WI State Bar Brings In Architect Of Abusive Probe To Talk Integrity

As head of Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (GAB), Kevin Kennedy helped lead one of the more sinister, secret investigations of the century. Kennedy and his corrupt “good government” agency worked alongside highly partisan Democrat prosecutors in Milwaukee and Dane counties to conduct a years-long probe via a star chamber against then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his conservative allies. Activated under Wisconsin’s old John Doe law, prosecutors and government agents spied on their victims, terrorized them with pre-dawn, armed raids, and threatened them with hefty fines and jail time if they dared to say anything publicly about the investigations — including defending themselves from false accusations from anonymous “sources” in the stories GAB-friendly corporate media outlets pumped out. 

So it’s interesting that the State Bar of Wisconsin would host a continuing legal education event for attorneys on election integrity, the constitution and the rule of law featuring Kennedy — a government bureaucrat lifer who twisted election integrity, trampled on the constitution and smashed the rule of law through his central role in Wisconsin’s unconstitutional John Doe investigation.  

“Having Kevin Kennedy teaching the rule of law to a law class is like having Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas teach a class on securing the southern border,” Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., told The Federalist in a phone interview. 

Tiffany was a state senator in 2015 when he introduced a bill that ultimately reformed Wisconsin’s John Doe law, checking the use of secret political investigations. 

Perhaps the State Bar session featuring election integrity advice from a good friend of IRS former top conservative witch hunter, Lois Lerner, should come as little surprise from a left-leaning legal association accused of violating its members First Amendment rights. 

‘Democracy is Calling’ 

The State Bar has scheduled the continuing legal education session, billed as Wisconsin Election Law and the Citizen Lawyer for Wednesday afternoon at the State Bar Center in Madison. The session is worth 3 CLE credits and is free to those who attend in-person, $59 for the live webcast. 

“With the 2024 general election fast approaching, Wisconsin will likely see high voter turnout in a highly charged political climate. But lawyers are uniquely suited to play an essential role in maintaining the integrity of elections and increasing public confidence in the results — all while upholding the rule of law,” an event announcement states.

“Democracy is calling. Will you answer?” the subject line of the announcement asks in an email obtained by The Federalist. 

The training session is being produced in partnership with the liberal Carter Center, founded more than 40 years ago by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to promote “democratic institutions, global development” and to monitor elections around the world, according to nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch. The center is the beneficiary of generous grants from left-leaning foundations, including leftist sugar daddy George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and  Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Kennedy will be joined by former state Sen. Kathy Bernier, a RINO former county clerk and state senator who lost the faith of her constituents by failing to understand the left’s penchant for gaming the election system. 

“Whether you volunteer at the polls, educate the public, or engage in election-related litigation, Wisconsin Election Law and the Citizen Lawyer will empower you to defend the right to vote, the rule of law, and the Constitution,” the State Bar proclaims in the ad.

Kennedy, according to the flyer, has worked in elections for more than 45 years, serving as “Wisconsin’s Chief Elections official for more than 30 years.”

“No other individual has served longer in that role,” the announcement states. “Wisconsin has been consistently recognized as a leader and innovator in the administration of elections, lobbying, and campaign finance.”

Joe Forward, communications director for the State Bar of Wisconsin, said the continuing legal education program includes a “subject matter expert on election law,” aka Kennedy. 

“These panelists were selected because of their experience with and knowledge of election law and the election process,” Forward said in an email response to The Federalist’s questions. 

What the folks at the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Carter Center fail to note is that Kennedy was effectively drummed out of his leadership post in 2016 after his Government Accountability Board was dissolved because of its repeated misinterpretations of election law and for the GAB’s involvement in the infamous John Doe probes. 

“Kevin Kennedy should be on a democracy offender registry not teaching a course on democracy. He shouldn’t be allowed within fifty feet of democracy,” said Adam Gibbs, longtime Wisconsin politico and communications director at the Foundation for Government Accountability. “He should be required to notify his neighbors about violations he committed while abusing his position of power.”

‘I Felt Completely Helpless’

Deborah Jordahl and her family certainly will never forget Kevin Kennedy and his prosecutor allies. As I wrote in a 2016 piece for the Washington Times, “the sun had yet to rise when deputies carrying warrants pounded on Mrs. Jordahl’s front door in a quiet suburb of Madison.”

Armed officers led by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm’s investigators rooted through the possessions of Jordahl and her family, seizing paper records, smartphones and other electronic devices, among other private possessions sought in the multi-agency John Doe political probe driven by Kennedy and his henchmen. 

