And every circus must have its clown!
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 7/25/2022
Michael Gableman faces a second grievance for the former state Supreme Court justice's handling of the taxpayer-funded review into the 2020 presidential election — this time for proposing the legally impossible task of decertifying the 20-month-old election's results.
The complaint was filed last week by former Milwaukee attorney Kevin Kelsay and follows a similar complaint filed last month by a Dane County Circuit Court Judge for Gableman's courtroom conduct where he refused to testify and accused the judge of being a "partisan" advocate.
Both complaints were filed with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, which regulates attorneys and judges in Wisconsin, to take possible action against Gableman's license to practice law.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/21/2022
Former President Donald Trump is leveling the weight of his voice in the Republican Party against Wisconsin's Assembly Speaker and the leading GOP candidate for governor to extract promises from them to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The effort, if successful, would have no practical outcome 20 months later and is nothing more than a fantasy, according to legal scholars, attorneys, lawmakers, professors and constitutional experts.
But Trump presses on.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 7/19/2022
Gableman filed the motion on Friday, claiming he was denied an impartial judge in the case before Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington, asserting in court filings that Remington demonstrated “apparent or actual bias” in previous court hearings, including a heated courtroom exchange where Gableman refused to testify and accused Remington of being a “partisan advocate.”
Remington swiftly rejected Gableman’s request for recusal on Monday, writing that the Office of Special Counsel that Gableman heads failed to show any proof of bias or meet the statutory factors required for a judge’s disqualification.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/18/2022
The decision is another in a string of rulings and orders from Dane County judges in recent months that have criticized Vos and the leader of the election review, former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, for what the judges have characterized as a lack of respect for the state's public records law.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 7/16/2022
Bailey-Rihn ruled last month that Vos would not be penalized for a previous contempt order related to the case, but said she would decide later if Vos should face penalties related to how his office handled requests for records related to Gableman’s review.
A status conference has been scheduled on the matter for July 21.
American Oversight has filed four lawsuits against Gableman, Vos and the state Assembly related to the GOP-ordered review of the 2020 election.
“It’s ironic that Vos claimed an investigation was necessary to instill confidence in the election outcome, but then has done everything in his power to prevent Wisconsinites from learning the whole truth,” American Oversight senior adviser Melanie Sloan said in a statement Friday. “Vos is not above the law and American Oversight is gratified to see him held accountable for violating Wisconsin’s public records law.”
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/14/2022
Indiana attorney James Bopp Jr., representing Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel, argued in an April 8 letter that, absent a pending records request, there is no statutory requirement that records be preserved. But the Wisconsin Legislative Council, a nonpartisan service agency, had previously determined that this office was required to retain these records.
That’s right: Bopp declared from his perch in Indiana that he knew more about Wisconsin’s rules than the state itself. Gableman attained the same level of hubris in contending to reporters, “If I had to keep every scrap of paper I would do nothing else. I would need a warehouse.”
Really? A warehouse? How many taxpayer-funded records has Gableman destroyed?
In fact, released records reveal, among other things, that the work for which Gableman was pocketing $11,000 per month (it has since been cut in half) was, in the estimation of Judge Bailey-Rihn, “minimal.” Gableman is now being sued again by American Oversight over his destruction of records.
Headline: Wausau Pilot and Review, 7/12/2022
Wisconsin taxpayers would be up in arms if they discovered the UW spent $1 million on a professor’s pet project. Or if the DOT doled out a similar amount for a bridge to nowhere. Or if the DNR spent a million to investigate the accuracy of the deer kill count during the annual hunt.
Yet there’s little outcry over the taxpayer money being spent for former justice Michael Gableman to investigate the 2020 election in Wisconsin — a search that has turned up nothing of any significance.
