Lansing — A former Catholic school administrator who went on to primarily handle divorce and child custody cases and has never run for political office before might soon become the Republican nominee for Michigan’s top law enforcement position.
Opponents of 43-year-old lawyer Kevin Kijewski of Birmingham have argued that his lack of prosecutorial experience makes him a risky GOP pick for attorney general as the party attempts to climb back into power in Lansing.
Bolstering their concerns, they’ve said, are the details of a 2020 domestic violence charge against Kijewski, which was eventually dismissed. But the allegations involved his then-wife discovering “a type of sex coupon book made by another woman” in his car, according to a police report obtained by The Detroit News.
Kijewski’s supporters have contended that his unusual professional background is actually a benefit and that voters now prefer outsiders for key offices.
The sudden political rise of Kijewski — a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump — was aided by his work defending one of the Republican electors who signed a certificate falsely claiming Trump won the state’s 2020 election against forgery charges.
Mark Forton, a former chairman of the Macomb County Republican Party, helped get Kijewski more involved in Michigan politics. Forton said, for him, it’s a mark against someone if they have years of experience in elected office.
“We’ve got to think outside the box once in a while,” Forton said.
The attorney general race is reigniting debates that have been raging within the Michigan Republican Party since Trump’s defeat in 2020. Some GOP delegates have been pushing newcomer candidates in a bid to toss aside the establishment’s traditional ways of operating, while other Republicans point to massive losses in the 2022 election as evidence that the strategy simply doesn’t work.
Four major party candidates are running to be Michigan’s next attorney general, who has broad discretion to represent the state in civil and criminal matters. Three of the candidates — Republican Doug Lloyd and Democrats Karen McDonald and Eli Savit — are elected county prosecutors.
Michigan’s current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel, wasn’t an elected prosecutor. But she worked for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office for over a decade. Nessel can’t run again this year because of term limits.
Kijewski is seeking the GOP nomination against Lloyd, who’s been Eaton County’s prosecutor since 2013. Delegates at the Michigan Republican Party’s March 28 convention will endorse one of the two candidates in what observers see as a highly competitive race.
In an interview, Kijewski touted his experience filing motions and taking depositions in civil cases — noncriminal matters — as important. He described his past caseload as “real issues for real people.”
“Civil is 80%, roughly, of what the AG does and is responsible for,” Kijewski said. “That’s why I think my broad base of experience would be helpful for the citizens.”
A Detroit News review of cases Kijewski worked on in the Macomb County Circuit Court found that about 91% were divorce, parenting time, custody or child support matters. In Wayne County Circuit Court, about 87% of Kijewski’s cases were listed as “domestic relations” matters.
Republican delegate Bethany Wheeler of Macomb County is supporting Lloyd and said the experience difference between the county prosecutor and Kijewski should matter to delegates.
If Kijewski becomes the Republican nominee, Democrats will campaign on their party’s candidate being a prosecutor who puts criminals behind bars and on Kijewski once being investigated himself, regardless of the charge later being dismissed, Wheeler said.
“I could never vote for him,” Wheeler said of Kijewski.
Who is Kevin Kijewski?
Kijewski’s last name is pronounced “Key-ev-ski.”
He said his interest in Michigan politics dated back to his childhood. His parents were among the founders of the American Polish Cultural Center in Troy, he said.
Kijewski said he has a photo from childhood of himself with Republican former Michigan Gov. John Engler and longtime Macomb County Republican power broker Stan Grot. Kijewski went on to study education at the University of Notre Dame and law at Michigan State University.
He previously worked as an administrator for Catholic schools in Denver and Philadelphia. While in Colorado, he was a delegate for Trump during the 2016 presidential nominating race.
“We have to really shake up the establishment, and we need someone who’s going to be able to deliver,” Kijewski said of his feelings about Trump. “I thought he was the man at the time.”
Kijewski returned to Michigan to become the superintendent of schools for the Detroit Archdiocese from 2017 to 2021, holding the post during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Angela Coletti Brown, communications director for the archdiocese, declined to comment on why Kijewski left the position, saying the organization doesn’t discuss personnel matters. Kijewski himself said he wanted to move on to the regular private practice of law.
Kijewski met Forton through a weekly Wednesday dinner gathering of friends. Forton eventually helped connect Kijewski with Clifford Frost of Warren, one of the 16 Republicans who were charged by Nessel’s office in 2023 with forgery over signing a certificate that falsely claimed that Trump won Michigan’s 2020 election.
Democrat Joe Biden won Michigan’s 2020 election, but Trump supporters used a false certificate in an unsuccessful bid to overturn the outcome.
