide, Chris Hodgson, and Riley showed further why Johnson's office got waved off trying to hand Pence anything. "The VP absolutely should not receive any mail that hasn’t been screened," Hodgson wrote. Riley wrote back: "Understood. Johnson understands."
What still doesn't make sense: Senators are normally assumed to be judicious in what they pass along to the executive branch, but Johnson is essentially alleging that his staff attempted to pass on the document from Kelly to Pence without any vetting.
And this has serious ramifications for Johnson’s re-election bid:
Johnson, who is up for reelection this year, has been dogged by scandals and controversial statements since aligning himself with Trump. He has spread false information about the coronavirus, was accused of racism for saying he would have been concerned had Black Lives Matter protesters flooded the Capitol on Jan. 6 instead of mostly White Trump supporters, and is under fire for using taxpayer funds for airfare between Washington and his Florida home. Some Democrats and political experts say this latest revelation of direct communication in the form of text messages between Johnson and Pence staff on Jan. 6 could sway voters in a battleground state where elections are won by a slim margin.
“What happened in the last 24 hours is different. It’s one thing to articulate off-the-wall political positions, it’s another thing to possibly have assisted in a coup attempt,” said Kenneth R. Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Johnson’s possible Democratic opponents — the Wisconsin primary is in August — immediately attacked him, arguing that the texts provide tangible evidence to voters that Johnson was part of an attempt to nullify the votes of thousands of Wisconsinites. A poll released Wednesday by Marquette Law School but conducted before the latest revelations found Johnson trailing three of his four potential opponents by single digits.
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