As I originally reported for Wisconsin Watchdog at the time, Jordahl, her husband, and their teenage children were confined to the home’s family room for several hours, guarded by a Dane County deputy. Her heart broke as she watched her 15-year-old daughter in pajamas sitting on the couch and crying as a deputy warned the girl not to tell her friends at school about the raid. 

“At one point early on, I started to get up from the sofa,” Jordahl said. “I told the deputy who was guarding us that I wanted to call my lawyer. She backed me down on the sofa and told me I could not call anyone.”

“I felt completely helpless in my own home,” Jordahl said of the coordinated raids of Oct. 3, 2013. 

Wisconsin’s John Doe investigations operate much like a grand jury. Unlike a grand jury, a John Doe is overseen by a judge who works more closely with the prosecution. And secrecy orders prevent targets from talking about the investigation outside of the courtroom or judge’s chamber. At the time, the probes could be used to secretly investigate whether an alleged political crime had been committed.

The abusive investigations more than a decade ago targeted dozens of right-of-center groups and scores of conservatives like Jordahl. The activist had long used her voice to speak out for conservative principles and candidates. Then Kennedy and crew under the pretense of a “campaign finance” investigation silenced her speech — on penalty of incarceration. 

In one sweeping raid that morning, armed police pounded on the home of a conservative activist whose 16-year-old son was home alone. 

“To his horror, he saw uniformed officers, their guns drawn. ‘Police,’ they yelled. ‘We have a warrant.’ An officer shined a flashlight on a document (he) couldn’t read. Unsure what to do, but unwilling to defy the authorities, he let them in,” National Review reported. “The officers sat him down, read him the entire search warrant, and ordered him not to tell anyone about the raid — not even school officials. He asked if he could call his parents. They said no. He asked if he could call a lawyer. They said no.”

‘Kevin Kennedy Must Go’

Eric O’Keefe, conservative activist and target of the John Doe probe, received what he has described as a “kitchen sink subpoena.” O’Keefe fought back, risking being imprisoned to tell the public about the abuses he and fellow conservatives were being subjected to — all in the name of politics and power. 

In an interview with The Federalist, O’Keefe said he finds it “really obnoxious” that Kennedy is being put up on a pedestal as a beacon of integrity and the “rule of law.” 

“This is a guy whose department backed and encouraged a process that included pre-dawn, armed raids on family homes of people who committed no crimes,” he said. “That’s the guy who is ‘defending democracy’? Why doesn’t he give that talk in Tehran?” 

While none of the perpetrators of the unconstitutional investigations was ever held accountable, legal battles did bring damning emails and other communications of government agents to light. Dave Craig, a southeast Wisconsin state representative at the time, filed an open records request that harvested nearly 140 pages of emails between Kennedy and Lois Lerner, the disgraced former director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations division. Lerner’s weaponized division was caught targeting conservatives and right-of-center nonprofits based on their ideology. 

A 2015 piece by the Wall Street Journal editorial board headlined, “Wisconsin’s Friend at the IRS: Emails show a common cause in restricting political speech,” included some of the more alarming communications between Lerner, whom Kennedy described as a longtime friend. 

“Wisconsin’s campaign to investigate conservative tax-exempt groups has always seemed like an echo of the IRS’s scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. It turns out that may be more than a coincidence,” the Journal column began. 

Republican lawmakers said the emails “exposed a coordinated effort” by Kennedy and Obama appointee Lerner. 

“It is clear that the harassment of conservative groups by Lerner at the federal level directly coincided with the harassment of conservative groups right here in our state,” state Sen. Alberta Darling and state Rep. John Nygren wrote in a statement at the time. “We have completely lost confidence that the GAB can be trusted to operate in a non-partisan manner for the citizens of the state of Wisconsin with Kennedy in charge, In order for the GAB to return to its original mission, Kevin Kennedy must go.”

And go Kennedy did, along with the corrupt GAB. The agency’s longtime leader departed knowing the state Senate would never confirm him for a position in the GAB’s successor agency. Fed up, the Republican-led legislature shut down the corrupt elections regulatory board. Republicans, however, replaced the GAB with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), which brought over many of the same agents from the old regulator. WEC has been accused by conservatives as being as partisan as its predecessor. 

“The fact that the State Bar of Wisconsin invited Kevin Kennedy to teach a free continuing education course about ‘protecting democracy’ shows how co-opted they have become and how committed the Left is to turning lawyers into activists,” Craig, who now serves as legal Director at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Federalist in an email. 

In August, a federal judge ruled that a free speech lawsuit brought against the Wisconsin State Bar may proceed, Reuters reported. Wisconsin attorney Daniel Suhr, represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, argues that the bar association is violating his First Amendment rights through its mandatory dues covering diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Compelling membership dues pay for such programs, Suhr argues, is unconstitutional.

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.