Judge gives Wisconsin GOP leader chance to avoid contempt

MADISON, Wis. — A choose on Thursday mentioned the investigator employed by Wisconsin Meeting Speaker Robin Vos to look into the 2020 election seems to have “gone rogue” and “run amok” in refusing to adjust to the state’s open data legislation.

Dane County Circuit Decide Valerie Bailey-Rihn gave Vos “one final probability” to hunt data requested from investigator Michael Gableman earlier than she fines Vos for contempt. She ordered Vos’s lawyer to supply an affidavit displaying that Vos requested Gableman for the data and for particulars about what makes an attempt he is made to seek out the data.

“I do not wish to maintain Speaker Vos and the Meeting in contempt simply to have the taxpayers spend extra money for one thing that needs to be resolved,” the choose mentioned.

She set a listening to for June 16.

Vos a 12 months in the past employed Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court docket justice, with $676,000 in taxpayer cash to analyze the election received by President Joe Biden. Vos final month paused the investigation, pending the decision of ongoing authorized challenges to subpoenas he has issued.

Liberal watchdog group American Oversight filed three open data lawsuits in opposition to Vos and Gableman. Judges have dominated quite a few occasions in opposition to Vos and Gableman, saying they haven’t produced the requested data or proven what makes an attempt they’ve made to conform.

Vos lawyer Ronald Stadler on Thursday instructed the choose that Vos cannot pressure Gableman to adjust to the open data legislation.

“I do not management Mr. Gableman,” Stadler mentioned. “I haven’t got the authority and nobody within the state has the authority to stroll into his workplace and demand that he sit for a deposition, an inquisition, or something like that.”

The choose rejected that argument, noting that Gableman has an workplace exterior of Milwaukee may be simply discovered and requested to conform.

“It is not like that is Batman that you need to ship out the bat sign to get somebody reply,” Bailey-Rihn mentioned. “This is not Batman as a result of you recognize who this individual is. He does not have an alternate id that is hidden within the shadows. The open data legislation was designed to convey sunshine into state authorities for everybody.”

Stadler responded: “It is not so simple as Commissioner Gordon turning on the bat mild and signaling Batman … I haven’t got management over Mr. Gableman.”

The choose mentioned that made her suppose Gableman was making an attempt to cover one thing.

“He is simply run amok and is flatly refusing of following any of the court docket’s steerage or orders that topic Mr. Vos to legal responsibility,” Bailey-Rihn mentioned. “That is what you are telling me.”

She mentioned it was “astounding” that Gableman was performing this manner.

“If he is gone rogue and refuses to do what they requested of him, then I believe they’ve another treatments they should look into,” she mentioned.

Earlier this month, Bailey-Rihn ordered Vos to not destroy data collected throughout a three-month interval requested by American Oversight, saying he has management over Gableman since he contracted with him to do the work.

Dane County Circuit Decide Frank Remington on April 21 ordered Gableman “to not delete or destroy any document that’s or could also be responsive” to the group’s open data requests. Remington made the order after Gableman’s lawyer instructed American Oversight that it “routinely deletes paperwork and textual content messages that aren’t of use to the investigation.”

The nonpartisan Legislative Council, attorneys who advise the Legislature, mentioned in October that deleting such data, even by a state contractor like Gableman, is a violation of Wisconsin legislation.

Gableman’s lawyer, James Bopp, has argued in court docket filings that the document retention legislation doesn’t pertain to contractors.