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.