Trump fake elector in Wisconsin describes how he says he was tricked | 60 Minutes

The month after the 2020 presidential election, Democratic and Republican

elector

s representing the candidate who won the popular vote in their states gathered across the country to formally cast

elector

al votes for president, but in seven states won by Joe Biden, Republican electors met anyway and cast

fake

votes. Votes for Donald Trump are known as false electors and, according to federal prosecutors, were part of a scheme to overturn the election orchestrated by Trump's lawyers with Trump's support. State criminal charges have been filed against bogus voters in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Wisconsin Fake Voters. They have not been charged and several weeks ago one of them Andrew punched a lawyer and the former chairman of the state Republican Party agreed to sit down with us to explain how he

says

he and other Wisconsin Republican electors were misled by the Trump campaign . continued at one point you were the leader of the Republican party in Wisconsin, you were a huge Trump supporter, I worked tirelessly for him, you know, day and night, let's put it together for the president of the United States once again, many times the phone calls would begin. at 6:00 in the morning and it didn't end until 10:30 at night I did everything I could, Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Andrew hit Andrew, he often chanted L President Trump at rallies in Wisconsin, Andrew hit Andrew, how are we going to do Andrew we are going to win this St we have to win it but Trump didn't win in Wisconsin he lost to Joe Biden by about 20,700 votes the Trump campaign appealed challenging over 200,000 absentee votes for technical reasons in two Democratic counties whether to count the legal votes that Trump won in Wisconsin by a good margin that was false what he said was false the Trump campaign wanted the votes in DNE County and Milwaukee County to be thrown out did you support that idea?

It wasn't something I was comfortable with in DNE County and Milwaukee County in Wisconsin are the most liberal counties. The majority of Wisconsin's black population lives in those two counties. I don't think your own vote should be thrown out on November 30. Wisconsin Democratic Governor Tony Iers certified Joe Biden's victory and authorized the state's Democratic electors to gather in the state capital on December 14 to cast his electoral votes for Biden, but days before, Andrew Hit

says

he received a call from the Republican National Committee. What was the contact with you? Can we get a list of Wisconsin Republican electors who made you suspicious?

In Wisconsin, because of the fraud, you didn't think there was any and I was very involved, obviously in the electoral pool, I was one of the 10 Republicans nominated to be an elector if Trump won in Wisconsin on December 4. He says he was advised by the state government. outside legal counsel to rally the other Republican electors on December 14 in the capital and, as a contingency, signed a document claiming that Trump won the state in case a court overturns the election in Wisconsin, in case the legal arguments that the Trump team is presenting actually win in court law and I remember asking how can a court overturn the election and just because we didn't meet and complete this paperwork on the 14th, Trump would lose Wisconsin and the legal analysis was that the statute is very clear for voters.

We were to meet at noon in Wisconsin's capital on December 14th. That morning, the state Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, rejected the Trump campaign's attempt to throw out more than 200,000 votes, but Andrew Hitt says he and the other Republican electors met anyway to cast

fake

votes because he had been told that the Trump campaign would appeal to the US Supreme Court. Kenneth Chesbro, a pro-Trump lawyer who was an alleged architect of the fake elector scheme, showed up to observe, we received specific advice from our lawyers that these documents were does not make sense unless a court says that they met you are deciding to sign this document as an elector and having the other electors sign this document based on a court challenge that you yourself do not believe has legitimacy.

I wouldn't say it doesn't have it. have a legitimacy that is different from not personally agreeing with it, you personally do not believe that the legitimate votes of Wisconsin residents should be thrown out, and yet you are signing a document in support of a lawsuit that alleges precisely that and if If I didn't do that and the court threw out those votes, it would have been solely my fault if Trump didn't win Wisconsin, ah, beautiful children and well, I'm going to blame you, Andrew, if they don't, can you imagine the repercussions? about me, my family, if it was me, Andrew hit who stopped Donald Trump from winning Wisconsin, you are saying you were absolutely scared of Trump supporters in your state, it was not a safe time if my lawyer is right and absolutely right why the one Trump loses Wisconsin.

It is my fault that I would be scared to death signing legal documents of such consequence that you do not believe in and do not believe in the underlying reason for the documents. I mean, it's not exactly an ENC courage profile, no, how do you feel? About that now I want to say terrible. If I had known what I knew now, I wouldn't have done it. It was hidden from us that this alternative plan existed. The alternative reason. That alleged backup plan is a prominent part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment against former President Donald J.

