Pocan calls for inquiry of false elector filers
MADISON – Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan is asking the U.S. attorney general to investigate 10 Wisconsin Republicans who met in the weeks following the 2020 election and submitted paperwork to federal officials that falsely claimed Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden.
Pocan’s letter comes days after a Milwaukee County prosecutor said Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is best suited to investigate the matter. Kaul has not said whether he will.
“With less than one year remaining before the next federal elections, it is imperative that the Department of Justice act on this matter to deter other officials who may seek to engage in election fraud,” Pocan wrote in a Friday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.
On Dec. 14, 2020, Republicans secretly gathered in the state Capitol to sign formal-looking paperwork that purported they were the state’s 10 electors.
They signed official-looking documents stating Trump had won even though the state Supreme Court had ruled just an hour earlier that Biden was the victor. They sent the material to the U.S. Senate, the National Archives, Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette and a federal judge.
“I had to put it in a drawer someplace. It’s still somewhere hidden away I suppose,” La Follette said.
Attorney Jeff Mandell of Law Forward, a nonprofit law firm focused on redistricting and election litigation, said in a news conference Thursday that he obtained a copy of the envelope the Republicans used to submit the paperwork that showed the group mailed the documents two days after the court ruling.
“Not only did they do this on the 14th, but then they had two full more days of news and information before they made the deliberate decision to submit these documents,” Mandell said Thursday.
Mandell filed complaints a year ago in the matter with Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm’s office and the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Mandell represents the state arm of the Service Employees International Union.
Mandell’s legal group was created in the runup to the 2020 election amid false claims of expected voter fraud by former President Donald Trump.
Republicans have defended the move to submit elector paperwork despite Biden’s win, saying their decision to submit the paperwork was based on advice from election attorneys in case the election outcome was challenged in the future.
Former state Rep. Adam Jarchow of Balsam Lake, who is running in the GOP primary for attorney general, said he would not investigate the matter if elected.
“What they were doing there, as I understand it, was that they were employing a long-standing legal strategy under the advice of election lawyers to make sure that they preserve standing to object in the future if they wanted to,” Jarchow said Thursday.
Pocan seeks an investigation of former Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Andrew Hitt, Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell and GOP party officials Kelly Ruh, Carol Brunner, Edward Scott Grabins, Bill Feehan, Kathy Kiernan, Darryl Carlson, Pam Travis and Mary Buestrin.
Hitt is Jarchow’s campaign manager. The U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breaching of the U.S. Capitol has received copies of false electors paperwork from Republicans in some states, according to Politico. La Follette said he has not heard from the committee.
The attorneys general of Michigan and New Mexico have asked federal prosecutors to investigate the matter.