{"id":2578944,"date":"2026-03-12T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wisconsins-democrat-ag-is-still-waging-fani-willis-style-show-trials-against-2020-election-lawyers\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T08:07:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:07:27","slug":"wisconsins-democrat-ag-is-still-waging-fani-willis-style-show-trials-against-2020-election-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wisconsins-democrat-ag-is-still-waging-fani-willis-style-show-trials-against-2020-election-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin&#8217;s Democrat AG Is Still Waging Fani Willis-Style Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/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%2Fwisconsins-democrat-ag-is-still-waging-fani-willis-style-show-trials-against-2020-election-lawyers%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=2578944&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>&#8211; The piece argues that Wisconsin\u2019s ongoing prosecution of individuals who aided Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 campaign is a politically driven effort, with the case now reaching the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >state supreme court amid claims<\/a> of trial\u2011judge misconduct and attempts to recuse two justices whom the author deems biased.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; It portrays Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul as aggressively pursuing charges against lawyer Jim Troupis and co-defendants Kenneth Chesebro and Mike Roman for activities that the article says were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-says-supreme-court-jan-6-obstruction-ruling-should-topple-federal-case-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"... says ... Jan. 6 obstruction ruling should topple federal case ... Washington Examiner\">lawful political actions<\/a>, including advocating contingent electors, despite conclusions by some legal staff that there was no legal violation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The authors describe contingent electors as an essential legal mechanism under federal law (3 U.S.C. \u00a7 7) to contest an election, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/outrage-erupts-after-south-african-president-fires-top-official-for-visiting-us-without-permission\/\" title=\"Outrage Erupts After South African President Fires Top Official for Visiting US Without Permission\">citing past precedents<\/a> from the Kennedy\/nixon 1960 contest, the Gore 2000 contest in Florida, and the 1876 election, to argue that such strategies have been used previously to potentially alter outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Troupis\u2019s appeal is detailed: he has appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court after the trial judge, John Hyland, refused to dismiss the prosecution, and his team has filed a motion to disqualify Hyland.The piece alleges Hyland did not author the order denying dismissal and suggests ghostwriting by a private attorney, raising concerns about ex parte communications and judicial conduct.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The article claims the Wisconsin Court of Appeals failed to address these concerns, feeding perceptions of judicial bias against politically disfavored defendants. It also notes that Troupis has asked the state supreme court to recuse Chief Justice jill Karofsky and Justice Rebecca Dallet, accusing them of hostility toward Trump and presenting specific statements they allegedly made about Troupis and the election contest.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; the piece portrays the Wisconsin proceedings as a travesty of justice that targets Trump supporters unfairly, arguing that the defendants and the people of Wisconsin deserve a fair, unbiased legal process. The article is associated with Heritage Foundation scholars John Malcolm and Hans von Spakovsky.  <\/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>The lust for political vengeance against anyone who provided assistance to Donald Trump in the 2020 election is still in full swing in Wisconsin, as evidenced by an ongoing abusive criminal prosecution that has now reached the state supreme court with motions over possible misconduct by the trial judge and a request for two biased members of the high court to recuse themselves from the case.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Not to be outdone by discredited Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, the&nbsp;<em>Les Mis&eacute;rables<\/em>&nbsp;Inspector Javert of Wisconsin, has been obsessively pursuing a lawyer, Jim Troupis, along with two other defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Mike Roman, for engaging in completely lawful political activities.<\/p>\n<p>Troupis is a respected lawyer and a former judge, mayor, and member of Wisconsin&rsquo;s Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee. He provided the type of competent legal representation that a lawyer is supposed to provide his client &mdash; even one who&rsquo;s hated by state officials.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For that, he has been accused of fraud, despite Kaul&rsquo;s own&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/12\/09\/target-of-leftist-lawfare-seeks-to-remove-judge-for-judicial-misconduct\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">legal staff<\/a>&nbsp;concluding that&nbsp;<em>there was no violation of the law by Troupis or the other defendants&nbsp;<\/em>for doing what had been done before when the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/crime-and-justice\/commentary\/the-georgia-fake-electors-scheme-what-does-legal-and-political-history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">results<\/a>&nbsp;of a presidential election were being contested in a state &mdash; that is, organizing a slate of contingent presidential electors to cast ballots that could be counted <em>if&nbsp;<\/em>a judge or the legislature decided the election contest in Trump&rsquo;s favor.<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that there was a recount in Wisconsin. Biden ultimately was declared the winner, but only after the state supreme court, by a bare four-justice majority with three dissenters, issued an opinion in his favor. That split vote shows Trump&rsquo;s challenge raised serious issues about the conduct of the election.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Following Precedent<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Due to federal election deadlines,&nbsp; a slate of contingent electors is essential for contesting the outcome of a presidential election. Federal law (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/3\/7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">3 U.S.C. &sect; 7<\/a>) sets the date for the electors to cast their ballots as the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December. A slate of contingent electors would need to cast their votes on that date in order to be counted if an election contest is successful and the results are overturned.<\/p>\n<p>The state would have until the date the electoral college votes are counted (Jan. 6) to submit the contingent slate to Congress. If the contingent electors did&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;cast their ballots on that date, then the successful challenger would still not be awarded any electoral votes even though he was finally declared the winner, a quintessential pyrrhic victory.