Newspaper Editorial Board called on Sen. Ron Johnson to either resign or be expelled from office for his role in spreading disinformation about the presidential election.
1. Sen. Ron Johnson took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. In our system, the states certify Electoral College votes and Congress acknowledges the victor. Senators and representatives cannot overturn the will of citizen voters by rejecting a state's electoral votes.
As for racism: Underlying the attack on the U.S. Capitol was a “tribal fury against people targeted as scapegoats,” we wrote, a fury President Donald Trump stoked repeatedly during his time in office. Johnson showed he was a willing accomplice in this shameful politics by repeatedly failing to adequately call out Trump’s appeals to the worst prejudices in people.
2. Although one senator, Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., challenged the results in Ohio after the 2004 presidential election, the situation was radically different from 2020. Boxer stood alone in the Senate that year, and fellow Democrats distanced themselves from her actions. She was not supported by the Democratic candidate for president, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. In fact, Kerry followed normal protocol for U.S. presidential elections and called President George W. Bush to concede and congratulate him on Nov. 3, the morning after the votes were counted. Unlike Trump, Kerry never questioned the overall integrity of the election.
3. Johnson only voted against objections to Joe Biden's victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania after the deadly sacking of the U.S. Capitol had interrupted Congress' tallying of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. Up to the insurrection, Johnson had publicly stated he would vote in favor of challenges to the state-certified votes. Originally, those challenges were to include Wisconsin's tallies.
Worse, like Trump, Johnson spent weeks questioning the validity of the election without citing any evidence. That included holding a one-sided hearing that allowed Trump’s lawyers to once again air allegations of fraud that had already been rejected by dozens of courtrooms across America, including both Republican and Democratic judges and even federal judges appointed by Trump.
Johnson’s role in spreading and amplifying lies about the election — including his threat to challenge the ceremonial counting of electoral votes in Congress — encouraged Trump supporters to believe the result could be overturned, and that helped lead to the tragedy at the Capitol.
In an interview broadcast Monday night, William Barr, Trump's former attorney general, said that doubts raised about the legitimacy of the Nov. 3 election “precipitated the riot” at the Capitol.
And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday blamed Trump and other leaders. “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people and they tried to use fear and violence,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.
In our view, those "powerful people" include Senator Johnson.
4. Despite filing more than 60 court cases, Trump and his supporters could find no evidence of fraud or “irregularities” that would have changed the result. They lost case after case. Senator Johnson should have acknowledged Biden’s victory immediately and repeatedly as Trump spread lies and challenged the election like no president in history, of any party, has ever done. Instead of "attempting to defuse growing passions," Johnson did the opposite.
After working on bills to ensure a smooth and peaceful transition of power at the end of the Obama administration, Johnson did a complete flip when Trump lost. Asked a week after the election if he had congratulated Joe Biden, Johnson snapped: "Nothing to congratulate him about." His decision to “investigate” the election results gave more life to conspiracy theories designed to mislead and stir resentment.
5. And where did this “growing belief” come from? Not from reporting by independent, fact-based news organizations. It came from interest groups and politicians who were careless with facts in their support of Trump.
6. Why have some Trump supporters lost faith in the fairness of the electoral process? It is precisely because irresponsible politicians like Trump and Johnson, aided by reckless allies at right-wing propaganda outlets, continually called those election results into question.
7. This is a Johnson hobby horse, again parroting claims by Trump. A Department of Justice inspector general in Trump's own administration found in 2019 that while the FBI had “serious performance failures” in its investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 election, there was ample reason for an investigation and political bias didn’t drive it. In an August report, the Senate Intelligence Committee, under Republican leadership, found numerous contacts between Trump’s campaign and the Russians and said Moscow posed a “grave” threat.
8. Like Trump, Johnson frequently claims “media bias” to divert attention from his own failures. America's founders established a free and independent press precisely so politicians in power could not control the information citizens receive. The Journal Sentinel and its partner wire services would have reported the exact same way if a Democratic incumbent had been defeated by a Republican challenger and refused to accept the will of the voters.
9. This is a fallacy. Despite the alleged liberal bias of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, an analysis by Politico in October found that Trump and his supporters have dominated those spaces, with right-wing social commentary being shared sometimes as much as 10 times more often than posts by liberals and Democrats. The companies banned Trump only after the Jan. 6 uprising — for violating policies against inciting violence, which all users agree to in advance.
10. This didn’t happen in Wisconsin. Many people voted absentee but they did it under existing rules. More Wisconsin voters were allowed to vote absentee without showing photo identification in counties Trump won than in counties that backed Joe Biden.
11. This issue was raised in lawsuits in Wisconsin. Judges found the practice was legal.
12. The way to challenge election results under the rule of law in America is through the courts and judicial branch. Senator Johnson and President Trump have not produced evidence of any wrongdoing that would change the outcome. No court has found the accusations of fraud credible.
13. This is misleading. Votes were not “dumped.” They were counted. This took a long time in Wisconsin because state law prevents ballots from being counted prior to Election Day. Johnson is well aware of this: Before the election, he called for the law to be changed. Everyone knew it would take time to open envelopes, check ballots against registration lists and put them through the machines, especially in population centers. Republican and Democratic observers were present the entire time and the process was broadcast over the internet for all who wanted to watch it.
14. Conservatives have long argued for tight rules over who has “standing” to sue in many types of cases. Election rules in Wisconsin were adjusted and reviewed by a Republican-led government and were not challenged in past elections.
15. How about telling the truth? Instead of spreading the lie that the election wasn’t valid, Johnson should have done as Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, suggested in a speech the night the Capitol was sacked. “The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. … The truth is that President-elect Biden won this election. President Trump lost.”
16. By encouraging the lie about election “irregularities” and by acting as if Congress could overturn the results and negate the certified ballots of millions of Americans, it is Johnson who has done more than most to foment “rancor and division.” As U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher of Green Bay put it in a commentary for USA TODAY: "The objectors were giving millions of people false hope that somehow Congress or Vice President Mike Pence could change the outcome of the election. This was, of course, a lie." That lie helped lead to the insurrection at the Capitol as election results were formally accepted by Congress.
17. Federal officials, including Trump’s Attorney General William Barr, vouched for the integrity of the election. On Nov. 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — part of Trump's own administration — and two other groups said: “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. … There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Hand recounts of paper ballots in jurisdictions, such as Georgia, only confirmed the results. The same was true in two Wisconsin counties that did recounts.
18. Blame the media and act like a victim of bias — a classic propaganda tactic to divert attention from the facts in question. Johnson links to a foreign news organization quoting Hillary Clinton to support his claim. (Clinton, who won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote by the same margin that Trump lost to Biden, called Trump to concede and congratulate him the morning after the 2016 election). Johnson also links to a conservative site that uses quotes about unrest without appropriate context.
19. This is a page right out of the Trump playbook — blame the “mainstream media” when you don’t have an answer. The Editorial Board will defend the right of the citizens to choose their elected officials — government of the people, by the people, for the people — even if Senator Johnson will not.
Johnson is not the only one that need answer for their action against the American People and its constitution...