Wisconsin Republicans in middle of Donald Trump indictment

Key Republicans in Wisconsin are in the middle of former President Donald Trump’s indictment.

Trump has been accused by a federal grand jury of organizing a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden.

Republicans, who posed as electors and agreed to sign forged documents claiming Trump won in Wisconsin and other key states, were part of Trump’s strategy to stay in office, according to the indictment sent to a federal court Tuesday in Washington DC.

Bill Feehan, the 3rd Congressional District Republican Party chair, and former La Crosse County GOP Party chair — he did not seek reelection in La Crosse — is one of those 10 Wisconsin Republicans and 84 listed in the indictment.

List of Wisconsin Republican false electors and their current or previous GOP leadership positions:

• Bob Spindell, Republican appointee to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, current 7th Congressional District GOP chair
• Andrew Hitt, former Wisconsin state Republican Party chair
• Kelly Ruh, 8th Congressional District GOP chair
• Carol Brunner, former vice chair of the 1st Congressional District GOP
• Scott Grabins, former Dane County Republican Party chair
• Bill Feehan, current 3rd Congressional District GOP chair, former La Crosse County Republican party chair
• Kathy Kiernan, current second vice chair of the Wisconsin GOP Party
• Darryl Carlson, former 6th Congressional District GOP chair
• Pam Travis, former vice chair of the 7th Congressional District GOP and former staffer for Sen. Ron Johnson’s 2022 reelection campaign
• Mary Buestrin, former national committee member for Wisconsin Republican Party 

It cites four counts against Trump: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States; Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding; Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding; and Conspiracy Against Rights.

After Biden won Wisconsin by around 21,000 votes, Trump paid for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed the results were correct.

Trump, however, sued but the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the results with a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020.

Right after that, Democrats cast the 10 electoral votes at the state Capitol for Biden.

But, at the same time, those 10 Republican false electors were in another part of the building, filling out forged paperwork, claiming Trump won. They claimed the action was meant as sort of insurance that Trump could retake the presidency, in case a court later determined Biden had lost.

All of this was found in a memo dated the same day Trump asked for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties. That memo is referenced as “Wisconsin Memo,” while another memo called, “Fraudulent Elector Memo,” was also referenced — both several times in the indictment.

The indictment reads: “The memoranda evolved over time from a legal strategy to preserve the Defendant’s rights to a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted and certified.”

Those forged certificates by the false electors were used by Trump and others to “deceitfully target the government function … contrary to how fraudulent electors were told they would be used,” the indictment added.

Those false electoral votes were used by Trump and others to argue the election was in dispute, bringing the scheme full circle, as to the reasoning given as to why they were filed in the first place.

Along with false electors in Wisconsin, the same scheme was played out by Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada, while New Mexico and Pennsylvania had a similar plan in place.

The indictment doesn’t stop with the GOP electoral scheme in Wisconsin, however.

It also involves US Sen. Ron Johnson. His chief of staff had told a member of then-Vice President Mike Pence’s staff that Johnson wanted to hand deliver Pence the fake GOP electoral votes for Trump from Wisconsin and Michigan, about 20 minutes before the election process to certify Biden as president was to begin.

“Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise,” Johnson’s chief of staff, Sean Riley texted to Pence staffer Chris Hodgson at 12:37 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to evidence presented Tuesday by the House select committee.

“What is it?” Hodgson replied.

“Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Riley said.

Hodgson then told Riley: “Do not give that to him.”

The indictment reads: “On the morning of January 6, an agent of the Defendant (Trump) contacted a United States Senator to ask him to hand-deliver documents to the Vice President. The agent then facilitated the receipt by the Senator’s staff of the fraudulent certificates signed by the Defendant’s fraudulent electors in Michigan and Wisconsin, which were believed not to have been delivered to the Vice President or Archivist by mail.”

Johnson has tried to downplay the incident with a long explanation of a situation he said was only seconds long.

“My involvement in that attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds,” Johnson told WISN-TV’s Matt Smith in August 2022. “I think I fielded three texts and sent two and talked to my chief of staff that somebody wants you to deliver something.”

He added: “I knew nothing about it, and in the end, those electors were not delivered because we found out from the vice president’s staff they didn’t want them delivered. End of story.”