He was tasked with this assignment on June 26, 2021. His “probe” has failed to uncover any significant problems concerning the 2020 election. Lawsuits related to his work continue to pile up, and he has been cited for destroying potentially important documents.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/5/2022
The lawsuit was filed in Dane County after Gableman testified in June in a separate lawsuit brought by the group that he deletes records he deems to be irrelevant or useless to his review, a practice his attorney acknowledged weeks ago and Gableman reiterated earlier this month after a tense court hearing after which he was held in contempt for his behavior.
"If I had to keep every scrap of paper, I would do nothing else," Gableman told reporters after the June 10 hearing.
Gableman has nothing to show for his 383-day-and-counting charade.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/2/2022
"We give you our word that we are doing everything we possibly can to uncover what occurred in 2020," the Assembly Speaker told a conference center full of Republicans meeting in Wisconsin Dells for their first state party convention since Donald Trump began tying make-believe voter fraud to his loss in the Badger State, contributing to losing his presidency.
But since Vos announced his hire of former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to probe the 2020 election completely and Assembly Republicans' intent to pass bills based on Gableman's findings, the review has failed to accomplish those goals.
Lawmakers did not receive any recommendations from Gableman before wrapping up their work for the year. And the review has turned up little information not previously known, and has not found evidence showing the 2020 election outcome was incorrectly called.
Headline; APG Wisconsin, 7/4/2022
Vos, the architect of a failed 2015 attempt to gut the state’s open records law, was held in contempt by Dane County Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, for failing to produce records as ordered or explain why he couldn’t. He responded by lashing out at Bailey-Rihn, calling her “a liberal judge in Dane County trying to make us look bad.” Bailey-Rihn later opted not to impose penalties for contempt, but Vos (read: taxpayers) might yet have to pay associated legal costs.
Similarly, Dane County Judge Frank Remington found Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel in contempt over its handling of records requests and referred the former justice to the Office of Lawyer Regulation for possible disciplinary action for his disgraceful conduct during a court proceeding.
Headline: Watertown Daily Times, 7/1/2022
Gableman’s claim that he searched the account for records relevant to the request before having it deleted rings hollow. It fits a pattern throughout his work in which he arrogated to himself the sole authority to determine what records were relevant and, in at least this case, ensured the records were put beyond any possible review by a neutral party.
It is past time for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to pull the plug on Gableman’s work. The criticism of Gableman’s work, which has cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than $900,000, is bipartisan. No matter what he concludes, it will have no effect on the results of the 2020 election, which have been confirmed by multiple recounts, lawsuits and an independent audit.
Headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 6;/30/2022
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, announced that he was hiring Gableman to lead the investigation on June 26, 2021 at the annual Republican Party of Wisconsin Convention. The announcement came on the heels of intense scrutiny from former President Donald Trump, who has falsely asserted that he won the 2020 election in Wisconsin and other battleground states. A statewide canvas, a partial recount and multiple state and federal court decisions confirmed that he lost, and a review of the election by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Gableman's initial contract was set to expire at the end of October, but it has since been renewed multiple times. Gableman's current contract with the Wisconsin Assembly has no firm expiration date and calls for taxpayers to pay any legal bills connected to his investigation.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/28/2022
Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman faces a new lawsuit following recent comments he made about deleting records linked to his taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election.
The liberal group American Oversight on Tuesday filed a lawsuit and emergency motion aimed at blocking the deletion of public records by Gableman and his Office of Special Counsel.
The latest lawsuit linked to the year-old GOP election probe that has cost taxpayers more than $1 million, comes after Gableman appeared in court last week and explained how he handled records.
Headline: Wisconsin Examiner, 6/24/2022
Thursday’s Gableman appeared chastened and meek. He politely answered questions from American Oversight attorney Westerberg and Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, as he admitted to routinely deleting records in his role as head of Office of Special Counsel.
Gableman was hired as special counsel by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to investigate allegations of fraud in Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election. The results of that election have been upheld through two recounts, a statewide audit and multiple legal challenges.
