WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis. — Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos took part in a legislative panel at the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention Saturday.
They spent a significant amount of time discussing different election bills passed by lawmakers in 2021.
“What we’re trying to do is make it harder to cheat in Wisconsin,” LeMahieu said. "Make it easy to vote, but harder to cheat.”
In addition to discussing those bills, Vos made an announcement on who would be overseeing an investigation into the 2020 election, being conducted by retired police officers.
It’s an investigation Vos first announced in May.
“What if I told you we were going to hire somebody who was a former District Attorney, a former circuit court judge who has actually seen what’s happened, former member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court who is going to be the election coordinator with the three officers who are going to do it,” Vos said before announcing the news to the crowd.
Vos announced Mike Gableman will oversee that investigation. Gableman served on the State Supreme Court for 10 years from 2008 until 2018.
“Whatever part of the political spectrum you fall on, nobody, nobody should disagree with the idea that open, honest, fair, transparent elections ought to be what takes place,” Gableman said. "Because, if we don’t have that, we have nothing.”
The announcement Gableman was coming on to oversee the investigation came just a day after former president Donald Trump released a statement calling out Vos, LeMahieu, and State Senator Chris Kapenga.
Trump said the three Republican lawmakers are “working hard to cover up election corruption in Wisconsin,” and “are actively trying to prevent a forensic audit."
Trump made an appearance at the convention with a pre-recorded video message, in which he repeated the false c claim he won the 2020 election.
“We had actually great results in WI, as you know, in 2016, we won and as you also know in 2020, we won,” Trump said. "But that hasn’t been so adjudged yet, or if it was, perhaps, a lot of things are being looked at right now."
There was no mention of the statement he made Friday.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson spoke at the convention, and was asked by reporters about the former president’s comments about the state’s Republican leadership.
Johnson said he hadn’t seen the comments, but expressed faith in the state legislature’s work.
“I think we’re taking election security seriously in the state of Wisconsin,” Johnson said. "We want to restore confidence in our election system.”
So far, there have been two retired police officers hired by Vos for the investigation, each have been signed to three month contracts.