Trump accused of conspiring to defraud the United States. According to Smith, what began as a legal strategy in Wisconsin evolved into a corrupt scheme that also involved six other states Donald J. Trump from the state of Florida number of votes 11 Arizona Georgia Nevada New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Michigan, said that we cannot enter or that some of the fake voters could not convince the police to let them enter the capital. Yes, the voters are already here. They have been reviewed. Jack Smith cites this December 6 written memo. by Ken Chesbro detailing ways the Trump campaign can prevent Biden from accumulating 270 electoral votes on January 6 Smith alleges the multistate scheme was designed to create a false controversy and position the vice president to supplant legitimate electors with the fake electors for Trump and C if and him as president for January 4, according to internal emails, some members of the Trump campaign panicked because they believed that the fake election documents from Michigan and Wisconsin had not arrived at the office of the Vice President Mike Pence's Senate. his colleague texted them.

Trump's damn idiots want someone to fly original. election documents for the president of the Senate, you wrote this is crazy, what was crazy, I mean we have the certification on the 6th, um, how come you don't have the documentation? I mean, you've said you only agreed to this plan. to preserve Trump's candidacy in the event of a Court ruling on January 4th, just two days before January 6th, did you really think that was still possible? Remember, although the Wisconsin Supreme Court had been appealed, so on January 4 it seemed that yes, it is possible that a much more The conservative United States Supreme Court could overturn a 43 decision to bring the documentation to Washington.

They chose Alicia Gunther, then a 23-year-old law student who worked part-time for the Wisconsin Republican Party. I was on vacation from law school and wanted to make some extra money to pay for books and worked for the party during my month off from school, so on January 4th I got a call from the executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party already who was helping at the time. What did you think when you first received the text message. I didn't know what it was and then he went on and asked you. You know the Trump campaign wanted these documents flown to DC because they were lost in the mail.

Gunther says she picked them up. here at the state party headquarters and on January 5th he flew to Washington, so this is the email that showed us his email chain with Ken Chesbro and Trump campaign senior advisor Mike Roman, explaining that he only I should give the documents to Ken Chesbro, so um and then. They asked me to meet him outside the Trump Hotel. I mean, it sounds very secretive. Yeah, I thought that email was pretty strange and dramatic and you knew what was happening on January 6th in terms of the certification of the vote. I don't know if I was really tuned into that because I thought it would have taken a court of law to overturn the election for those documents to be used.

Did you know what Chesboro was like? So he actually sent me a selfie so he sent you a selfie so you knew it was him yeah I can see yeah she still has the picture saved on her phone that's Ken Chesboro mhm what did he tell you ? He took a dramatic step back and looked at me. and he said maybe he just made history Ken Chesbro told investigators that he delivered the Wisconsin documents to the Capitol the next day, January 6. He can be seen in videos outside the capital near conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. I want to look even deeper into counterfeiting. electoral scheme according to the select committee on January 6 a help to Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson tried to arrange to bring the false elector lists to Vice President Pence and I hope Mike does the right thing, I hope so, because if Mike Pence does the right thing , we won the election, but Pence help refused to text messages, do not give them according to the committee when the Senate chamber had to be evacuated, the actual electoral votes in these boxes were taken to a safe location when, When Congress resumed, they were returned to the House chamber, pursuant to the Senate's concurrent resolution, Vice President Pence announced the election results and adjourned the session at 3:44 a.m. m.

On January 7, the Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the Trump campaign's lawsuit in Wisconsin. What do you think about Donald Trump continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, I mean, it wasn't stolen, it wasn't stolen in Wisconsin last December. Andrew Smack and the other Wisconsin Republican electors settled a civil lawsuit against them by some of the state's Democratic electors, admitting they signed a document that was used as part of an attempt to improperly overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. resigned as chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party in August 2021 cooperated with the January 6 committee by using our constituents in ways we were not told and would not do.

I have supported him and he says he has also cooperated with federal prosecutors. He maintains that he and the other fake voters in Wisconsin were deceived every time someone sees our text messages, our emails and our documents. They understand that they know they are wrong. Their conclusion is that we were deceived by the January 6 Committee. I saw Jack Smith specifically in his accusation that he refers to some of the voters being deceived, it was us, the former president is known to watch 60 Minutes if he is watching, what would you like to say to him? I would say that this country needs to move forward.

We need a leader who will address the serious problems and serious issues facing this country and we need faith in our institutions again and the next president of the United States needs to do that and in his opinion, that's not him, that's not him, the right thing to do. . voters in Michigan with their fake counterparts were going to try to sneak in the night before and sleep in the capital for 60

minutes

of overtime.