Attorney General Josh Kaul seeks to block subpoenas Gableman issued to state elections officials
MADISON – Attorney General Josh Kaul is seeking to block subpoenas former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman issued to state elections officials as part of Assembly Republicans' review of the 2020 presidential election.
Kaul is asking a Dane County judge to declare that the subpoenas are unenforceable under the state and U.S. constitutions and Wisconsin state law. He also wants the judge to issue an order barring Gableman from enforcing the subpoenas or penalizing those who do not comply.
Kaul argued the subpoenas are improper because Gableman wants to interview Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe privately, rather than in public in front of a legislative committee.
"The Special Counsel and his staff, however, have been charged with assisting the Committee, but they are not themselves a house of the Legislature or a legislative committee. The Subpoenas also command the witnesses to appear not in the state capitol or any other location in which a legislative committee would ordinarily meet, but rather in a non-public office 'at 200 South Executive Drive, Suite 101, Brookfield, WI 53005,'" Kaul wrote.
Gableman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition, they should be thrown out because they were issued in the name of the Assembly Elections Committee, Kaul wrote in his brief. The chairwoman of that committee, Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls, has said Gableman has not consulted with her about his review of the election.
Gableman’s subpoenas should also be blocked because they are too broad and too vague, Kaul contended. He argued Gableman’s review is not focused on a truly legislative function, such as finding ways to change the state’s elections system.
Gableman has issued confusing directives over the subpoenas in recent weeks, first demanding the officials give him every election record they have and sit for interviews with him. Then, Gableman reversed course and said the officials, for now, do not need to come in for interviews and could simply provide him with copies of records they have already made available to others under the state's open records law.
From there, Gableman insisted elections officials would have to sit for interviews.
Among his subpoenas were ones sent to the state’s five largest cities and directed at “the person most knowledgeable” of the 2020 election. Those interviews were to occur Friday, but Gableman told Madison Thursday he was delaying its interview until at least Nov. 15.
Michael Haas, Madison’s city attorney, said he wasn’t agreeing to send someone to the interview until he and Gableman sort out details, such as the scope of what Gableman wants to talk about and whether the interviews will be done in public or private. Haas said he doesn’t know who to designate as the city’s most knowledgeable official until he hears whether Gableman wants to discuss the mechanics of the election, computer security protocols or other issues.
Kaul in his brief also argued the subpoenas are too broad.
"The Resolution directs the Committee to 'investigate the administration of elections in Wisconsin' ... This extreme sweep is narrowed only slightly by limiting the inquiry to the past three years. During that time, there have been multiple elections conducted across Wisconsin, including its 72 counties and 1,850 municipalities," Kaul wrote.
"Such '[b]roadly drafted and loosely worded' resolutions give investigators an impermissible amount of discretion, inviting actions that are either not in accordance with the authorizing committee’s intention, or not even sufficiently related to lawful exercises of the legislative power."
Kaul first argued that the way Assembly Republicans had structured his review was improper in a news conference last week. In an interview Tuesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester said he didn’t think much of Kaul’s analysis because he said he’s a Democrat who doesn’t buck his party.
“I’ve never seen one time where Josh Kaul says, ‘Boy, those guys (in the Republican Party) are right on the law,’” Vos said.
Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.