{"id":2376048,"date":"2024-12-04T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T15:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-filing-leftist-wi-ags-probe-of-mayor-a-fishing-expedition\/"},"modified":"2024-12-04T10:12:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T15:12:14","slug":"court-filing-leftist-wi-ags-probe-of-mayor-a-fishing-expedition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-filing-leftist-wi-ags-probe-of-mayor-a-fishing-expedition\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Filing: Leftist WI AG&#8217;s Probe Of Mayor A &#8216;Fishing Expedition&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcourt-filing-leftist-wi-ags-probe-of-mayor-a-fishing-expedition%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2376048&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The situation involving Wausau mayor Doug \u200dDiny has escalated\u200c into a politically contentious legal battle following a raid by the Wisconsin Department of justice (DOJ) lead by\u2062 Attorney General \u200dJosh Kaul. The\u2062 raid took place\u200b at Diny&#8217;s\u2062 home and office as part of an investigation into \u2063allegations \u2064of election fraud linked to the mayor&#8217;s removal of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mich-gop-seeks-to-bypass-democrat-gov-whitmer-veto-with-election-integrity-package\/\" title=\"Mich. GOP seeks to bypass Democrat Gov. Whitmer veto with election integrity package\">absentee ballot drop box<\/a> outside City Hall.This action\u2064 occurred on September 22, shortly \u2063before the \u2064upcoming presidential\u200d election.<\/p>\n<p>diny claims that the \u200ddrop box was removed due \u2063to security concerns and that he acted without the Wausau City Council&#8217;s approval \u200bbecause\u200c of the box&#8217;s vulnerability. In \u200bresponse to the investigation,which some view as politically motivated,Diny&#8217;s\u200d attorney \u2064characterized it as a &#8220;political fishing expedition&#8221; lacking a solid legal foundation. Diny is contesting the legality of the search and seizure, arguing that there was \u200cno probable cause for the actions taken by the DOJ, especially since no criminal charges have been filed against him.<\/p>\n<p>As the\u200b case unfolds, \u2062Diny&#8217;s defense highlights \u200bthat\u2064 the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">election fraud statute specifies violations<\/a> can only \u2062occur on election day through tampering with actual ballot boxes. Since his actions took place\u2062 before this \u2064date and pertained to a different kind of receptacle for\u2062 absentee\u2063 ballots, his legal team argues that\u200d the investigation is unfounded.The attorney general&#8217;s office, though, maintains that the\u200b basis for the search warrant \u2062remains sealed and that it has yet to present formal\u2062 charges. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/austin-says-hes-had-no-contact-with-chinese-counterpart\/\" title=\"Austin denies contact with Chinese counterpart.\">situation remains tense<\/a>, with\u2062 calls\u2063 for judicial oversight of the DOJ&#8217;s\u200c actions \u2063amid accusations \u2064of partisanship and political pressure.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>As Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul flails to hold on to &ldquo;evidence&rdquo; his agents seized in a politically charged <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/25\/wisconsin-republican-mayor-faces-aftermath-of-very-political-raid-over-ballot-drop-box\/\">raid <\/a>on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wausauwi.gov\/your-government\/mayor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wausau Mayor Doug Diny&rsquo;s<\/a> office and home, a new court filing argues that the leftist AG has built a case without a legal foundation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;To put it charitably, it&rsquo;s a political fishing expedition,&rdquo; Diny&rsquo;s attorney, Joseph Bugni, wrote in reply to the state Department of Justice&rsquo;s defense of its investigation into the conservative mayor. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one that&rsquo;s being engaged in without legal support and that has to end with the return of his devices and the destruction of the data gathered from them.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>As The Federalist <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/18\/exclusive-wisconsins-leftist-led-doj-raids-wausau-mayors-home-in-ballot-drop-box-probe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">first reported <\/a>in October, Wisconsin DOJ investigators served a warrant on Diny&rsquo;s mayoral office and raided his home while his wife and 18-month-old grandson looked on. They seized smartphones and other electronic devices belonging to the mayor and his wife nearly a month after Diny removed an unsecured drop box that was going to be used as an absentee ballot receptacle from outside city hall.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The search warrant claims investigators intended to seize evidence on allegations that Diny committed election fraud in <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/09\/26\/swing-state-wisconsins-ballot-drop-box-battle-heats-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">moving the drop box to his office on Sept. 22.<\/a> The mayor has said he was concerned about the security of the ballot drop box, which was ultimately used &mdash; without approval of the Wausau City Council &mdash; to collect absentee ballots ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Kaul, a Democrat political climber with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2024\/11\/08\/wisconsin-ag-vows-to-act-if-trump-administration-infringes-on-rights\/76128885007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">visions of a possible run for governor<\/a> in 2026, took over the probe after the left went ballistic and screamed for Diny&rsquo;s head. As the local paper reported, a group of four residents, including Marathon County Supervisor Randy Radtke, delivered a request to the U.S. Attorney&rsquo;s Office for the Western District seeking federal intervention.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>No Cause, No Crime<\/h2>\n<p>On Nov. 21, the state filed a response to Diny&rsquo;s motion calling out Kaul&rsquo;s probe as an illegal seizure conducted without probable cause. The attorney general&rsquo;s brief, filed in Marathon County Circuit Court, asserts that Diny wasn&rsquo;t specific enough in his legal claims that the law enforcement action was illegal.<\/p>\n<p>And Kaul argues that there&rsquo;s no need for this talk about suppressing evidence. After all, the AG&rsquo;s office hasn&rsquo;t filed charges yet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The probable cause of the search warrant remains sealed by order of the court,&rdquo; the response states.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In short, Kaul and crew are asking the judge and the target of his investigation to trust them.