It was just last year when the public learned about Sen. Ron Johnson’s role in trying to deliver fake elector materials to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021. The Wisconsin Republican stumbled badly when trying to explain what happened — many of us won’t soon forget how embarrassing it was to see him pretend to be on the phone when pressed for answers — but roughly 50.5% of voters in the Badger State re-elected the incumbent anyway.
As it turns out, the senator is still struggling with the issue. The Daily Beast reported overnight:
When asked Monday about Republicans in Wisconsin having falsely claimed to be electors for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) claimed that Democrats have done the same “repeatedly in all kinds of different states” — yet failed to provide even one example, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins merely to “check the books.”
Let’s back up for a minute, because the broader context actually made the hapless senator look quite a bit worse.
Three years ago, a group of Wisconsin Republicans created forged election materials, pretending to be “duly elected and qualified electors.” They and their cohorts in other states then sent the forged documents to, among others, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Archivist, as if the fake materials were legitimate. They were not.
Once the scheme was exposed, some actual electors in Wisconsin sued the illegitimate electors, and the civil case was resolved last week. As part of the settlement, the fake electors acknowledged that President Joe Biden won the state, agreed to assist prosecutors, and sent a statement to government offices saying that their actions were “part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.”
When Johnson appeared on CNN about 12 hours ago, the interview with Kaitlan Collins wasn’t specifically about this subject, but given the recent developments in his home state, the host wrapped up the segment by…
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