Ron Johnson's Electoral Fraud

Plus: Lordy, defamation has consequences

(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

In today’s Morning Shots:

• Ronjon’s absurd spin

• A Walker-Trump proxy fight in WI

• Fox News is having a bad, very bad, awful week

• The NRA loses bigly

• A Rusty Bowers face-palm

• Corrupting the Department of Justice

• Cleanup in Aisle Oz

Join us tonight!

Retired Lieutenant Gen. Mark Hertling will join Ben Parker, Bill Kristol and Cathy Young for a briefing on the war in Ukraine. Join fellow Bulwark+ members on Zoom at 8:00 p.m. ET for this exclusive livestream. See details here.

Ron Johnson’s Fraud

His non-denial denial, followed by his absurdist nothing-to-see-here admission suggests that Ronjon is rattled by this story. And he should be.

This week, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot revealed that Johnson’s chief of staff tried to deliver to Vice President Mike Pence a slate of fake electors backing Trump, raising questions about the Wisconsin Republican’s role in a deliberate and coordinated plan to block Biden’s win and give Trump the presidency.

This is what I told the Wapo’s Colby Itkowitz:

“The bottom line is that Johnson is not stupid — he had to know what the context of the moment was, what was happening on Jan. 6, what was going on back home; he was far down the rabbit hole of ‘Stop the Steal’ efforts,” said Charlie Sykes, a prominent former Republican who has long opposed Trump. Sykes, who lives in Wisconsin, said “the very specific, easily understandable” image of the text messages from Johnson’s staff to the vice president’s office referencing alternate electors takes the effort to overturn the election from an abstract notion to something tangible.

Here’s what’s tangible, and Democrats would have to be brain-dead not to weaponize it:

By trafficking in fraudulent electors, Senator Johnson was engaging in electoral fraud aimed at overthrowing the election.

But here is the part that may grab voters’ attention: Johnson’s subterfuge would have disenfranchised literally millions of voters.

If the fake electors had been accepted, it would have thrown out the votes of more