The parable of Michael Gableman

Editor’s note: Part I of this piece was published in the Friday, Jan. 17 edition of the River News.

Come the summer of 2021, Donald Trump remained dissatisfied with the results of the 2020 presidential election. On June 25, 2021, during the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention, Trump issued a mass email in which he declared that “Wisconsin Republican leaders Robin Vos, Chris Kapenga, and Devin LeMahieu, are working hard to cover up election corruption, in Wisconsin.” 

Trump further asserted that “[t]hey are actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit of the election results.” 

Re-enter Michael Gableman. The day after Trump’s written missive against him, Assembly Speaker Vos announced to the convention that former justice Gableman would oversee an investigation of the 2020 election. Thereafter, Gableman addressed the convention, telling attendees that “I’m glad to be here — glad to see so many friends.” Gableman further stated, referring to the 2020 election, “[T]his is one where we draw the line.”

From Vos’s perspective (at that point, at least), Gableman was a credible choice for leading such an investigation. Locally, his status as a former conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court carried sufficient prestige to make his selection appear appropriate to his Republican colleagues. And there was no reason to believe that Donald Trump would have had any problem with it either. Gableman had appeared and spoken at a rally at Serb Hall in Milwaukee that was held on November 7, 2020, literally hours after most media outlets projected Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election. At the rally, Gableman publicly declared that “I don't think anyone would be here if we all had confidence that this was an honest election.” He would be seen by Trump as a loyal foot soldier in the cause. Thus, on the face of things, it appeared that Gableman would be acceptable to both Wisconsin Republicans and Donald Trump himself for purposes of conducting the investigation.

It has been reported that, during the initial months of his investigation, Gableman spent time at the New Berlin public library researching election law. Gableman has since stated: “Most people, myself included, do not have a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work.” As part of his investigation, in August of 2021, Gableman attended MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Gableman also traveled to Arizona to observe a ballot review being conducted there. In response to inquiries, Gableman indicated that he covered the cost of these trips from the $11,000 per month compensation that his contract for services with the Assembly called for. However, it was later reported that the state had, in fact, reimbursed Gableman for those expenses.

Eventually, on March 1, 2022, Gableman appeared before the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections and gave a lengthy presentation, video of which was publicly broadcast, outlining the results of his investigation up to that point. He focused on two main issues. First, Gableman detailed how millions of dollars in private grants were received by various Wisconsin municipalities from an organization funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. According to Gableman, these grants amounted to a de facto “get out the vote” effort directed at traditionally Democratic-voting groups. Second, Gableman decried the Wisconsin Election Commission’s March 2020 decision that prohibited special voting deputies, who by law could be assigned by county clerks to assist with absentee voting in nursing homes and qualified care facilities, from entering such facilities because of COVID-19 concerns. Gableman presented video recordings of a handful of nursing home residents who appeared insufficiently cognizant to have cast legitimate votes, but had nevertheless voted by absentee ballot during the 2020 presidential election.

Gableman’s presentation was anecdotally compelling. However, federal District Court Judge William Griesbach, in October of 2020, had already ruled that the election grants — referred to by some as “Zuck Bucks” — were not in violation of the law. In addition, Gableman’s comments to the effect that his handful of videos implicated votes cast among the entirety of Wisconsin’s nursing home population — then numbering 92,000 — was somewhat of a stretch. In other words, while the optics of Gableman’s presentation supported his overall narrative, the legal and factual substance underlying his claims was insufficient to actually implicate the results of the 2020 election in Wisconsin.

Near the conclusion of his presentation, Gableman told the committee members that “the legislature ought to take a very hard look at the option of decertification of the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election.” However, on March 16, 2022, away from any cameras, Gableman emailed Assembly Speaker Vos indicating that “[w]hile decertification of the 2020 presidential election is theoretically possible, it is unprecedented and raises numerous substantial constitutional issues that would be difficult to resolve. Thus, the legal obstacles to its accomplishment render such an outcome a practical impossibility.”

Why would Gableman advocate for decertification in front of the cameras while acknowledging its “practical impossibility” behind the scenes? One reasonable inference is that, by this point, Gableman was doing what has come to be known during the Trump era as “performing for an audience of one.”

On April 5, 2022, Gableman attended an event in Florida at Mar-a-Lago where a 41- minute film produced by Citizens United called “Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump” was debuted. Gableman appears in the film, which makes clear that, at the time of his presentation in Madison on March 1, 2022, Gableman was “on the same page” as the film’s producers. At the event, Trump thanked Gableman personally, telling him in front of the gathered attendees: “Michael, you’ve been unbelievable.” This was reportedly followed by a round of back-patting and glad-handing of Gableman by some members of the audience, which included a coterie of nationally known Trump supporters and surrogates. Just two days after this moment of recognition, on April 7, 2022, Gableman appeared on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom podcast. During his discussion with Bannon, Gableman lamented that Assembly Speaker Vos was potentially going to be shutting down his investigation within the month. He solicited Bannon’s listeners, who are presumably comprised of more nationwide Trump supporters than actual Wisconsin constituents, to call and email Vos and request that Gableman’s investigation continue.

