Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman, Senator Ron Johnson, has requested former U.S. Solicitor General Ken Starr and attorneys in key battleground states to testify at a controversy-plagued hearing next week. At this hearing, the Senator plans to conduct an investigation into the 2020 election that President-elect Joe Biden won.
The hearing faced strong criticism from senators in both parties, who believed Johnson is delving straight into debunked conspiracy theories. Paying no heed to Democrats who advised him to scrap it, Johnson is moving ahead, claiming that his hearing is an attempt to try to restore confidence in the system.
Johnson also claims that it is he who is trying to debunk speculations about suspicious activities that took place in the election. Furthermore, he suggests the hearings will allow him to decide if he wants to join House Republicans to challenge the floor's electoral results next month.
He went on to say that he has met with one of those conservatives, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, who will be helping him prepare for the impending hearing. In an interview with CNN on Friday, Johnson said if there is an irregularity that can be justified, it is fine, and it needs to be set aside because they need to restore faith in the country's election system.
Johnson also suggested that they need to enforce or change laws to make sure this doesn't happen again. Democrats, however, see this as an attempt to push President Donald Trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. These claims will be fully invalidated when the Electoral College votes on Monday. Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes, while Trump received 232 electoral votes, The New York Times reported.
U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany joined the president's legal drive on Thursday in a bid to reverse the election results. Tiffany was one of the 106 House Republicans to sign on to a brief supporting Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn election results in four battleground states that supported Biden. These states include Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia.
One Republican on Johnson's committee, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, said he would probably not take part in the hearing. Romney pointed out there is a process in America, under the Constitution and judicial system, which needs to be followed. He responded to a question regarding the hearing on Friday when Romney slammed what he described as the idea of trying to change that progress or interfere with it as a "grave mistake."