<\/p>\n<p>As the mayor&rsquo;s attorney argued in the this week&rsquo;s court filing, Diny does not have &ldquo;to be content that law enforcement is acting in good faith and, in time, the property matter will be sorted out.&rdquo; Kaul has earned a reputation as a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/11\/10\/wisconsins-leftist-ag-sends-audacious-warning-to-incoming-trump-administration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leftist zealot<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/15\/leftist-wisconsin-ags-phony-fake-electors-case-continues-to-crumble\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">motivated by politics<\/a>. Why would a conservative mayor in particular trust an investigation run by Kaul&rsquo;s Department of Justice?&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To begin with, there is no probable cause because Diny committed no crime, the brief asserts. The election fraud <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.legis.wisconsin.gov\/statutes\/statutes\/12\/13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statute<\/a> &ldquo;can only be violated on election day and only by tampering with a ballot box,&rdquo; Bugni states in the brief.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;September 22 wasn&rsquo;t election day, and he didn&rsquo;t touch a ballot box,&rdquo; the filing notes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And while drop boxes may be used in Wisconsin to collect absentee ballots, they are not ballot boxes as defined in the statute. Expanding the definition of &ldquo;ballot box&rdquo; could open up a legally problematic kettle of worms, the Madison defense attorney argues.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s more, if the State&rsquo;s theory holds then every drobox is a ballot box and the municipal clerks are violating the statutes every time they empty it or fail to turn it over or don&rsquo;t place the seal over it,&rdquo; the brief contends. &ldquo;In a word, it is foolhardy to argue that the statute reaches drop boxes and that it covers behavior before election day. To read the statute that way is to not only ignore the plain meaning of the statutes but also to upend over a century of case law that treats ballot boxes with certain and precise prescriptions.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>A Lot Like John Doe<\/h2>\n<p>Some legal observers have likened Kaul&rsquo;s politically-charged investigation into Wausau&rsquo;s mayor to Wisconsin&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Three_Unnamed_Petitioners_v._Gregory_A._Peterson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">notorious John Doe investigations <\/a>more than a decade ago. Corrupt prosecutors in Democrat-led Milwaukee County joined forces with the Government Accountability Board, Wisconsin&rsquo;s election and campaign finance regulator at the time, in the secret investigation targeting then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, and conservative allies. Law enforcement officials conducted pre-dawn, armed raids on the homes of conservatives and seized electronic devices and mountains of documents in the bogus campaign finance probe that the Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately ruled was unconstitutional and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2016\/aug\/28\/how-deb-jordahl-was-targeted-and-fought-back\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&ldquo;perfect storm of wrongs.&rdquo;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bugni points out that John Doe prosecutors, too, attempted to tell appeals courts that they were &ldquo;incapable of ordering the return of the devices and the destruction&rdquo; of the the evidence produced from the investigation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;When those actions were challenged (before charges had issued), the Wisconsin Supreme Court didn&rsquo;t throw up its hands and say: &lsquo;sorry, nothing we can do until the charges come;&rsquo; instead, it marched through the analysis and found that the prosecution&rsquo;s theory was not grounded in reason or law.&rsquo; And as a remedy it ordered that the evidence be returned and the copies destroyed. We are asking for exactly the same,&rdquo; the brief states.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;In other words, this Court isn&rsquo;t powerless to do what&rsquo;s previously been done.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/21\/wi-rep-wants-judiciary-committee-to-look-into-election-related-raid-on-wausau-mayors-home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> the probe and the accompanying raid &ldquo;are the actions of jack-booted thugs.&rdquo;&nbsp;Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican who represents Wausau in Wisconsin&rsquo;s 7th Congressional District, has said he would like the House Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, to look into Kaul&rsquo;s politically driven probe. State Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, called the raid &ldquo;an infuriating abuse of power.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It appalls me that we fund Josh Kaul&rsquo;s department to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wisconsin-gop-mayor-faces-aftermath-of-very-political-raid\/\" title=\"Wisconsin GOP Mayor Faces Aftermath Of &#039;Very Political&#039; Raid\">conduct politically motivated actions<\/a> such as this. With all the issues our state has at the moment, this is what Josh Kaul has prioritized?&rdquo; the lawmaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wispolitics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Mayor-Diny-House-Raid-Press-Release.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> in a statement after The Federalist broke the story of the raid.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-knew-100-percent-he-was-fighting-for-the-little-guy-former-top-trump-economic-adviser\/\" title=\"Trump Knew \u2018100 Percent\u2019 He Was \u2018Fighting for the Little Guy\u2019: Former Top Trump Economic Adviser\">award-winning investigative reporter<\/a> and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wisconsin AG Josh Kaul struggles to justify evidence seized in a politically charged raid on Mayor Doug Diny&#8217;s home, with a court filing claiming the case lacks legal basis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":2376049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Screenshot-2024-12-03-at-4.16.55-PM.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[42294,46083,46082],"class_list":["post-2376048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-court-filing","tag-mayor-probe","tag-wisconsin-ag"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Screenshot-2024-12-03-at-4.16.55-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376048"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376052,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376048\/revisions\/2376052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2376049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}