Leftist Lawfare Target Accuses Judge Of ‘Judicial Misconduct’

The Wisconsin judge presiding over a politically-motivated case against attorneys who represented President Donald Trump in 2020 should be removed from the case on grounds of “judicial misconduct,” alleges a motion filed late Monday afternoon.

Exactly what Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Hyland did is not clear from the succinct motion, but something sure stinks in the leftist hive that is the Dane County Court. Jim Troupis, a former conservative judge in that hive and the target of far-left Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul’s political prosecution, filed the motion via his attorney. 

Apparently Hyland’s conduct was so atrocious that Troupis is looking to clear the bench.

“Because of the misconduct outlined in the Brief and the documents in the attached Appendix, this case must proceed before a judge from a neighboring county with a different staff to avoid the appearance of bias or impropriety,” a court filing argues.

Troupis also moved to vacate Hyland’s acidic decision to deny Troupis’ earlier motion to dismiss the felony charges against him in Kaul’s phony “fake electors” case that the 21st century Javert just can’t seem to quit. 

“That decision was the byproduct of misconduct,” a separate motion to postpone the preliminary hearing before Hyland scheduled for next week. 

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, Troupis’ co-counsel in Wisconsin, and Trump campaign aide Michael Roman also asked that the hearing be continued in light of the shocking revelations. 

Troupis declined further comment on the motions. 

His attorney also filed a motion to seal the Omnibus Brief and the accompanying appendix apparently containing the damning evidence, according to the court file. While Troupis “believes that there’s a strong argument for making all filings public,” as a former judge he recognizes the risk of “public humiliation” for Hyland, the motion states. 

Troupis’ Madison attorney Joe Bugni argues that the allegation rises to that level. 

“Accordingly, this Court should decide, in the first instance, whether that standard is met,” the attorney wrote. He noted that Kaul’s office had no objection to the request. 

‘The Political Scalp’

It’s been a year-and-a-half since Kaul stood on the state Capitol steps for a press conference to announce a forgery-related charge against Troupis and his co-defendants. The complaints — and the made-for-corporate-media announcement — are part of the leftist lawfare campaign targeting the attorneys for their efforts to enlist 10 Republican volunteers to serve as alternate — or contingent — electors to protect Trump’s electoral votes should he succeed in his post-election legal challenges. As The Federalist has extensively reported, Kaul massaged the meaning of a state forgery-uttering law to accuse the defendants of knowingly promoting a false slate of electors as authentic, or at least uttering as much.

But even as his case seemed to crumble in the face of facts and precedent (alternate electors have been used in other disputed presidential elections throughout U.S. history), Kaul ratcheted up his partisan prosecution following Trump’s historic victory and return to the White House. 

A year ago, the attorney general, who is running for a third term, filed 10 additional charges. The defendants now stand accused of forgery to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who met at the state Capitol on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, to cast their ballots for Trump after Democrat challenger Joe Biden claimed victory in Wisconsin and in the presidential election at large. Kaul essentially abandoned his troubled forgery theory in favor of fraud, insisting that Troupis and the others duped the electors into filling out the ballot.    

The class H felony counts carry a maximum six-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine, meaning if Kaul gets the conviction he’s looking for, the 72-year-old former judge could spend the rest of his life in prison. Troupis, a nationally renowned election-law attorney, previously told Madison conservative talk show host Vicki McKenna that Kaul couldn’t care less that he’s destroyed a man and his family.  

“He cares about the political scalp on his wall that he can give to progressives,” he said in August. 

Nothing in State Law

Interestingly, Kaul’s own prosecutors didn’t think the alternate electors strategy was a crime at the time. A Department of Justice memo advised the Wisconsin Elections Commission that nothing in state law “prohibits or otherwise limits a party from meeting to cast electoral votes during a challenge to an election tabulation.” The memo shot down a leftist lawfare organization’s contention that the alternate electors “met in a concerted effort to ensure that they would be mistaken, as a result of their deliberate forgery and fraud, for Wisconsin’s legitimate Presidential Electors.”

The Trump campaign attorneys employed a strategy used in the controversial election of 1876 and again in 1960. As court filings show, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore was advised to do the same — he did not follow that advice — in the disputed 2000 election. The idea, the attorneys argue, was to protect and preserve Trump’s legal options as he contested tens of thousands of suspect votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties. Trump ultimately lost every challenge but the matter was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court when the alternate electors acted. 

In his ruling rejecting Troupis’ motion to dismiss the 11 charges against him, Hyland set a particularly bitter tone not generally present in his orders. 

“… it does not matter that Troupis disagrees with the facts alleged in the complaint. Most criminal defendants do. Our system resolves these disagreements in a trial — at his trial. Troupis may use history as a way to explain to a jury he never intended to commit forgery. What Troupis may not do, however, is use that history to re-write the criminal complaint,” Hyland wrote, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

‘A Grave National Injustice’

Leftist lawfare henchmen have pushed similar prosecutions in battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan. A judge earlier this year tossed the Michigan fraud case for lack of proof.

“This is a fraud case, and we have to prove intent,” District Judge Kristen Simmons reportedly said during a court hearing in October. “And I don’t believe there’s evidence sufficient to prove intent.

In May, a Maricopa County judge sided with Arizona alternate electors who argued that leftist Attorney General Kris Mayes failed to give a grand jury critical information before it indicted 18 conservatives. Mayes would have to convene a new grand jury, the judge ruled. The partisan prosecutor has said she has no intention of giving up, even as she faces a tough re-election bid. 

Trump last month pardoned dozens of alternate electors and others accused of trying to “overturn” the 2020 election.

“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” the president wrote.

Troupis, Chesebro and Roman were included, but the pardons do not cover those involved in state criminal proceedings. 

Troupis told McKenna that he will continue to fight on even as the leftist lawfare machine works to bankrupt him and others who dared defend Trump. 

“I was head of litigation at one of largest law firms in the country. I was a judge. I have assets. I had — past tense — assets,” he said in the radio interview. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.