Initially, Vos heeded this call, though he did cut Gableman’s $11,000 monthly compensation in half. In May, however, Vos put Gableman’s investigation on hold pending the resolution of several lawsuits filed in relation to it. American Oversight, a decidedly anti-Trump group, filed a number of open records complaints against Robin Vos and the Assembly Office of Special Counsel (i.e. Gableman) alleging that they failed to turn over public records regarding Gableman’s investigation. On June 10, 2022, Gableman testified at an evidentiary hearing before Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington relative to one of the American Oversight cases. (At the hearing, the Office of Special Counsel was represented by Attorney James Bopp.) Publicly available video of Gableman on the witness stand suggests that he was performing more for the cameras than the judge or, for that matter, his client. His behavior at the June 10 hearing was such that Judge Remington referred Gableman to OLR as a result. Three of the 10 counts in the OLR complaint against Gableman arise from his conduct at the June 10 hearing. 

In early August of 2022, a robocall Gableman recorded was released recommending that voters support Adam Steen, Robin Vos’s Republican opponent in the August 9, 2022, primary election. In the robocall, Gableman states that Vos “never wanted a real investigation into the 2020 election in Wisconsin.” Steen, as it so happened, was also being endorsed by Donald Trump.

At an August 5, 2022, rally in Waukesha, at which Gableman appeared, Trump, apparently frustrated with Vos’s unwillingness to pursue decertification of the 2020 election results in Wisconsin, endorsed Steen and criticized Vos. 

On August 12, following his primary victory over Steen, Vos fired Gableman, ending his investigation. At that point, Vos was publicly referring to Gableman as an “embarrassment.”

More recently, in the wake of the OLR complaint filed against Gableman, Vos expressed his hope that Gableman be disbarred. During a television appearance on UpFront on November 24, 2024, Vos stated that “I certainly hope Michael Gableman loses his law license. I hope he goes back to work at Home Depot where he was working prior to working for us.”

How is it that someone with Gableman’s ostensible achievements ended up in such a scenario? However it was that he landed on the bench in Burnett County, he was accepted by that community and, had he stayed there, would likely have enjoyed a stable career as a circuit court judge in a beautiful part of the state. But that potentially happy ending was squelched when the greater glory of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court beckoned. Initially, having successfully responded to that call, Gableman appeared to have the world where he wanted it — he was a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice. It didn’t necessarily matter how he got there — he was there. Be that as it may, subsequent events appear to indicate that his staying power was entirely dependent on the largesse of those that put him there. For whatever reason, Gableman’s time on the supreme court apparently did not inspire his earlier benefactors to provide the backing and support that they had 10 years earlier. Left holding the bag, so to speak, Gableman was forced to step down.

At some point after receiving the presumably welcome opportunity to get back to work with the Republican establishment in Wisconsin in 2021, it appears that Gableman may have sensed another opportunity: a new benefactor. Instead of directing his investigation into Wisconsin’s 2020 election consistent with the will of his client (i.e. the Wisconsin Assembly, by way of its speaker), it appears that Gableman decided to start taking his marching orders from Donald Trump.

So, as he faces disbarment proceedings and public ridicule by the staunchly Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, what is Gableman going to do? Perhaps he is hoping for a job in the upcoming second Trump Administration. In that context, where loyalty is apparently a major factor, a tenuous law license may not be a dealbreaker. No reporting on such a possibility has appeared in the media as of the date of this writing.

Another potential outcome is that Gableman will join others on the scrapheap of disbarred lawyers accumulating in the aftermath of the chicanery that occurred in connection with some of the challenges to the results of the 2020 presidential election. A number of nationally known lawyers have suffered this fate. Sidney Powell pleaded guilty on October 19, 2023, to six misdemeanor criminal counts in Georgia in connection with her role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election there. Lin Wood, a Georgia attorney who appeared publicly with Powell in connection with her ill-fated efforts, surrendered his law license in 2023 rather than face disbarment proceedings. Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in the state of New York in July 2024 and in the District of Columbia in September 2024. Attorney John Eastman is in the midst of disbarment proceedings in California and has been indicted criminally in Georgia and Arizona in connection with his role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Eastman is a lawyer out of California who was one of the architects of the so-called “Fake Elector” scheme connected to the events of January 6, 2021. He appeared and spoke that day, along with Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump himself, at the Ellipse in Washington D.C. Eastman appeared clad in an overcoat and wide-brimmed fedora, pumping his fist and jabbing his pointed finger at the crowd, exhorting them on behalf of President Trump. Now, like Gableman, he is on the cusp of potentially losing his license to practice law.

In September of 2023, Gableman traveled to California to testify on behalf of John Eastman in disbarment proceedings there. It is highly doubtful that Gableman traveled to California to seek some benefit for the State of Wisconsin. (It has been reported that Gableman’s behavior while testifying before the Judge of the California Bar Court was reminiscent of his conduct before Judge Remington in Wisconsin in 2022.) The only connection between Gableman and Eastman is their efforts on behalf of Donald Trump. The most believable explanation for Gableman’s California trip is that he was attempting to keep himself on Trump’s radar.

Presumably, Gableman has been a loyal Trump supporter since the 2016 nomination. There is no question that, at least since November 7, 2020, Gableman has publicly positioned himself as a zealous advocate for Donald Trump. As of the date of this writing, Gableman appears to have taken his place among the growing ranks of those fighting for the scraps from the president-elect’s table. It has yet to be seen whether this gambit will bear fruit. Whatever happens, it won’t be the first time in Gableman’s career that his fate will be determined by someone else’s priorities.

There was a time when Michael Gableman had a conventionally bright future ahead of him. However, as time has gone by, circumstances reveal a slow acceptance of his role as a pawn; initially of the Republican establishment in Wisconsin, and currently of the incoming president and/or his administration. In my humble opinion, the story of Michael Gableman stands as a cautionary tale illustrating the folly of willingly becoming, in furtherance of one’s own ends, a pawn in someone else’s game.

Michael Bloom is a former Oneida County circuit court judge.