Robin Vos' testimony about Trump, 2020 election released
Robin Vos
MILWAUKEE - Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told the U.S. House’s committee investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack that he spoke with former President Donald Trump 10 times after the 2020 election about "all kinds of different matters, but most likely politics, golf and things like that."
"He never specifically said, you know, overturn the election or any of those kinds of things. It was always, ‘You need to find the fraud, and we need to show people what happened,’" Vos said.
Those words are found in a transcript of Vos’s deposition with the committee.
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"On occasion, the president would raise the issue of the 2020 presidential election and ask about the efforts in Wisconsin. I listened to the president and provided him with general updates on activities of the Wisconsin Assembly and the status of election reform in our State," Vos told the committee, according to the transcript.
"I don’t recall President Trump specifically saying ‘You need to go back and do X,Y or Z,'" Vos added.
Donald Trump (White House photo)
The House’s Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol released its transcript of the interview it held with Vos on Nov. 30, 2022. Vos appeared via WebEx. U.S. Reps. Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney also attended.
In an opening statement, Vos explained he first met Trump at various political events, and then the former president invited him to travel with him to a rally in Alabama in August 2021.
Vos said he thought the invitation was to update Trump on what was occurring in Wisconsin regarding a review of 2020 election concerns. He told the committee he thought it was former White House Chief of Staff and former Wisconsin and national GOP Chairman Reince Priebus who invited him to the rally. Priebus is also Vos’ old college roommate. Later in the deposition, Vos added that he thought Priebus said it would be a good idea to update Trump on things going on in Wisconsin.
Vos said a day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against absentee ballot drop boxes, Trump called him and the two spoke for about 10 minutes.
"You now have all the evidence that you need to fix what’s happened," Trump told Vos, according to the assembly speaker's testimony.
In Vos’ words to the committee, Trump "told me we’ve got to do something about it. He did not elaborate on what the something was that he wanted me to do, and I did not know specifically what action he was discussing that the president wanted the legislature to take."
Ballot drop box
"I informed President Trump that under the Constitution there was nothing we could do," Vos told the committee.
That was the last they talked, Vos said.
The committee staff questioned Vos about any discussion he had with Trump during the 2020 campaign, to which Vos said it was "nothing meaningful."
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Vos said he had no contacts with Trump between November 2020 and August 2021. He said he had no contact with Rudy Giuliani or Giuliani’s associates between November and January 2021. He said he doesn’t recall any Trump allies during that time span talking with him about action the Wisconsin Legislature might take regarding the 2020 election.
The assembly speaker also explained to the committee that, in Wisconsin, the governor certifies the election, and it’s out of the legislature’s hands.
The transcript released Dec. 30 said the parties agreed not to record the session, but an official record was made by transcribers. The complete transcript is available online.