Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Fri 04/26/2024 View Thu 04/25/2024 View Wed 04/24/2024 View Tue 04/23/2024 View Mon 04/22/2024 View Sun 04/21/2024 View Sat 04/20/2024
2022-05-08 Government Corruption
Another judge rips Wisconsin 2020 election investigator for destroying records
[WashingtonExaminer] A judge directed Republicans in the Wisconsin State Assembly not to delete any records in the investigation of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn expressed disbelief that she had to issue such an order but emphasized it was necessary because the inquiry is being led by former state Supreme Court
...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations...
Justice Michael Gableman, whose team has said they destroyed unimportant documents.

"I don’t want any records destroyed," Bailey-Rihn said, per Fox 11 News. "I’m frankly amazed that I have to say, 'Don’t destroy records that are subject to an open records request,' or order that to occur. All of us know what the law is."

A lawyer for Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos argued that the speaker has no control over Gableman's cooperation with open records laws, but Bailey-Rihn was unconvinced. She noted that while Gableman would not be held in contempt of court, Vos could face such a ruling. The judge moved to hold the speaker in contempt in March for not releasing all the records from Gableman's inquiry in an earlier order.

"I just can't believe the explanation is, 'We can't control our subcontractors,'" Bailey-Rihn said, per WPR. "That just doesn't seem to be satisfactory to the court since the contractors work for the Assembly. They work for the taxpayers."

The new order came in response to a lawsuit brought by watchdog group American Oversight seeking records from state Assembly contractors "created prior to the establishment of the Assembly’s Office of Special Counsel."

"Speaker Vos’s ever-expanding list of excuses — they don’t exist, they’ve been deleted, we can’t control our contractors — for failing to produce records to which Wisconsin citizens are legally entitled don’t ring true," Melanie Sloan, senior adviser at American Oversight, said in a statement. "Next, he’ll claim the dog ate them. This deliberate effort to deprive the public of information undermines our democracy and the rule of law."

Last month, in a separate lawsuit, a different judge ordered Gableman not to delete any documents that may pertain to American Oversight's public records requests. Lawyers for the watchdog group presented a letter from Gableman's office that said documents deemed "irrelevant or useless" got deleted, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Wisconsin law contains exceptions that allow politicians to destroy certain types of records, and Gableman's attorneys unsuccessfully argued that applied to him.

Vos hired Gableman to investigate the 2020 election in the Badger State amid pressure over former President Donald Trump
...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons......
's heavily disputed allegations of election fraud there. The speaker renewed the state's contract with Gableman in March.

Shortly before the contract renewal, Gableman released his preliminary interim report and claimed the state should consider decertifying the election because of widespread malfeasance. His allegations centered on claims that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
...the Peewee Herman clone who owns Facebook. He's got more money than Croesus and thinks he should be regulated by the government because it does such a nifty job with all the other stuff it regulates. Until it does, he's not going to stop doing the things he sez need regulated...
had an improper influence on the election by funding a nonprofit group that gave financial aid to municipalities working to adapt election procedures to the pandemic. The Wisconsin Elections Commission aggressively panned his report.

Posted by trailing wife 2022-05-08 00:00|| || Front Page|| [14 views ]  Top

#1 The law for keeping records like this should be "Should the official fail to provide the records, they will be taken to the public square and be hung, for failing in their duty."
Posted by Silentbrick 2022-05-08 08:42||   2022-05-08 08:42|| Front Page Top

#2 Judge VBR should have had the same reaction when various Wisconsin State and Local government election officials (not Judge Gableman's group) deleted misplaced 'originals' of the 2020 election records and only offered limited or incomplete copies for the auditors.

Not a peep from her about those.
Posted by Mullah Richard OTR 2022-05-08 14:54||   2022-05-08 14:54|| Front Page Top

12:50 MikeKozlowski
12:44 swksvolFF
12:42 Abu Uluque
12:33 Whiskey Mike
12:32 M. Murcek
12:27 Abu Uluque
12:16 M. Murcek
12:14 Abu Uluque
12:13 MikeKozlowski
12:12 Frank G
12:10 MikeKozlowski
12:09 Skidmark
12:04 Skidmark
12:03 Abu Uluque
12:00 M. Murcek
11:56 Abu Uluque
11:51 M. Murcek
11:50 Skidmark
11:46 Skidmark
11:45 M. Murcek
11:43 M. Murcek
11:41 M. Murcek
11:31 Skidmark
11:31 M. Murcek









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com