Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice stripped of law license over questioning 2020 election

A former Wisconsin state Supreme Court justice has agreed to give up his law license for three years after he faced complaints following his probe of the 2020 election, where Republicans claimed there was widespread voter fraud. The suspension comes from a deal he struck with Wisconsin’s Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR).

In a filing that he submitted to the court, Michael Gableman wrote that he would not contest the allegations found against him after he was probed for his review of the 2020 election, according to the Washington Post.

In a complaint filed by the OLR in November, the OLR claimed that Gableman had filed false information and committed other forms of misconduct while he was probing the 2020 election results in his review. 

The OLR had investigated Gableman after a lawsuit was filed against the Wisconsin Justice by Law Forward, a left-wing election law firm. The firm's head, Jeffrey Mandell, claimed in a statement, "Gableman misused taxpayer funds, promoted baseless conspiracy theories, and engaged in improper intimidation tactics; his efforts undermined the integrity of our electoral system."

Gableman said he would not contest the allegations on Monday, and wrote in a filing, “Gableman hereby stipulates that he cannot successfully defend against the allegations of misconduct contained in the Complaint, and agrees that the allegations of the Complaint provide an adequate factual basis in the record for a determination of [ethics] violations as alleged in each of the ten counts of the Complaint."

Following the 2020 election, Republicans in the Wisconsin State Assembly hired Gableman, who left office in 2018, to review the outcome and process of the 2020 election, where Trump lost the swing state to Joe Biden. There were a number of allegations of voter fraud made by Republicans in response to the result, leading to Gableman's review.