Nonetheless, Gableman has so far spent about $900,000 in taxpayer money looking for evidence of fraud. Both he and Vos have resisted American Oversight’s demands that they comply with Wisconsin’s open records law and release documents relating to the investigation.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 6/23/2022
Michael Gableman spent the first two months of his review of the 2020 election using a now-deleted personal email account and working out of a public library, and regularly discarded records even after requests for documents from his office had been submitted under the state's open records law, the former state Supreme Court justice testified Thursday.
Gableman, who provided roughly 90 minutes of testimony, said he spent most of July and August last year getting familiar with Wisconsin elections and attending a pair of meetings, including one hosted by MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell. Gableman said he tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after the August meeting in South Dakota.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/23/2022
Taxpayers paid former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman more than $20,000 for virtually no work in his review of the 2020 election that he began in the New Berlin Public Library because he did not have a computer of his own, according to testimony he provided Thursday. Gableman answered questions in a Dane County courtroom for more than an hour in a lawsuit brought by the liberal group American Oversight over Assembly Speaker Robin Vos' handling of requests for information about Gableman's probe that has lasted nearly a year and cost more than $1 million.
Headline: WGLR, 6/17/2022
Harm to image? Mission accomplished!
The episode came last week when Gableman, who is investigating the 2020 election on behalf of Assembly Republicans, spoke out against the judge in the case — accusing him of liberal bias.
“Neither facts nor law supported Gableman’s conduct on June 10, 2022,” Dane County Judge Frank Remington wrote in his contempt order this week. “He chose to raise his voice, point his finger, accuse the judge of bias, proclaim he would not be ‘railroaded,’ and refuse to answer any questions. This strategy might work elsewhere, but it has no place in a courtroom.”
Headline: Wisconsin Examiner, 6/16/2022
“The transcript of these events does not tell the whole story,” Remington wrote. “It does not show Gableman’s raised voice, his accusatory tone and his twisted facial expression. It does not show that as he spoke, he pointed and shook his finger at the judge. If Gableman’s behavior on the witness stand was not enough, during a short recess, he made clear what he thought of the judge and opposing counsel,” referring to comments by Gableman that were picked up by a courtroom microphone in which he insulted both Remington and Westerberg.
Headline: Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, 6/16/2022
Michael Gableman’s disgusting antics have finally caught up with him.
The bully and buffoon that Speaker Robin Vos hired at our expense, which is now approach $1 million, just couldn’t control himself when he was Judge Frank Remington’s courthouse last Friday.
He rudely interrupted the judge and called Remington biased and pointed his finger at him, all the while refusing to answer questions about the documents that the judge had ordered him not to delete.
Judge Remington cited Gableman for contempt on Friday, and then on Tuesday laid down the hammer.
He fined Gableman $2,000 a day until he complies with the judge’s order on preserving documents.
Headline: Slate, 6/15/2022
It is difficult to imagine a more humiliating conclusion to this sad chapter in Wisconsin history for those in the state pushing Trump’s Big Lie. The lawyers who were supposed to find evidence of fraud have destroyed their professional careers. The GOP politicians who supported this bogus audit are in contempt of court. And no one has produced an iota of evidence to suggest that Democrats stole the election. While attempting to discredit Joe Biden’s victory, Wisconsin Republicans have only bolstered its legitimacy.
Not the first time Gabby has revealed his inner oink.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/15/2022
Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington on Wednesday issued a scathing rebuke of Gableman's behavior in his order to fine Gableman $2,000 per day until he proves to the court and attorneys representing liberal group American Oversight that he has produced all records the group has requested related to his taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election.
Remington also ordered a transcript of remarks Gableman made in the courtroom to another attorney that were caught on a live microphone that will be sent to the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation, which could hand down discipline based on the comments.
In a series of statements to an attorney representing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in the lawsuit, Gableman said Remington was American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg "with a beard" and impersonated Remington suggesting Westerberg come back to his chambers — comments Remington characterized as "sophomoric innuendo" and "misogynistic."
