When questioned about the allegations, Sen. Johnson pretended to be in the middle of a call. “I’m on the phone right now,” he said, prompting NBCNews’ Frank Thorp to respond, “No you’re not. I can see your phone.” (via MaddowBlog)
, most of which relate to the Wisconsin Republican’s bizarre conspiracy theories. Yesterday, however, the GOP lawmaker generated headlines for a new and unexpected reason.
Partway through yesterday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, the public heard from Casey Lucier, an investigative counsel for the panel, who walked the public through a series of details surrounding the Republicans’ post-election . She explained, for example, that Donald Trump’s political operation took steps to ensure that physical copies of the forged materials were delivered to Washington, D.C., in advance of the congressional certification process.“Text messages exchanged between Republican Party officials in Wisconsin showed that on Jan. 4, the Trump campaign asked for someone to fly their fake electors’ documents to Washington.
In other words, Johnson not only intended to be a conduit for forged election documents, a member of his staff reached out to Mike Pence’s office to determine how the senator could personally and directly advance the fake electors scheme.At that point, the senator’s role in the gambit apparently came to an end, but the fact that Johnson was prepared to play such a role raises some difficult questions about the Republican’s intentions.