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.