MADISON – New documents from the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol suggest Sen. Ron Johnson told the chairman of the state Republican Party a month after the 2020 election that the GOP-controlled state Legislature should choose the presidential electors instead of Wisconsin voters — an argument Johnson said Tuesday he has “no recollection of” making.
According to testimony and screenshots of text messages provided to the committee by former Wisconsin GOP chairman Andrew Hitt, Johnson reached out to Hitt in December 2020 as then-President Donald Trump launched efforts to overturn the election result and as state party leaders were crafting a plan to covertly bring Republicans into the state Capitol to sign paperwork alleging they were electors for Trump.
The operation involved discussions of taking multiple cars and hiding in rooms in the Capitol to avoid detection, according to Hitt’s text messages.
“Ron called me right after and now is arguing for us to have the legislature choose the electors. OMG,” Hitt said in text messages for RPW executive director Mark Jefferson, referring to Johnson.
“What is he doing?” Jefferson replied.
“There is a huge amount of pressure building on them to find a way around the electoral college,” Hitt told Jefferson.
“How can he feel good about promoting that though?” Jefferson said. “Does he believe we won here?”
More:‘These guys are up to no good’: Wisconsin fake elector fretted plan would ‘fail miserably’
When asked about the text exchange, Hitt testified he did not agree with the idea and told Johnson that legislative leaders would likely not be on board, citing a memo from the Legislative Reference Bureau sent to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Nov. 16, 2020, showing the body lacked the power.
Hitt also testified he considered Johnson’s comments to be a general complaint and not a directive.
“He didn’t ask me to call anybody. I don’t know if he implied if he was implying that I should. Certainly, I think it would be fair that he would have left the conversation or understanding that I wasn’t going to do that.”
Ron Johnson says he doesn’t remember Hitt phone call
Johnson on Tuesday said he did not remember the alleged phone call documented in the text messages between Hitt and Jefferson and accused the U.S. House committee of attempting to smear him.
“This isn’t the first time the January 6 committee has selectively and deceptively released text messages to smear me. I have no recollection of the phone call referenced in the texts, and therefore do not know the context of any comment I might have made,” Johnson said in a statement. “My goal since the November 2020 elections has consistently been to restore confidence in our election system.”
Johnson claimed the 2020 election included “a number of irregularities” and that the guidance issued by the Wisconsin Elections Commission to clerks was contrary to state law, according to rulings in lawsuits brought by Republicans over some policies utilized during the election.
“Governor Evers then vetoed six bills designed to clarify election law. I want to fix the problems, Democrats only seem interested in playing politics and making it easier to cheat,” Johnson said.
Vos told reporters Tuesday that Johnson did not discuss the idea of lawmakers choosing electors instead of voters when Johnson visited the state Capitol in the fall of 2021 to discuss election issues.
The newly released text messages reveal deep skepticism on the part of Hitt and Jefferson of the plan pushed by Trump allies to draft Republicans to submit false paperwork alleging to be Trump electors. At one point, Jefferson texted Hitt, “Now how are we gonna get this silly electors meeting canceled? I fear that we won’t.”
In another exchange, Hitt said he would not side with Trump “if he goes after our guys,” referring to Trump’s criticism of Republican governors of Arizona and Georgia in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election.
Hitt and Jefferson did not respond to requests for interviews.
The messages between Hitt and Jefferson, released by the House committee on Monday, also revealed new details about the planning of the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting in the state Capitol of Republicans who submitted false paperwork to federal authorities claiming to be Trump electors.
The meeting would come about two weeks after Gov. Tony Evers signed documentation certifying the election and allowing Biden supporters to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes.
“Tomorrow is going to be wild,” Hitt told Jefferson after discussing which of three rooms in the Capitol to hide in with Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Bob Spindell because both Hitt and Spindell are public figures.
Kelly Ruh, a De Pere Republican who was part of the group of 10 who met in the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign and submit paperwork claiming to be a Trump elector, also testified that she signed the false elector paperwork despite her own doubts that court rulings would overturn Trump’s election loss in Wisconsin.
Ruh told the committee she signed the paperwork on the “remote chance” Trump would be declared the winner in the state, adding that she “was not expecting that to prevail in the courts.”The 8th Congressional District GOP chairwoman’s personal messages in the months after the 2020 election back up her testimony to committee investigators. “What a waste of a day off,” Ruh texted the now-former Brown County chairwoman Marian Krumberger on the day she traveled to the Capitol for the meeting. “I’m so pissed.”
She told Krumberger: “Don’t mention to anyone — it’s hush hush.”When asked about the exchange, Ruh told the committee she was upset at the time because there was a “slim-to-none” chance the courts would overturn the election results. She claimed she said the plan was “hush hush” due to safety concerns.A day earlier, Ruh texted Jefferson asking, “Do you really think there’s going to be a favorable ruling?” Jefferson responded with a thumbs-down emoji, according to a transcript of Ruh’s deposition.
At another point, Ruh told a friend she spoke with Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, saying she “would not want to be in his shoes” due to pressure he faced from the public and county GOP officials to help Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. “I believe we had talked about the pressure he was receiving from conservatives, from Republicans, in the state to overturn electoral votes, and he explained his rationale for why he didn’t support that, and I agreed with him,” Ruh told the committee in February of her conversation with Gallagher, who represents the area where Ruh lives.
The transcripts of depositions released this week also suggest answers to questions about how the fake elector plan was carried out in Wisconsin.
Hitt testifies Rudy Guiliani urged keeping electors plan secret
Hitt testified Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani urged state party officials to keep the plans for the false electors quiet, with Giuliani at one point urging “no press, no heads up.”
He also told the committee the Republican electors had trouble getting into the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, due to COVID protocols that barred the public from the building. He said a staff member for Stevens Point Republican State Sen. Patrick Testin opened a door to let the group into the Capitol.
The 10 false electors, as well as Jefferson, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, security and attorney Kenneth Chesebro were in the room when the phony paperwork was signed, Hitt testified.
“It was really short,” Hitt said of the meeting. “We just came in, did the vote, signed and then left.”
Two days before the Jan. 6 certification, Jefferson texted Hitt that “freaking Trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the Senate President,” according to the committee.
Hitt told the committee that he believed former RPW spokeswoman Alesha Guenther flew to Washington, D.C. to deliver the slate of false Wisconsin electors. The false electors from Wisconsin and Michigan were eventually delivered to Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly’s office, who then delivered them to Johnson.
Johnson’s staff attempted to give the packets to Vice President Mike Pence moments before the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, but Pence rejected that effort.
Guenther did not respond to a Journal Sentinel interview request.
Hitt’s text messages also suggest current Wisconsin GOP chairman Brian Schimming had discussions with Giuliani about the fake elector plan before it was carried out. Schimming also did not respond to a request from the Journal Sentinel.
Johnson’s alleged conversation with Hitt took place a few weeks before he helped coordinate a handoff of Wisconsin’s slate of false electors to Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before the U.S. Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters over Pence’s refusal to reject the results of the presidential election.
Since then, Johnson has argued to lawmakers that they should take over federal elections and ignore the Wisconsin Elections Commission. In November 2021, Johnson paid a rare visit to the state Capitol to meet with legislative leaders with the expected agenda was to discuss dismantling the state elections commission, according to text messages between top legislative staff members.
Johnson met privately for an hour with GOP legislative leaders after telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that state lawmakers should take over federal elections and ignore the elections commission.
Johnson has said that the state Legislature should “reclaim its constitutional authority over federal elections” and said they also should “act to defend its oversight authority over state agencies, like WEC, that they have created.”
“Without legislative oversight, agency accountability to the public would be dramatically diminished and confidence in government and election integrity further reduced,” he said in a statement earlier this year.
Molly Beck and Lawrence Andrea can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
