WISCONSIN ALTERNATE ELECTORS CASE:
Secret Filings Expose Wisconsin Attorney General Kaul’s Failures.
Explosive filings, just released by the Dane County Circuit Court, explain, for the first time, how the law required Republican Alternate Electors in Wisconsin to meet in 2020. The Wisconsin Attorney General initially demanded these filings be kept secret until after the election. But, after former Judge James Troupis, one of the Defendants, demanded the cloak of secrecy be removed, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul’s office conceded, and those filings and documents are now public. The secrecy violated both the First Amendment and Wisconsin’s freedom of information laws.
The filings by Judge Troupis describe how Al Gore could have won the Presidency had the Gore campaign utilized alternate electors in 2000, as it would have allowed time to complete the recount. Legal scholars and U.S. Supreme Court Justices have identified that terminal mistake by the Gore legal team. It would have been legal malpractice to have made the same mistake in Wisconsin in 2020.
Moreover, as the formerly secret papers detail, the Wisconsin Trump/Pence legal team provided advance notice to the Biden/Harris attorneys and the Wisconsin Attorney General that they intended to have the alternate electors meet. Neither Biden/Harris or Attorney General Kaul registered any objection.
These filings also reveal an e-mail from that Attorney General Kaul’s office to the Wisconsin Election Commission that notified the Commission of the Republican Alternate Electors intention to meet and cast an Alternate Ballot. Kaul’s office at that time expressed no concern and no objection to the Alternate Electors meeting.
After the Wisconsin Republican Alternate Electors meeting took place the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office explicitly approved, in a letter of legal opinion, of the Alternate Electors meeting. Members of the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office found that no laws had been violated in conducting the Wisconsin Alternate Electors meeting, as it mimicked almost exactly the legal process of 1960 in Hawaii.
Shockingly, these filings disclose that those in the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office responsible for that legal opinion were prevented from participating in the later discussions by Attorney General Kaul that led to the June, 2024 filing of criminal charges related to the Alternate Electors.
Not surprisingly, in order to resolve these new, important and embarrassing legal issues and defenses, the Wisconsin Attorney General has now moved the Initial Appearance on the underlying criminal complaint it filed in June concerning Judge Troupis and others, from September to December, well after the coming election.
Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Public Radio
JIM TROUPIS DEFENSE FUND
Jim Troupis is being targeted for his First Amendment-protected service as election law counsel for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin. Troupis and the Trump Wisconsin electors followed correct legal advice about how to handle election deadlines that fell late in 2020, between the November 2020 vote and the January 6 meeting of Congress to count each state’s electoral votes. Specifically, the Constitution requires all electors to meet and cast ballots on a certain day in December, and then send their votes to Congress. Therefore, in order to keep alive Trump’s chances for a win on his recount challenge to the Wisconsin presidential vote, the Trump electors needed to meet on that date and send their electoral ballots to Congress. Then, if the results in Wisconsin could be reversed, Congress would be able to count the ballots. Troupis told the Wisconsin Supreme Court and public in advance that this would happen. In public filings, he cited the legal and historical authority for the electors to follow this procedure.
No one objected.
The electors followed the procedure.
Now, enter the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The Wisconsin Department of Justice first stated that the alternate elector procedure did not violate election law. Now, 18 months later, it claims the electors’ ballots should be viewed as “forgeries,” and that Troupis committed a felony by “uttering” that the allegedly “forged” ballots should go to Congress.
This supposed “felony” lacks any legal basis. Private Citizen believes that this prosecution is a form of lawfare that cannot be allowed to stand. If you agree, please support us so that we can support Mr. Troupis.
DONATE TO THE JIM TROUPIS DEFENSE FUND