GOP Senator Ron Johnson says his involvement in Jan 6 fake electors plan lasted ‘a couple seconds’

Tea Partier-turned-Trumpist appears to have lost ground against Democratic challenger in unexpectedly competitive re-election race

Republican Senator Ron Johnson has again defended himself against suggestions he took part in the plot to subvert the 2020 election by submitting slates of fake “electors” to Congress on 6 January – saying he was only involved for “a couple seconds”.

Mr Johnson, who is facing a competitive race to hold his Wisconsin seat in November, made the remarks to local outlet WISN 12 News during an interview on the campaign trail this weekend.

Asked if he would testify to the 6 January select committee if called to do so, he replied: “No. I had nothing to do with 6 January. What would they ask me to testify about?”

His interviewer pressed him on the well-established scheme to hand Mike Pence fake slates of electors from crucial swing states, including Wisconsin, during the certification, either sending the process into chaos that might benefit Mr Trump or sending it back to the disputed states where Republican-controlled legislatures might somehow flip their state’s electoral votes in Mr Trump’s favour.

Mr Johnson dismissed the idea that he had anything to do with this plot as a “grotesque distortion” – while also seeming to confirm that it did in fact pass through his hands, albeit very briefly.

“I had nothing to do with the alternate slate,” he said. “I had no idea that anybody was going to ask me to deliver those. My involvement in the attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds.

“I think I fielded three texts and sent two and talked to my chief of staff that ‘somebody wants you to deliver something’ [sic]. I knew nothing about it.”

The significance of Mr Johnson’s confusing acknowledgment-cum-denial is that at one of its shocking hearings earlier this summer, the 6 January select committee screened texts showing Mr Johnson’s chief of staff, Sean Riley, texting one of Mike Pence’s senior staff that “Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS” – specifying that the “something” in question is “Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them”.

When accosted by reporters asking questions about these texts after the hearing, Mr Johnson initially pretended to be on the phone, then gave an account similar to the one he volunteered this weekend.

“I was aware that we got something delivered that wanted to be delivered to the VP, I mean guys this, this took place in, I don’t know, the span of a few minutes. And the story ended. There’s nothing to this.”

Mr Johnson, who has propagated various 2020 election conspiracy theories as well as circulating misinformation related to Covid-19, was not expected to be one of this year’s more endangered Republican senators, but recent polling shows him slipping behind his Democratic opponent, sitting state Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes.