Schimel concludes no fraud in 2016 videos

AG opened investigation after conservative outcry

MADISON – For the second time, GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office has concluded there is no evidence a Democratic activist broke voting laws in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Schimel’s office first made that determination in January 2017, but Schimel reopened the investigation after the head of a conservative group threatened to investigate Schimel and push him out of office.

Seventeen months later, Schimel is back where he started.

The matter began in October 2016, when James O’Keefe — the head of the conservative group Project Veritas Action — released a series of undercover videos alleging Democrats conspired to commit voter fraud and other crimes.

Schimel said laws appeared to be broken and launched an investigation. In January 2017, Schimel’s office closed the investigation, finding no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

O’Keefe responded with a short video telling Schimel: “We should investigate you and you should lose your job.”

Conservative WISN-AM (1130) host Mark Belling raised similar concerns with Schimel at the time. The attorney general claimed it was “fake news” that the investigation had been concluded and that he was still investigating, even though Schimel had told the Wisconsin Radio Network just hours earlier that the investigation was over.

Newly released records show Schimel’s Department of Justice reopened the investigation in May 2017, just weeks after Schimel took fire from conservatives for shutting it down.

Special Agent Dorinda Freymiller reviewed about 41⁄2 hours of undercover video of Democratic activist Scott Foval shot in Milwaukee and Madison by someone with Veritas posing as someone on Foval’s side.

The videos that have been released publicly appear to show Foval discussing how to cover up voter fraud, but it is not clear if he was speaking hypothetically. Freymiller quickly concluded the videos did not show clear violations of Wisconsin laws, according to Department of Justice records.

Freymiller in June 2017 contacted Foval, who had moved to Arizona since the videos were made.

He said he was willing to talk to the DOJ but was reluctant to return to Wisconsin because he said after media reports about the Veritas recordings his vehicle was vandalized, he received death threats and he was “harassed by people whom he believes were affiliated with then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s security detail,” one report says.

The reports do not provide any infor-

mation about why Foval believed the people harassing him were linked to Trump and Foval declined to answer questions about that from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Freymiller and others later reviewed six other videos that have not been made public of Robert Creamer, a Democratic strategist who heads Democracy Partners of Washington, D.C. Those also did not show clear law violations, the DOJ concluded.

“Based on the information provided to the (Division of Criminal Investigation), and the lack of additional information at this time, it is hereby recommended this casefile be closed,” Freymiller wrote this month when she wrapped up the probe.

O’Keefe and his organization made their names in 2009 with videos that brought down the community organizing group ACORN.

He later agreed to pay a $100,000 legal settlement to an ACORN employee and in 2010 pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor as part of another undercover operation.

Much of the focus of Veritas’ 2016 work was on Democracy Partners.

The group sued Veritas last year in federal court, alleging O’Keefe’s organization had illegally infiltrated it.

Named in the lawsuit was Allison Maass, a Veritas activist who lawyers for Democracy Partners say was involved in the scheme.

Maass also tried unsuccessfully to get a job with Democrat Russ Feingold’s 2016 campaign for U.S. Senate.

In his interview with the Department of Justice, Foval said the man who filmed him was accompanied by a woman named Allison who he said was trying to “infiltrate One Wisconsin Now,” a liberal group in Madison.

Foval didn’t know Allison’s last name and didn’t say why he believed she was trying to infiltrate One Wisconsin Now. Scot Ross, the executive director of the group, said he did not know of any attempt to target his organization.

“We don’t comment on investigations real or imagined,” Veritas spokesman Stephen Gordon said by email.

Gordon suggested the reason Schimel wasn’t pursuing charges was because Foval had never agreed to a formal DOJ interview.

“The last I heard, Scott Foval refused to be interviewed by the Wisconsin attorney general’s investigators, so they are at an end of their investigation because they need that evidence to prosecute over the claims Foval made on our recordings,” Gordon said by email.

Records show DOJ investigators determined the videos did not show evidence of crimes before they talked to Foval.