Zuckerberg operatives and money infiltrated five key Wisconsin cities in the November 2020 election. The cities allegedly took about $9 million total from the Zuckerberg Foundation, according to former Justice Michael Gableman. Now the special counsel in charge investigating the 2020 election in Wisconsin, Gableman presented his findings for the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections hearing on December 1.
The expressed focus of his investigation and discussion was to explore the extent to which the mayors and clerks of the five Wisconsin cities allowed "Mark Zuckerberg's employees to plan and administer those cities' elections" in 2020. The investigated cities are Green Bay, Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine, and Madison.
Gableman received "straightforward cooperation" from only one of the five cities—Kenosha. The other cities offered him "little or no cooperation" after subpoenas were served. Speaker Robin Vos of the state assembly signed off on the subpoenas. Gableman issued the subpoenas to the respective municipal clerks, the Wisconsin Election Commission, and the mayors of all five cities.
After issuing the subpoenas, Gableman told the assembly that the State's Attorney General, Josh Kaul, filed a lawsuit against Speaker Vos, Chairman Brandtjen, and Gableman himself, "to prohibit [Gableman] from asking any questions of Meagan Wolfe who is the administrator of the Wisconsin elections Commission."
Met repeatedly with resistance, Gableman had to hire lawyers, paid for by the taxpayers, to work through the investigation. Oral arguments are set for December 23 in Madison.
On November 29, Gableman filed two petitions for writs of attachment against two of the five mayors (Green Bay and Madison) because they "simply failed without reason or excuse to appear for their depositions and answer questions about how and to what extent they allowed Mark Zuckerberg's employees to plan and administer their cities' election in November 2020."
The question at hand, according to Gableman, is "whether the millions of dollars each of these mayors received from the Zuckerbergs may have induced them to do something other than [to] treat all candidates fairly and impartially and whether those mayors used the Zuckerberg money to get out the vote for Joe Biden."
Gableman relayed his dismay over the apparent lack of reporting by the media concerning the ignored subpoenas and conduct on the part of various government officials. Gableman lamented:
The "incurious press has taken up the partisan cause of unlawful electioneering by shielding from accountability potential wrongdoing by government officials. (Green Bay Mayor) Eric Genrich and (Madison Mayor) Satya Rhodes-Conway have chosen to ignore the subpoenas issued by the Wisconsin assembly because they have no intention of answering uncomfortable questions about how they ran their elections and what they did with the millions of dollars of Zuckerberg money."
Gableman says hiring teams of lawyers by government officials using taxpayer money amounts to "legal evasion maneuvering" of responsibility and is just one big cover-up.
He cites a book written by the former political director for Obama, David Plouffe, as one of the bases for his conclusions. Written in 2019 and called "A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump," it was remarkably prescient about what seems to have occurred in the 2020 Wisconsin election. The plan laid out in the book, Gableman says, appears to have been executed with uncanny similarities in the actual election.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later hired David Plouffe to head policy and advocacy at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (Zuckerberg's philanthropic organization). The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative gave $350 million (in two installments) to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL). The CTCL allegedly played an integral role in getting the vote out in the state.
Under the guise of keeping voters "safe" during the coronavirus pandemic, the cities in question instead used Zuckerberg funds to run a partisan "get out the vote" initiative in favor of Joe Biden.
Gableman says the Zuckerberg funding:
"Changed from the stated purpose of keeping people safe from COVID, and this is not just my opinion, we look at the record to see how much money was actually spent on COVID safety measures, and we see it as it pales in comparison with the amount of the get-out-the-vote effort. Now get out the vote has historically been a partisan term of art. Get out the vote is short for get-out-the-vote for a particular candidate for office."
"The five cities then took the remainder of the roughly $8.8 million that Mark Zuckerberg was giving away and, under CTCL's contractual provisions, were required to get out the vote. I think the citizens of this state have a right to know whether that was done on a partisan basis and/or for partisan purposes. And what, if any, partisan effect it had in those cities. These are reasonable questions in light of the road map that was set out for all to see in the David Plouff book initiative in favor of Joe Biden."
Manipulation of the elderly has also been a focus of Gableman's investigation. Officials and volunteers allegedly ignored election laws concerning the treatment of some of the most vulnerable voters—the elderly.