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Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 6/14/2022
Branded an "election integrity summit" by lead organizer the Conservative Partnership Institute, the event at a Wauwatosa hotel will include sessions on recruiting, training and deploying poll watchers, according to the event's website.
The Wauwatosa meeting is the latest in a nationwide effort by longtime GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell to encourage more conservative activists to serve as poll watchers ahead of the 2022 election. Mitchell, a senior legal fellow for the conservative group, advised Trump during his failed attempt to stay in power.
Headline: WIZM, 6/13/2022
One would assume that a former Supreme Court justice would be familiar with and follow basic rules of courtroom etiquette. Not so, apparently, with Michael Gableman. The former Wisconsin Supreme Court judge who is leading the so-called investigation into the 2020 election has been found in contempt of court after refusing to release public documents related to his investigation. Not only did he refuse to provide the records requested, he refused to answer questions, and went on a bombastic and bullying tirade against the judge hearing his case.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 6/11/2022
Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington issued the contempt order after the conservative former justice refused to provide testimony in the case, brought by liberal watchdog group American Oversight. Gableman took the stand Friday ostensibly to answer questions seeking information on whether the Office of Special Counsel he heads had violated a court order to stop deleting requested documents, but instead lashed out at Remington, accusing the judge of being a partisan “advocate.”
Remington reminded Gableman that he was under oath to answer questions from American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg, and not to make a speech, but Gableman refused.
“You have a right to conduct and control your courtroom, judge, but you don‘t have a right to act as an advocate for one party over the other,” Gableman said. “I want a personal counsel if you are putting jail on the table. I want an attorney to represent me personally. I will not answer any more questions. I see you have a jail officer here. You want to put me in jail, Judge Remington … I’m not going to be railroaded.”
Wisconsin State Journal, 6/9/2022
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington denied a motion by Michael Gableman’s attorneys seeking to quash a subpoena issued by American Oversight as part of the liberal watchdog group’s lawsuit seeking public records related to the review, which was launched last year by Republicans at a cost of $676,000 to taxpayers.
“The request for Mr. Gableman to testify is not like adding a surprise witness, a third party that no one has ever heard of,” Remington said. Indeed, Mr. Gableman is a party to this action. He has participated in this action.”
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/8/2022
Kenosha's city administrator, John Morrissey, took a different tack and agreed to appear for a deposition in February in Gableman's office in Brookfield. Morrissey showed up but the interview didn't take place because Gableman planned to have it conducted by an attorney who isn’t licensed to practice law in Wisconsin, according to a transcript of what happened that day.
Gableman has put much of his focus on grants Kenosha and other Wisconsin communities received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life to help them run their elections during the coronavirus pandemic. Courts have repeatedly found the grants were legal, but Gableman has portrayed them as problematic and sought to find out more about them.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 6/1/2022
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos initially budgeted about $676,000 for the probe. But the investigation has sparked five lawsuits. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday that invoices released under Wisconsin's open records law show the lawsuits have helped push the cost to about $896,500.
Vos hired retired state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in 2021 to investigate whether Joe Biden had somehow stolen Wisconsin from Donald Trump. Multiple reviews and court decisions have confirmed Biden won the state by about 21,000 votes and found no widespread fraud that may have tilted the outcome. Still, Trump pressured Vos to investigate.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/27/2022
When Wisconsin Republicans asked the public to report concerns about the 2020 election, voters flocked to the web to submit tips — often about the very officials conducting the probe.
"There is a very disturbed man ranting like a lunatic and telling provable lies about the election in order to undermine election integrity," one person wrote in April. "Not only that, he's stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from taxpayers by pretending to do a legitimate investigation. This is fraud at the highest levels and he literally advocated nullifying the votes of Wisconsin. Please stop this flagrant fraud asap."
