Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson claims that a large portion of Americans no longer trust the election system. On Wednesday, he held a hearing on what he called irregularities in the 2020 presidential election.
It was his final meeting as chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Johnson opened the hearing saying many citizens have a number of reasons to question the election results. He said they include the Democratic investigation into Russian involvement in the election four years ago.
“The corrupt investigation and media coverage of the Russian collusion hoax reduced faith in our institutions. And the ongoing suppression and censorship of conservative perspective by bias media and social media adds fuel to the flames,” Johnson said.
For nearly four hours, witnesses debated whether irregularities exist. One of them was James Troupis, the lead attorney for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin. He said 200,000 Dane and Milwaukee county votes should have been thrown out because of absentee ballot practices. Earlier this week, thestate Supreme Court ruledthat three of Troupis’ claims were filed too late and the other was without merit.
On Wednesday, Troupis told Johnson’s committee the court’s decision was not based upon the substantive issues. “The Biden campaign argued to the court that we’re not going to talk about the substantive things. We’re not even going to dispute the things I just brought up to you. But instead, you just shouldn’t hear them because a state agency, the Wisconsin Election Commission, had authorized some of these activities,” he said.
But not everyone at the hearing was on the same page. Christopher Krebs until recently was the director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security for the Department of Homeland Security. He’s a Republican and called upon other Republicans to stop the allegations of fraud and change the conversation.
“This is not an America I recognize and it’s gotta stop. We need everyone across the leadership ranks to stand up. I would appreciate more support my own party, the Republican party, to call this stuff out and end it. We gotta move on. We have a president elect in President-elect Biden,” Krebs said.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will accept testimony for the next couple of weeks.
