MADISON (WKOW) -- The investigator appointed by legislative Republicans to review the November election let city officials know Thursday he's no longer asking them to come testify at his office in Brookfield.
Madison City Attorney Michael Haas confirmed in an email Thursday evening that he received a call from Andrew Kloster, a former Trump administration lawyer now working with Gableman.
According to Haas, Kloster called municipal attorneys in each of the state's five largest cities Thursday and let them know mayors and city clerks were no longer being asked to appear for interviews on October 15 and October 22.
Messages left with the number listed on the subpoenas for the Special Counsel were not immediately returned Thursday.
Haas said Kloster let him know the Gableman team will instead focus on reviewing documents Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha have already made available through past open records requests. After that, the Gableman team will then decide whether to seek more documents and/or interviews.
Earlier in the day, Ann Jacobs, a Democratic appointee to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said the subpoenas to the WEC and city clerks made little sense because of number of documents were already available from previous open records requests.
"We've already provided a lot of those documents that were requested, all the documents that related to the [Center for Tech and Civic Life] documents, we already provided them," Jacobs said. "We provided them months and months ago."
Following the backtracking on the subpoenas, at least in the case of Madison, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway blasted the investigation, saying both Vos and Gableman owed city elections staff an apology.
"This whole thing, I think, has just been really an exercise in incompetence," Rhodes-Conway said. "It's unnecessary stress for our clerks and poll workers and city staff."
Addressing Legality of Subpoenas
The development came on the same day the Wisconsin Legislative Council, whose lawyers advise the legislature, released a memo addressing questions about the legality of Gableman's subpoenas.
The council looked into the question of whether someone appointed by a legislative body could appoint someone else and give them the authority to require others to produce documents and/or testimony.
"If a court considers the statutes directly and specifically relating to legislative subpoenas and applies a plain language analysis, these statutes appear to compel a witness to appear, and produce documents for, a legislative committee and not a separate entity," the memo read.
The council noted, however, a court could decide not to question whether an authorized investigation, such as Gableman's, could be carried out by an independent branch.
The council added there were "several facts that indicate an appearance before the Special Counsel might be interpreted as an appearance before the committee."
Because both Speaker Vos and Chief Clerk Ted Blazel signed off on Gableman's subpoenas, the council stated the state supreme court might also see that as proof appearing before Gableman would be considered an appearance before a legislative committee.
"A court adopting this view would likely determine that an appearance before the Special Counsel should be considered an appearance before the committee," the memo read.
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