(The Center Square) – The Michael Gableman investigation continues to cost the taxpayers of Wisconsin.
A state appeals court Friday upheld the order of a lower court judge to award the liberal group American Oversight more than $240,000 in legal fees related to a pair of open records lawsuits involving Gableman, and his legislature-supported investigation into the 2020 election.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and his legal team fought the original order on both technical and legal grounds.
Vos’ legislative lawyers argued American Oversight didn’t file its bill with the court quickly enough. The legal team also argued American Oversight was asking for too much money.
The three-judge panel, which includes two conservative justices, ruled against both of those arguments.
“In truth, what the Assembly Appellants ask us to do is substitute our judgment for that of the circuit court, which we will not do,” the court wrote in its decision.
There was also a battle over whether Gableman’s office, the Office of Special Counsel, broke Wisconsin’s Open Records laws by not quickly and totally turning over its documents to American Oversight.
Originally, a Dane County judge held the office in contempt.
The appeals court reversed that order and essentially ordered that the case be ended.
“American Oversight has been in possession of all responsive records since early April 2022,” the judges said in their order. “Remanding this matter would consume scarce judicial resources with no practical benefit to American Oversight or to the public.”
American Oversight’s interim director, Chioma Chukwu, was less than pleased with the rulings as a whole.
“This decision, based merely on procedural grounds, does nothing to absolve OSC of its well-documented history of destroying public records and dismal record-keeping practices,” Chukwu said in a statement.
The $241,000 in legal fees come on top of the $1.1 million that Gableman spent looking into the questions surrounding the 2020 election.
That investigation ended without any clear answers or new.
Vos, who originally appointed Gableman as investigator, later said he came to regret the whole thing.
