Politics
GOP-ordered investigation into Wisconsin election coming out
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The findings from a sprawling, taxpayer-funded investigation ordered by Wisconsin Republicans into the 2020 election will be turned over to lawmakers and made public on Tuesday, a spokesman for the attorney heading the probe said Monday.
The report from Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice whose work drew bipartisan criticism, was being turned over to Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the Wisconsin Assembly’s elections committee on Tuesday before being publicly released, Gableman spokesman Zak Niemierowicz said.
The report will be released when Gableman testifies about his findings before the Wisconsin Assembly elections committee, a panel that has hosted several election conspiracy theorists in recent weeks.
Gableman has defended his work as trying to get to the truth of what happened in the election and has largely focused on grant money awarded to Wisconsin’s five largest, and heavily Democratic, cities by a foundation run by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
Vos, who ordered the investigation, has repeatedly said it was not about trying to overturn President Joe Biden’s win, even though he has faced pressure from some Republican colleagues to do that. Instead, Vos said, the goal was to enact changes before the next election.
However, the Republican-controlled Legislature is unlikely to act this year on any of Gableman’s recommendations. The Assembly met for what was anticipated to be its final day of the year last week and the Senate is planning to come in just once more in early March.
The Legislature last week passed a package of bills making a series of election and voting changes, all of which are expected to be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Evers and other Democrats have long discounted the probe as a political stunt designed to appease former President Donald Trump and those who believe that the election was stolen from him.
Biden won Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes, a result that has withstood recounts, numerous state and federal lawsuits and reviews by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.