Jan. 6 panel’s Ron Johnson narrative exposes ills of one-sided hearing

“…headlines blared Thursday morning, all but suggesting Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson was involved in a conspiracy to force alternate electors on Vice President Mike Pence during the chaotic, violently tragic day that was Jan. 6, 2021.

“Ron Johnson tried to hand fake elector info to Mike Pence on Jan. 6, panel reveals,” the Washington-based new organization Politico declared.

To be fair, that’s exactly the headline the Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee fed the news media on Wednesday, releasing select text messages between Johnson’s chief of staff and one of Pence’s top aides suggesting there was a plot hatched to hand an envelope of alternate Donald Trump electors to the vice president for the state of Wisconsin.

In reality, according to the full slate of text messages and interviews with people involved, the truth is far different.

Johnson never handed any such alternate electors’ slate to Pence. Johnson’s staff got an urgent request, quickly researched it and stood down, specifically telling the senator he should not do it.

Secondly, this wasn’t a long-hatched plot, at least as it related to Johnson. The entire time of conversation in which the idea was requested, checked out and knocked down took just 70 minutes, the text messages show. And Pence’s staff already knew about the alternate electors before Johnson’s team even inquired, the messages show…”