The FBI plans to interview multiple Milwaukee Police Department officers as part of its investigation into Wisconsin’s 2020 election, sources told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The interviews, which may happen as soon as next week, are expected to focus primarily on officers who were at the City of Milwaukee’s central count location as well as polling places on Election Night, the sources said.
Part of the questioning surrounds an incident on the night of the election when former Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall briefly left a flash drive in one of the voting machines, the sources said. The incident became fodder for conspiracy theories about the validity of the election outcome.
The flash drive was never left unattended by other staff members, and one of them provided it to a police officer so it could be taken to the county clerk’s office, according to Woodall at the time.
The Journal Sentinel first reported two weeks ago that the FBI was investigating Wisconsin’s 2020 election and that an agent had spoken with the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s deputy administrator, Robert Kehoe.
Agents also sought to question one of Milwaukee County’s top election officials at her home and reached out to at least two people who helped administer Milwaukee’s 2020 election.
The FBI’s plan to interview Milwaukee officers was first reported by WISN-12.
The FBI’s investigation is in a preliminary phase, and no ballots had been seized in Wisconsin, sources told the Journal Sentinel.
Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election. A recount in two Wisconsin counties that Trump’s campaign paid for, court rulings, a state audit and a conservative review have confirmed that Trump lost. Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes. Officials in Wisconsin – and especially Milwaukee – have been preparing for an investigation.
The Wisconsin probe comes after federal officials in January seized hundreds of boxes of ballots related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, and after the FBI issued a grand jury subpoena in March for voting information in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin have all been central to Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. Trump has insisted, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden didn’t win in Wisconsin that year.
There is no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud in Wisconsin’s 2020 election. Former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman led a fruitless review of the election outcome, which cost taxpayers more than $2 million and turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.
If federal officials advance an investigation of the 2020 election in Milwaukee, it’s possible that poll books and nearly 180,000 absentee ballots with attached ID numbers could be turned over to investigators. Since state law requires absentee ballots counted at a central counting facility to include poll list numbers, the data could be matched with poll book information to identify voters.
Election officials in Milwaukee have raised concerns about such a move, stressing that protecting voters’ privacy and their right to vote is a priority.
Ballots from the 2020 election typically would have been destroyed by now. But Milwaukee’s 2020 ballots still exist, partly because of a lawsuit filed against the city by a New London man who has sued state and local election officials over the 2020 election and related issues.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson slammed Trump in the wake of news the FBI is investigating Wisconsin’s 2020 election.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: FBI moves to interview Milwaukee police officers in 2020 election probe
Reporting by Mary Spicuzza and Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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