The submission was similar to dozens of others filed over the last year that taunt Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester and former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for budgeting $676,000 for a review of a presidential election that recounts, court decisions and independent studies have concluded was properly called for Joe Biden.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 5/27/2022
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said Friday he can't think of anyone worse to fill a vacancy on Wisconsin's bipartisan elections commission than a Republican-hired election investigator and he prays that the former state Supreme Court justice isn't named to the panel.
Evers's comments come a day after the Republican Assembly leader said he wasn't ruling anyone out for the job, including the investigator he hired, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. His work questioning President Joe Biden's win in Wisconsin has received widespread bipartisan criticism.
Wisconsin Examiner, 5/25/2022
Vos continues to dump tens of thousands of dollars into the secretive partisan “investigation” of the 2020 election led by amatuer sleuth and former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who, along with Vos, has refused to produce records of his work despite being ordered to do so by a judge; used taxpayer money to pay for out-of-state trips to witness the discredited Arizona recount and attend an election conspiracy conference (Vos promised to make him pay the money back, then changed his mind); and threatened to throw the mayors of Madison and Green Bay in jail (Vos blamed the Democratic mayors for that, saying they were obstructing the investigation by insisting their testimony be heard in public). [emphasis added]
Headline: Wisconsin Examiner, 5/25/2022
The event kicked off with a presentation from Ron Heuer, president of the Wisconsin Voter Alliance. Heuer filed a lawsuit attempting to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and was later hired by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to aid the ongoing partisan review of the election.
Heuer played a number of video clips that have featured heavily in Gableman’s review.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/23/2022
About 36% of convention delegates voted to approve a resolution calling for Vos to resign or be removed from his position as speaker. Forty percent supported a resolution to decertify the 2020 election, which has been deemed by legal scholars and constitutional attorneys to be impossible even as Trump continues to say otherwise. [emphasis added]
The convention resolutions are symbolic votes with no practical impact.
Headline: WKOW, 5/21/2022
The top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin was booed at his own party's convention Saturday after he maintained the legislature will not attempt to reclaim the state's 2020 electoral votes.
The response highlighted the ongoing divide among Wisconsin conservatives over how the GOP should respond to the 2020 presidential election. A series of court challenges and recounts in the state's two most populous counties maintained former President Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden by more than 20,000 votes.
Headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 5/19/2022
A Dane County judge warned a lawyer for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos that she would start fining the speaker for contempt of court if he didn't get answers from the head of a Republican election investigation.
The warning from Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn was her sharpest yet in an open records case that has dragged on for months between the liberal watchdog group American Oversight and Wisconsin Republicans including special counsel Michael Gableman.
"I still don't have anything from Mr. Gableman as to what the heck he did," Bailey-Rihn said during a hearing Thursday. "And no one has given me any evidence that, yes, we have complied with the open records request."
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/19/2022
The comments from Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn came as an attorney for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester argued he could not force ex-Justice Michael Gableman to turn over documents to the court.
"What you're telling me is Mr. Vos hired a contractor who should be under his control and direction and he's just run amok and is flatly refusing to follow any of the court's guidance or orders that subject Mr. Vos to liability," Bailey-Rihn said.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 5/17/2022
A Dane County judge pushed back Tuesday against what he called “ridiculous” claims by a conservative lawyer who has sued the state Elections Commission and Wisconsin’s five largest cities alleging that the acceptance of private grants to administer the 2020 election constituted bribery.
Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke said he plans to rule by mid-June on the suit brought against the city of Madison by Erick Kaardal, of the conservative Thomas More Society, on behalf of five Madison residents. But during oral arguments, he raised multiple questions about Kaardal’s assertion that officials in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine broke state election laws by accepting election grants from the Chicago-based nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“It’s very obvious that I don’t think much of that argument,” Ehlke said of Kaardal’s allegation that grant funding influenced the actions of Madison election officials. “I, quite frankly, think it’s ridiculous.”