Special Deputies were missing in numerous nursing homes around the state due to guidance from the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC). The absence of the Special Deputies left nursing home employees in charge of assisting the elderly to vote.
Countless nursing homes also barred poll workers from helping the elderly vote to allegedly avoid the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, some elderly voters could not vote in the 2020 election, and there is evidence that others "voted" despite severe cognitive impairments. All of these activities were illegal and disenfranchised elderly voters in the state.
To answer questions of budgetary transparency, Gableman listed all of the expenses and salaries associated with his team's investigation. The expenses are listed below:
Gableman Expenses/https://www.wpr.org/michael-gableman-reveals-staffers-gop-backed-election-investigation
Representative Spreitzer, who has been a continual thorn in Gableman's side, challenged Gableman's judgment in hiring people associated with the Trump campaign who "were actively involved in trying to change the results of the November 2020 election that you're investigating."
Spreitzer was referring to Rob Heuer, president of the Wisconsin Voters Alliance. Spreitzer accused Gableman of being "firmly in the lane that the outcome of the election should have been overturned." Gableman's reply—"Stop! I never said anything about overturning any election. Stop making things up. Shame on you!" Gableman defended Heuer, saying he is a good and "honorable man." Spreitzer characterized Gableman as "unhinged" after the hearing.
According to reporting at cbs58.com,
"Representative Spreitzer called the subpoenas a waste of time after a federal judge ruled last year the election funds were valid. He said, 'Disgraced Trump-aligned attorneys have already wasted hours across multiple hearings proclaiming their dislike for local municipalities seeking the funds they need to administer elections.' He added, 'By issuing these subpoenas, it is now clear that Speaker Vos is using every power available to him to placate far-right extremists.'"
Gableman reiterated the difficulty of completing his investigation due to the lack of cooperation from government officials.
"My work and my employees will be judged by one thing, and that is the finished work product. And right now, what is preventing the finished work product is the fearful running and hiding of those government officials who do not want to be held accountable and who do not want to tell the public what they did with the Zuckerberg money and why they did it."
Gableman also stated that open records requests obtained by Heuer show evidence of government officials directly communicating with the CTCL in emails. The emails, Gableman said, show evidence of CTCL operatives "coming to these five cities with all sorts of Zuckerberg money with all sorts of strings attached." As Gableman said, even WEC admitted ties with CTCL outside consultants. Toward the end of the hearing, Rep. Brandtjen noted that there were "almost 14 maybe 18 different groups that came to Wisconsin under the non-profit status that, you know, did quite a few different things."
Gableman added, "it's very clear that Mark Zuckerberg's goal was to defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden. He funded CTCL and the Vote-at-Home alliance and their local representative, a man from New York City named Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein."
Gableman has the emails to prove it and a couple of them have been made public.
Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein Emails/Wisconsin
According to reporting by the Wisconsin spotlight:
"[T]he National Vote at Home Institute is one of several private, left-leaning groups, primarily funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Spitzer-Rubenstein, with an impressive political resume working for Democratic politicians and campaigns, had significant influence over the administration of the presidential election in Green Bay and, it appears, in Milwaukee."
Gableman berated Spreitzer for what he believed was a feigned concern for election integrity calling his interactions "speeches disguised as questions."
"Representative Spreitzer, the real concern here is, and I would think as someone who represents a district, your real concern would be—was the 2020 election rigged with bipartisan efforts by government officials using public money to get out the vote for a particular candidate? That's my concern."
Significant numbers of absentee ballots came into question in the state's 2020 election. At one point, those associated with the Trump campaign estimated there were about 221,000 illegal and/or invalid absentee ballots.
For example, 17,271 absentee ballots in the Wisconsin election came into question due to coordinated, partisan activities like "Democracy in the Park." In that scheme, the event was widely advertised by the Biden campaign, and city employees were hired "to register, instruct in the process of absentee ballots, help complete them and serve as witnesses."
Another 28,395 indefinitely confined absentee ballots were issued to those claiming that status after March 25, 2020, and were cast in violation of the law without the required photo identification. Municipal clerks should have reviewed and expunged those voters from the rolls before the election. The margins were small, with only about 20,000 votes separating Biden and Trump in the race.
The 56-minute hearing can be viewed in full below:
