Headline: Wisconsin Public Radio, 3/3/2023
The complaint was filed with the state Office of Lawyer Regulation by the liberal group Law Forward. It accuses Gableman of regularly lying to government officials, the state Legislature, courts and the public while pursuing "frivolous litigation" as he led the Wisconsin Assembly's "Office of Special Counsel." Reached by phone, Gableman did not immediately have a comment.
Headline: WIZM, 3/3/2023
It is already the biggest boondoggle in Wisconsin history, and the price tag just keeps going up. Wisconsin taxpayers spent more than $2 million in a sham investigation into false claims the presidential election was stolen. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, in an attempt to appease former President Trump, hired a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, Michael Gableman, to lead the investigation, which of course turned up nothing. His work dragged on though, and taxpayers foot the bill for it. Along the way, Gableman and Vos bungled their way, hanging out with the likes of the My Pillow guy, but still not finding the fraud they insisted was there. The investigation deadline was repeatedly pushed back, while the meter is running on the cost to taxpayers. Now a judge in Dane County has slapped Vos with an order to pay $135,000 in legal fees for refusing the provide the details of the investigation in an open records request. That money will cover the legal fees for the group that filed the lawsuit seeking the public records. But guess what? That $135,000? Taxpayers are footing the bill for that as well. That has pushed the total cost to taxpayers for a misguided investigation that turned up nothing to nearly $2.5 million. Vos should give taxpayers a break, and pick up this tab himself.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3/3/2012
"Through the course of our representation of our clients, and as lawyers who followed these matters closely, we came to know that Gableman repeatedly violated the Rules, as well as to question his honesty, trustworthiness, and fitness to be a Wisconsin attorney," Daniel Lenz and Jeff Mandel, attorneys with the firms Law Forward and Stafford Rosenbaum, wrote in a complaint filed Thursday.
"In addition to incompetently practicing law, Gableman repeatedly failed in his duties of honesty and candor; used legal process to harass and maliciously injure his targets; failed to appropriately maintain an attorney-client relationship; flouted additional basic rules of legal practice; and violated multiple provisions of the Attorney’s Oath."
3/1/2023 update starts here
Headline: WisPolitics, 3/1/2023
The award of $135,574 — and the possibility the group could get another $7,637 for its most recent costs — pushes the overall taxpayer liability for Gableman’s probe to nearly $2.5 million, according to a WisPolitics.com tally.
It is the third case in which a Dane County judge has awarded American Oversight legal fees for an open records suit over the probe. Combined, those fees amount to $434,094.
Meanwhile, Gableman billed taxpayers $527,877 for the cost of his review. And taxpayers had been billed nearly $1.5 million for the private attorneys representing Vos, the Assembly and Gableman in the various suits that grew out of the review.
Of that, $1.1 million is for the open records suits American Oversight filed.
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