Top headline: Wisconsin Public Radio
Bottom headline: Seehafer News
Excerpt from Seehafer News:
Special counsel Michael Gableman now tells Republicans the Legislature can’t decertify its electoral votes.
Gableman says he isn’t reversing himself with the statement.
That was $676,000 well spent!
Headline: Up North News, 5/13/2022
Trump allies call it a summit for “election integrity,” but it’s a Who’s Who of right-wing activists undermining state and local rules and officials as a way to reinforce the Big Lie about the voter fraud no one has found.
Activists working to disrupt democracy by overturning or changing election results and rules will gather in Michigan this weekend, where they will hear from former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, whose taxpayer-funded work has yet to uncover any voter fraud in Wisconsin.Paid for by us, I assume.
Headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 5/13/2022
The new contract signed by Vos and Gableman is set to terminate "upon conclusion of all outside lawsuits" involving Gableman's investigation. The contract also states that either Vos or Gableman can terminate the agreement by providing written notice to the other.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/11/2022
Last fall, we warned about the risks of a so-called investigation into the settled 2020 election led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman — a costly, bad-faith endeavor with no credibility or transparency.
Remarkably, Gableman’s sham review and his partisan antics are still going on, with no end in sight. Just a few days ago, Gableman was campaigning at a rally with hyper-partisan actors in Wisconsin, including conspiracy theorists and candidates running on disinformation and lies.
As a majority of Wisconsin voters know, the 2020 election was free, fair, and accurate —and occurred more than 18 months ago. But the bill to Wisconsin taxpayers for Gableman’s “investigation” of that election will be at least $676,000.
This review is more than a waste of money. It’s dangerous.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/11/2022
His work could continue well into next year but for now he won't spend time digging into the election, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester said in an interview.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 5/11/2022
An investigation into the 2020 election in battleground Wisconsin will be paused while five lawsuits play out, and the salary for the former state Supreme Court justice leading it will be cut in half, the Assembly speaker said Wednesday.
However, the investigation could be revived if courts rule that elections officials and others must comply with the subpoenas issued by Michael Gableman, said Robin Vos, Wisconsin's top state Republican lawmaker, who hired Gableman using taxpayer money.
Gableman's review was originally supposed to end in October, but Vos has granted extensions the latest of which was through April 30. Last month, under pressure from Donald Trump, Vos allowed the contract to go forward indefinitely. [emphasis added]
Headline: CNN, 5/6/2022
Donald Trump didn't name names in his recent statement, demanding that a taxpayer-funded probe of the 2020 election in Wisconsin continue past its expiration date.
But his target and message were clear. A day after the former President warned of a "huge bump in the polls" for any primary challenger to Republicans who impeded the investigation, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos appeared to comply. Vos announced that the controversial investigation, which is being overseen by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, would keep going.
The episode offers the latest illustration of Trump's continued assault on the legitimacy of the 2020 election -- and the willingness of some Republicans to indulge it 18 months after his loss. But it also raises questions of whether the intense focus on baseless claims of election fraud could prove costly in a battleground state often won by the thinnest of margins.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/4/2022
She said as a former justice Gableman should know what the records law requires and has an ethical obligation to follow it. Gableman has contended he is exempt from retaining records because the lawmakers who hired him are not required to hold onto records under state law.
Wisconsin Examiner, 5/2/2022
On Saturday, Gableman was joined in speaking at the rally by prominent election skeptics, including Rep. Tim Ramthun (R-Campbellsport), who is running a right-wing campaign for governor but polling at about 4%; Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee), the chairwoman of the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee; Adam Steen, who is running a primary campaign against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester); former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and former Menomonee Falls Village President Jefferson Davis, who has been a leading figure in the state’s election denialism. Michael Flynn, former National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump and prominent conspiracy theorist, joined the rally through a Zoom call to endorse Ramthun for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. [emphasis added]
Headline: Wall Street Journal, 5/1/2022
Michael Gableman isn’t a secret Democratic double agent, but he’s sure acting like one. Mr. Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, was hired by the GOP Assembly to investigate the 2020 election. Last week he wrangled an extension. At this rate, Wisconsin Republicans might keep trying to undo the 2020 presidential result all the way to Election Day 2022, or 2024.
Insurrectionist and political has-been Michael Flynn is a bust when comes to attracting a crowd
LOCK THEM UP
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 4/30/2022
A couple hundred people showed up for a soggy “election integrity” rally at the state Capitol Saturday to hear speakers including Wisconsin special counsel Michael Gableman and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn trumpet the baseless claim that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud.
Headline: Washington Post, 4/30/2022
Last week in Wisconsin, Republican House Speaker Robin Vos extended the taxpayer-funded contract of former state Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman, who has been leading, controversially, a review of the 2020 results. Vos’s decision to extend Gableman’s contract (the former justice agreed to a salary reduction) came shortly after Trump issued a thinly veiled threat of backing primary challengers to those Republicans who got in Gableman’s way, language seen as aimed directly at Vos.
This was not the first time Trump has tried to pressure Vos to investigate the election in Wisconsin, and it was not the first time Vos succumbed. A visit between the two last summer, seen as Vos’s effort to placate Trump without necessarily diving into another full review of 2020, ultimately resulted in the appointment of Gableman.
Headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 4/26/2022
Gableman was originally hired under a contract that expired Oct. 31, 2021. Vos and Gableman recently extended the agreement to run through April 30. [emphasis added]
Gableman, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, had been openly lobbying for his office to remain open. Earlier this month, he was a guest on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's podcast where he urged listeners to contact Vos to keep the office open. At the time, Gableman said Vos planned to pick up office equipment from Gableman's Brookfield office by April 26.
On Monday, Trump himself came out with a statement supporting Gableman, and issuing a political threat to Republicans who don't support him.
Headline: Daily Kos, 4/26/2022
Gableman, who's being compensated $11,000 per month, has missed several deadlines to file his report. He also seems to be terrorizing mayors, election officials, and others by targeting them with overly broad subpoenas, then asking a judge to jail them for noncompliance. Gableman's targets dispute his characterization that they are violating the law. They are also insisting that he interview them in a public setting rather than privately, according to the Journal Sentinel.
Vos is pressuring Gableman to close out his daily duties this week. But a hearing on those subpoenas is set for July and a favorable ruling for Gableman would result in several weeks or months more of deposition work. Gableman has also graced the airwaves of Steve Bannon's War Room podcast to lobby for an extension.
Gableman's cause has been taken up by some GOP state lawmakers, too.
Headline: U.S. News and World Report, 4/26/2022
A much-ridiculed investigation wrapped up in September in Arizona without offering proof to support Trump’s claims of a stolen election. Similar efforts are being pursued by Republicans in the presidential battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, also won by Biden. And in Utah, a panel of majority-GOP lawmakers in December approved an audit of the state’s election system. Unlike Arizona, the Utah effort will be conducted by nonpartisan legislative auditors and is not focused solely on 2020.
Vos hired former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman at $11,000 a month and launched the probe after Trump and others put pressure on him to investigate the 2020 election in Wisconsin. Biden carried Wisconsin by nearly 21,000 votes, an outcome that has survived recounts, partisan and nonpartisan reviews and numerous lawsuits.
Vos said the investigation would continue under its original $676,000 budget with Gableman agreeing to a pay cut.Hello, LAB!
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4/25/2022
Vos hired Gableman to look into the last presidential election in June 2021 hours after Trump blasted a statement to his supporters criticizing Vos and other Republican legislative leaders for not doing more to litigate his 2020 election loss.
Vos gave Gableman a $676,000 taxpayer-funded budget, which includes an $11,000 monthly salary. Since the review launched, Gableman has missed multiple deadlines to issue a final report.
