Gableman’s Election Probe Started Out Badly. It’s Gotten Even Worse.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice’s fumbled investigation has even come under attack from GOP Elections Conspiracist.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, called for the end of the “fake investigation” into the 2020 election led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who was hired by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) with a $680,000 budget using taxpayer dollars.

“This is not a serious investigation. Even if an investigation like this were justified—and it’s clearly not—this one suffers from glaring flaws that destroy any credibility that its results could have,” Kaul said in a press release. 

“In addition, this investigation isn’t being professionally or competently conducted. It’s clear that the investigators here are learning the basics of election administration as they go,” Kaul said, referring to statements made by Gableman that he does not understand how elections work. 

RELATED: ‘This Isn’t a Real Investigation’: Email Sent by Gableman to Election Clerks Raises Alarm

Kaul also highlighted the partisan nature of the investigation, which was announced during a Republican event, ramped up after Vos met with former President Donald Trump, and whose lead investigator, Gableman, has made false statements that the 2020 election was “stolen.”

“No serious investigator would conduct an investigation under these circumstances,” Kaul said. “And no one should treat the results of this investigation as credible.”

Bad to Worse

The investigation has somehow managed to go downhill from an already bad start. Gableman issued subpoenas to the Wisconsin Elections Commission and officials from Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha only to walk them back a few days later. In an interview, Gableman compared the reporting on his investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to Nazi propaganda.

Gov. Tony Evers, after the subpoenas were submitted, stated that officials should “lawyer up” and called the investigation a “$700,000 boondoggle.” Gableman responded in a video that Evers had an “incomplete and misguided view of what we’re doing” and stated there was “compelling evidence that Wisconsin’s elections laws were not properly followed.”

Claims of election fraud in Wisconsin have been specious and have crumbled under scrutiny, meanwhile time and time again, the results of the 2020 election have been upheld.  

Nevertheless, Vos has defended the investigation. 

“In order to restore confidence in our election system, Justice Gableman will continue his investigation,” he said.

Anger From The Right

Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), who chairs the Assembly’s Campaigns and Elections Committee, which is undergoing its own investigation, complained in a statement that Gableman was not working with the committee, even though Gableman’s investigation was commissioned separately from the committee’s.

Brandtjen also accused Gableman of not going far enough, saying Gableman’s subpoenas provided “immunity” to the officials asked to testify, singling out Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. Brandtjen oversaw a hearing based on an article by M.D. Kittle published on the highly partisan blog Wisconsin Spotlight which contained a lot of speculation about Green Bay’s collaboration with the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which provided election funding to over 200 Wisconsin municipalities, but no solid accusations of wrongdoing.

Genrich noted in a statement that Green Bay had already faced scrutiny for its collaboration with CTCL and “in each case, the city’s actions have been upheld.”

Brandtjen also pushed for a cyber forensic audit like in Arizona.

“Justice Gableman and Speaker Vos continue to dismiss the need for a similar audit of physical ballots and voting machines in Wisconsin,” Brandtjen said. “A cyber forensic audit, including the recounting of physical ballots and an audit of the machines, would finally rebuild trust in Wisconsin elections.”

Maricopa County in Arizona will have to spend $3 million to replace tabulators compromised by the audit,  the end result of which was data showing that  Biden won by a wider margin than initially thought.