Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) is determined to hold hearings to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. However, he has previously admitted he has not seen evidence that would alter the election outcome.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, host Chuck Todd confronted Johnson over his plans to hold hearings on allegations of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election.
Todd suggested that Johnson was basing his decision to investigate “conspiracy theories” based on the number of people who believe in them.
“Let me ask you this…Why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. You’re basically saying if there’s enough people who hold conspiracy theories [you’ll hold a hearing],” Todd charged.
Johnson responded, “I could have held hearings on all kinds of things…I held hearings on what I figured was the most relevant issues.”
“How about the moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?” Todd retorted.
Johnson said lawmakers have to “pick and choose based on priority” what to hold hearings on. Still, he said he choose allegations of widespread fraud in the election because “tens of millions of Americans” believe the election was stolen and “we need to get to the bottom of it.”
“We need to explain it, get that off the table. We also have to acknowledge that there were some real problems here. There’s some issues that need to be explored and investigated,” he said.
Watch the video below:
WATCH: @chucktodd: “You're basically saying if there's enough people who hold conspiracy theories [you'll hold a hearing]."@senronjohnson: “I could have held hearings on all kinds of things.”
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 3, 2021
Chuck: “The moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?” pic.twitter.com/B9sBQztrpv
As the interview came to a close, Todd said, “You gotta ask yourself, when you tell people a million a times that something was stolen or something was fraud and then they believe it, I think you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why so many people believe it.”
“Well, Chuck, you need to look in the mirror. Cause you carried the Democrats’ water on that…Russian collusion with the Trump campaign hoax. That is what you did in the media. You carried that water for years,” Johnson shot back.
His comments referred to allegations that members of President Donald Trump‘s 2016 campaign conspired with Russian operatives to swing the results of that election, and coverage of the investigation into those allegations.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated the allegations and found “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”
However, his team did not find evidence to prove that there was collusion.
While Johnson insisted there were “real problems” with the 2020 election, former Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press that the Justice Department had not found evidence of widespread fraud.
