Wisconsin Supreme Court smacks down GOP official's ploy to get out of deposition over election audit

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin denied a last-minute request by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to block a move forcing him to sit for a deposition in an open-records dispute relating to a controversial GOP-backed review of the 2020 presidential election.

The decision by the court, which has a majority of Republican appointed or endorsed justices, upholds the ruling of Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, and means Vos will be deposed tomorrow.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the dispute, pushed by the watchdog group American Oversight, centers on whether Vos' decision to hold back some documents about the review constitutes contempt of court.

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"Vos last summer hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to look into the 2020 election. Vos and other Assembly Republicans said they wanted the review even though recounts and courts have found Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes," reported Patrick Marley. "Vos gave Gableman a taxpayer-funded budget of $676,000. They have released some records about their secretive review while holding back others. American Oversight won a ruling from Bailey-Rihn in November requiring Vos to turn over more documents. The group maintains Vos hasn't produced all the records he should and has asked Bailey-Rihn to find Vos in contempt of court."

Gableman has quickly become controversial as he has hunted for proof of former President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about the election being stolen. He has tried to order the Waukesha County sheriff to arrest the mayors of Green Bay and Madison over documents they had already turned over, and even called on a Republican state senator critical of his work to resign.