Ron Johnson won’t back US attorney nominee over deleted Jan. 6 ‘this is terrorism’ tweets

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) announced on Tuesday that he will not support President Biden’s nominee to be a federal prosecutor in Wisconsin over tweets she posted that Johnson said show she is a “political partisan.” 

Johnson said he would not support Sopen Shah, Biden’s choice to become U.S. attorney for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, as a result of now-deleted tweets in which Shah commented on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, and voiced criticism of Johnson. 

“The reason we have a two-tiered system is because our justice system is increasingly populated with political partisans who are incapable of administering justice equally,” Johnson said. “Through tweets that she has now deleted, Ms. Sopen Shah demonstrated she would be yet another political partisan within our justice system. As a result, I will not support her nomination.” 

Shah tweeted on the day of the insurrection “THIS IS TERRORISM” in response to reports of someone being shot inside the Capitol, according to an archive of her post. 

She tweeted the next day that Wisconsin “will teach [Johnson] a thing or two about accountability in 2022” after Johnson said those who objected to the 2020 presidential election results and Trump did not bear responsibility for the attack, according to another archive. 

Another tweet from February of 2021 shows Shah saying she is confident that Johnson “does not know how law works.” 

Johnson has become embroiled in controversy during the investigation of the House select committee probing the insurrection after the committee revealed that one of his aides at the time contacted a staff member for former Vice President Mike Pence in an attempt to provide the vice president with fake election certificates for Michigan and Wisconsin.

Johnson has denied committing any wrongdoing.

Shah did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill. 

The Wisconsin State Journal reported that Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said Shah is “extremely well qualified” to serve as U.S. attorney and Johnson is “obstructing his own recommendation” after both senators backed her nomination last year. 

“Senator Johnson is disrespecting the work of our Nominating Commission and abusing the Senate’s Blue Slip process to play his own personal politics about the 2020 election that Trump lost,” Baldwin said. 

The Senate traditionally fields judicial nominees through a “blue slip” process in which nominees need to receive the support of their home state senators to proceed and be confirmed. 

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill about if Shah’s nomination will move forward.