Gableman comments about record deletion lead to lawsuit
Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman faces a new lawsuit following recent comments he made about deleting records linked to his taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election.
The liberal group American Oversight on Tuesday filed a lawsuit and emergency motion aimed at blocking deletion of public records by Gableman and his Office of Special Counsel.
The latest lawsuit linked to the year-old GOP election probe that has cost taxpayers more than $1 million, comes after Gableman appeared in court last week and explained how he handled records.
While testifying last week in a separate case, Gableman said, “Did I delete documents? Yes, I did.”
Gableman recounted how the election review was launched, saying that he initially used a yahoo.com email account to do his work, but stopped using it at some point for security reasons.
In court on Thursday, when asked by American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg and Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn whether he searched the account for records, Gableman said he at some point deleted the account.
Bailey-Rihn characterized the explanation as “strange” given that most people just stop using email accounts instead of deleting them.
Gableman has already been ordered to stop deleting any records responsive to American Oversight’s requests.
“The OSC has deleted public records that don’t suit the faux electionfraud narrative, unabashedly flouting Wisconsin law,” said American Oversight senior advisor Melanie Sloan said Tuesday in a statement.