Gableman has issued dozens of wide-ranging subpoenas and asked a judge to jail elections officials, mayors and others who he claims aren’t cooperating with him. The targets of his subpoenas have said they are following the law and asked the judge to find Gableman to interview them in public and not behind closed doors, as Gableman wants.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 4/25/2022
Even Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who hired Gableman in the first place, seems to be embarrassed and regretting it. As a native Wisconsinite, I'm embarrassed by this whole charade -- and embarrassed that someone as unscrupulous as Gableman has ever served on our state Supreme Court.
AMEN TO THAT!
LOCK THEM UP
Headline: Longview News-Journal, 4/24/2022
A private attorney with a deeply partisan history has emerged as a lead investigator in a Wisconsin taxpayer-funded investigation of the 2020 election.
Attorney Erick Kaardal of the Thomas More Society has collaborated with former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman on the $676,000 investigation into alleged election fraud launched by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.
Although he lacks a contract or official role in Gableman’s taxpayer-funded probe, Kaardal has become a de facto lead investigator.
A Wisconsin Watch analysis shows roughly half of the chapters in Gableman’s 136-page interim report are based on Kaardal’s work.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4/21/2022
Gableman, a former state Supreme Court justice, has been conducting a review of the 2020 election at taxpayer expense for Assembly Republicans since last summer. The latest disclosure about his work prompted one of his fellow Republicans to renew her call for him to shut down his review.
"I am so over Michael Gableman. He's not right," said state Sen. Kathy Bernier, a Lake Hallie Republican who leads the Senate Elections Committee.
"I can speculate as to why he didn't run for Supreme Court again (in 2018) and the speculation would be he's incompetent, in my opinion," she said. "You would never see that in a real investigator, that they go on to speculate on things. They deal with facts. He is an absolute joke." [emphasis added]
Headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 4/21/2022
Judge Frank Remington's order Thursday followed a request by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight. Last month, Remington ruled Gableman must turn over documents sought by American Oversight in an open records dispute.
The latest court filing from the group showed that Gableman's Office of Special Counsel, or OSC, was deleting certain documents or text messages. American Oversight told Remington this was in violation of Wisconsin's open records law.
"Alarmingly, OSC stated that it continues to delete records it deems irrelevant to the election investigation and declared itself exempt from any requirement to retain records," wrote American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4/21/2022
An attorney representing Michael Gableman in a lawsuit seeking records related to Gableman's election review told the liberal group American Oversight that Gableman and staff in the Assembly Office of Special Counsel deletes records deemed "irrelevant or useless."
The practice is a violation of state law, according to the Legislature's own attorneys. [emphasis added]
4/17/2022 update starts here.
Headline: Wisconsin State Journal, 4/17/2022
Michael Gableman's investigation into the 2020 election has become absurd. The former Supreme Court justice is undermining our democracy by bad-mouthing election officials and pushing bizarre conspiracy theories.
Phil Hands is the State Journal's political cartoonist.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4/14/2022
Michael Gableman, the former state Supreme Court justice conducting the review, also alleged on a conservative podcast that two Republicans on the state Elections Commission are effectively Democrats and said the elections agency had helped steal the presidential election. Courts have repeatedly found Wisconsin election officials properly called the election for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.Among those Gableman accused of acting as a Democrat is Dean Knudson, a former Republican lawmaker who has said he backed Trump in 2020 but criticized Republicans for attacking how the election was run.The rest of the story:
Not only is Michael Gableman a Trump sycophant, he's a sexist pig as well. (4/13/2022)
Apparently, that $676,000 taxpayer expenditure for an election review is just a ploy to pump up Vos' cred with the whacko wing of the GOP. (4/12/2022)
Big Fat Liar Michael Gableman on fire, (4/10/2022)
LOCK THEM UP: And let Michael Gableman and Steve Bannon be cellmates. (4/9/2022)
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