The former chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party said Sunday he was “tricked” into signing documents alleging then-President Trump won the 2020 election as part of the state’s “fake elector” scheme.
Andrew Hitt told Anderson Cooper in a “60 Minutes” interview that he was advised by the state GOP’s legal counsel to sign the documents as a contingency, in case the Trump campaign’s legal case against Wisconsin’s election integrity succeeded.
Hitt said he “wasn’t comfortable with” Trump campaign attempts to toss out votes in Wisconsin, and that he didn’t believe the legal claims of widespread fraud.
“We got specific advice from our lawyers that these documents were meaningless, unless a court said they had meaning,” he said.
He added that he felt pressured into signing the document, fearful that he would be held responsible in the situation that Trump won the suit and the electors were not prepared.
“It was not a safe time,” he said. “If my lawyer is right, and the whole reason Trump loses Wisconsin is because of me, I will be scared to death.”
“If I knew what I knew now, I wouldn’t have done it,” he continued. “It was kept from us that there was this alternate scheme, alternate motive.”
The 10 Wisconsin GOP electors met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14 to sign the document under supervision of Kenneth Chesebro, the Trump campaign lawyer whom federal special counsel Jack Smith described as the “architect” of the fake elector scheme.
The same day, the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the Trump campaign suit in a 4-3 ruling. Hitt said he went forward with signing the document anyway in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decision.
Chesebro is also one of 19 people, including multiple Trump campaign attorneys and the former president himself, charged in a separate Georgia state racketeering case over the fake elector scheme in that state. Chesebro pleaded guilty to lesser charges after reaching an agreement with Georgia prosecutors in October.
A part-time state GOP employee told Cooper she personally delivered the fake Electoral College votes signed by Hitt and the other Wisconsin GOP electors to Chesebro in Washington. In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots, the fake votes were not recognized.
Hitt resigned from his post leading the state GOP in August 2021.
Fake electors have been charged with crimes in multiple states, including Michigan and Nevada, but have not faced legal repercussions in Wisconsin. Hitt says he believes prosecutors understand that the electors were tricked. He told Cooper he has cooperated with federal prosecutors.
“Whenever anybody sees our text messages, our emails, our documents, they understand, they know — their conclusion is we were tricked,” he said. “The Jan. 6 committee saw it. Jack Smith, specifically in his indictment, refers to ‘some of the electors were tricked.’ That was us.”
The Wisconsin fake electors settled a civil suit against them in December, admitting the document was part of a scheme to overturn the election results.
“We oppose any attempt to undermine the public’s faith in the ultimate results of the 2020 presidential election,” read a statement by the 10 Republicans that was attached to the settlement agreement.