<\/p>\n<p>Troupis was following the precedent of the 1960 Kennedy campaign, when Richard Nixon was initially certified as the winner in Hawaii. The Kennedy campaign, which was challenging the declared result, arranged for contingent electors to cast their ballots for Kennedy. Kennedy&rsquo;s challenge was successful and the votes of his alternative slate of electors were sent to Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Al Gore was advised to do the same in 2000 in Florida but declined to follow through. And following the 1876 election, four states &mdash; Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon &mdash; submitted two different slates of electors and told Congress that it would have to decide who had won the election.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Troupis&rsquo; Appeal<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Despite this historical precedent, Troupis is being hounded by Kaul and a court system that has failed to dismiss a legally flawed prosecution.<\/p>\n<p>The latest developments in the case are Troupis&rsquo; lawyers have appealed to the state supreme court after the trial judge, John Hyland, refused to dismiss the prosecution. They have also filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/12\/09\/target-of-leftist-lawfare-seeks-to-remove-judge-for-judicial-misconduct\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">motion<\/a> to&nbsp;disqualify&nbsp;Hyland.<\/p>\n<p>Troupis&rsquo; legal team claims that Hyland did not write the order denying his motion to dismiss the case. According to an analysis by a forensic linguist, large parts of the draft order were ghostwritten by a private attorney &mdash; retired Judge Frank Remington &mdash;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/12\/12\/sen-ron-johnson-asks-doj-to-investigate-judge-accused-of-misconduct-in-trump-lawyers-trial\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">who<\/a>&nbsp;&ldquo;was (to put it mildly) not a fan of&rdquo; Troupis, according to his lawyer. Remington is the father of Hyland&rsquo;s law clerk.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If true, this would be a clear violation of the prohibition against&nbsp;<em>ex parte<\/em>&nbsp;communications by a judge (or his law clerk) that is outlined in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wicourts.gov\/sc\/rules\/chap60.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rule 60.04 (g)<\/a>&nbsp;of Wisconsin&rsquo;s Code of Judicial Conduct, among other violations.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/acefiling.wicourts.gov\/document\/eFiled\/2025AP002859\/1082491\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">petition<\/a> filed with the supreme court, Hyland refused to hold an evidentiary hearing to investigate the alleged impropriety and would not even acknowledge the expert&rsquo;s analysis, an inexcusable failure that makes it impossible to determine the existence of judicial misconduct. He also refused to allow a different judge to consider the issue, given Hyland&rsquo;s obvious conflict of interest in examining his own or his law clerk&rsquo;s behavior.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To make matters worse, the Wisconsin court of appeals failed to do anything about this, without offering any explanation, thereby leaving the impression &mdash; whether accurate or not &mdash; that Wisconsin courts will turn a blind eye to potential judicial misconduct as long as that misconduct is targeted against politically disfavored defendants.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Biased Supreme Court<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Troupis has now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/26.02.20-Recusal-Motion.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">appealed<\/a> all of this to the state supreme court, where, unfortunately, he faces long odds. Troupis is seeking the recusal of Chief Justice Jill Karofsky and Justice Rebecca Dallet who, he claims, have exhibited extreme hostility to Trump in connection with his challenges to the 2020 election in Wisconsin. Troupis points out in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/26.02.20-Recusal-Motion.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recusal motion<\/a> that when he was representing Trump in his election contest, Karofsky said that Troupis wanted the court to &ldquo;overturn this election so that your king can stay in power, and that is so un-American.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Troupis&rsquo; recusal motion says that Karofsky claimed that filing an election contest was &ldquo;unheard of in American history&rdquo;&nbsp; which is simply untrue &mdash; and then claimed that Trump&rsquo;s challenge &ldquo;smacked of racism.&rdquo; Troupis says Karofsky has repeatedly accused Troupis of bad-faith conduct and racism in the media, including in podcasts and press releases. Such behavior would be shocking coming from any lawyer, much less the chief justice of a state supreme court.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Dallet seems no better. Troupis notes in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/26.02.20-Recusal-Motion.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recusal motion<\/a> that Dallet claimed that Trump&rsquo;s election contest was racially motivated and that Troupis only wanted the votes thrown out of &ldquo;diverse non-white urban counties,&rdquo; an offensive and baseless claim. Years after the election contest was over, Dallet called Troupis a &ldquo;partisan&rdquo; whose intent was to weaponize &ldquo;the disciplinary process against&rdquo; her and Karofsky, despite the fact that the discipline complaint she was talking about was&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;filed by Troupis.<\/p>\n<p>What is happening in Wisconsin with this politically charged, and legally flawed, prosecution is a travesty. Whether you like President Trump or not, his supporters are being subjected to an unfair prosecution before a seemingly biased judge. The defendants in this case, indeed the people of Wisconsin, deserve better.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      John Malcolm is vice president for the Institute for Constitutional Government, director of the Meese Center, and the Ed and Sherry Gilbertson Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Hans von Spakovsky is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senator-josh-hawleys-wife-describes-frightening-evening-of-assault-on-family-home\/\" title=\"Senator Josh Hawley\u2019s Wife Describes \u201cFrightening\u201d Evening Of \u201cAssault\u201d On Family Home\">senior legal fellow<\/a> in Heritage&rsquo;s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wisconsin pursues Trump allies; calls for recusal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3836,"featured_media":2578945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/45524094921_53ef756e7d_k-e1773257693391.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[75074,4912,73753,11024,4124],"class_list":["post-2578944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-attorneygeneral","tag-democrat","tag-faniwillis","tag-trials","tag-wisconsin"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/45524094921_53ef756e7d_k-e1773257693391.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578944","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\/3836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2578944"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2578948,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578944\/revisions\/2578948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2578945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2578944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2578944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2578944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}