The Sconi

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) spoke out about irregularities in the 2020 election during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing today

Johnson had called for the hearing last week. 

“A week ago, when I gave notice of this hearing, there were more outstanding issues and court cases than today,” Johnson said at the hearing. “But even though courts have handed down decisions and the Electoral College has awarded Joe Biden 306 electoral votes, a large percentage of the American public does not believe the November election results are legitimate.”

Johnson said it isn’t sustainable for the country to still be skeptical of the election results.

“It starts with today’s climate of hyperpartisanship, which was only exacerbated by the persistent efforts to delegitimize the results of the 2016 election,” Johnson said. “The corrupt investigation and media coverage of the Russian collusion hoax reduced faith in our institutions. And the ongoing suppression and censorship of conservative perspectives by biased news media and social media adds fuel to the flames.”

Johnson said this investigation will be his last because he will only be chairman of the committee for another month.

“But oversight into election security should continue into the next Congress because we must restore confidence in the integrity of our voting system,” Johnson said. “This effort should be bipartisan. In my statement announcing this hearing, I stated its goal was to ‘resolve suspicions with full transparency and public awareness.’ That is what good oversight can accomplish.”

Johnson said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Gary Peters (D-MI) have attacked him because of his decision to hold the hearing.

“As I commented in last Tuesday’s hearing on early treatment of COVID, closed-mindedness is a root cause of many problems we face,” Johnson said.

Johnson said they didn’t have enough time to delve into all of the irregularities in the election and fully identify them.

“But many of these irregularities raise legitimate concerns, and they do need to be taken seriously,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he doesn’t recall anyone accusing congressional Democrats of conspiracy theories during the 2016 election.

“The fact that our last two presidential elections have not been accepted as legitimate by large percentages of the American public is a serious problem that threatens our republic,” Johnson said. “This hearing is part of what should be ongoing congressional oversight that is meant to transparently address that problem.”

Ken Starr said during the hearing that with the number of mail-in ballots at unprecedented levels, there is the possibility the issue could occur again in future elections.

“The principle here is … [the] Constitution is very clear that it is the prerogative of state legislatures to determine what these rules and laws are,” Starr said during the hearing. “And that was, I must say, flagrantly violated in Pennsylvania, and perhaps elsewhere as well.”

Starr said Bush v. Gore was proof that there can’t be changes made to election laws after the fact.