Frost said other lawyers had told him they weren’t interested in taking the controversial case and told him fighting the charges would cost him his house. But Kijewski agreed to become Frost’s attorney and gained the spotlight and a Republican following as one of a group of lawyers who contested the charges over a series of preliminary examinations in Ingham County.
Eventually, Kijewski launched a campaign for attorney general in April 2025, vowing to stop “lawfare.” An Ingham County district court judge threw out the charges against the GOP electors in September 2025, boosting his bid for office.
“I think he’s a really good man,” Frost said of Kijewski. “He’s intelligent. He’s a fighter.”
Domestic dispute police report looms over Kijewski’s past
While supporters of Kijewski have focused on the charges he helped get dismissed against the 2020 Republican electors, his opponents have highlighted a dismissed domestic violence charge against Kijewski himself from 2020.
According to a police report obtained by The Detroit News, authorities were called to Kijewski’s Grosse Pointe home on Jan. 2, 2020, after Kijewski’s then-wife said there was a domestic dispute. The two were largely living separately at the time, but the wife had access to the home.
The woman told police the incident began when she located a homemade “Christmas coupon book” in Kijewski’s vehicle that contained sexual promises from an unidentified woman. The coupon book, a copy of which was contained in the police report, included some sexual offers and a coupon entitled “Repeal of 13th Amendment.” The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the U.S.
When the then-wife confronted Kijewski with the book, she told police, Kijewski followed her, grabbed her cell phone and then tried to grab the book from her. She told police, according to the report, that Kijewski wrapped his arms around her even as she asked him to stop and tried to break free. During that struggle, the woman told police, “she twisted her right ankle and her left leg was hit by something.”
She didn’t file a police report until Jan. 10, 2020, and, at that time, alleged separate domestic violence incidents in 2014 and 2017, according to the report.
Kijewski denied ever touching his wife during their argument and told police she had a history of substance abuse and self-harm. He supplied police officers with a Dec. 23, 2019, notice that he had given his wife to vacate the Grosse Pointe home.
After her visit to the emergency room on Jan. 3, 2020, the wife told Kijewski “the ER thing is going to get to you,” according to a statement Kijewski sent police on Jan. 10, 2020. He told police in the statement that he later learned she had filed divorce paperwork with the court on Jan. 2, 2020, and he felt “she was trying to set me up.”
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office ultimately dismissed a domestic violence charge in August 2020. The office declined to provide further details on the case, besides noting that it would not have been able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The dismissal was due to “issues that arose that made us unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, a Democrat.
Court records showed that Kijewski filed a successful motion on Aug. 6, 2020, to have biometric data and his arrest record destroyed.
Kijewski said the incident was an old matter that occurred during a difficult time for his ex-wife.
Kijewski’s ex-wife couldn’t be reached for comment. The couple’s divorce record contained a nondisparagement agreement barring Kijewski and his ex-wife from making disparaging statements about each other.
Kijewski’s critics see a credibility problem
Asked if he was concerned about Democrats using the “sex coupon” book or the dismissed charge in the general election campaign, Kijewski, who is now married to a different woman and has a daughter, noted the charge was thrown out by the office of a Democratic county prosecutor.
“Voters prioritize someone fighting for their rights and how someone will improve their day-to-day life, not very old, long-resolved issues or matters from the past,” Kijewski told The News.
Among the issues he wants to work on as attorney general, he said, are giving back local government agencies control over permitting for renewable energy projects and ensuring that people aren’t “questioning” what’s happening in elections.
“We have to put an end to that,” Kijewski said.
But other Republicans, including his convention opponent, have doubts about Kijewski.
In a statement, Lloyd said the allegations against Kijewski, as described in the police report, were “deeply troubling.”
“The attorney general must lead with integrity and maintain the public’s trust,” Lloyd said. “In what will be a competitive general election, credibility will matter.
“Our party must nominate a candidate who can withstand scrutiny and keep the focus on protecting Michigan families.”
Jason Cabel Roe, an Oakland County Republican who works as a political consultant, said if Kijewski wins the GOP nomination on March 28, that will be the high point for his campaign. It will be downhill from there, he said.
Business leaders won’t finance Kijewski’s bid because they’ll see McDonald, Oakland County’s prosecutor, as the likely next attorney general in a matchup against Kijewski.
“I think he has zero chance in November,” Roe said.
Roe said the upcoming convention will show whether Michigan Republicans have learned lessons from previously selecting candidates who were destined to struggle in general elections, such as 2022 secretary of state nominee Kristina Karamo of Oak Park and 2022 attorney general nominee Matt DePerno of Kalamazoo.
DePerno beat out two candidates with experience in elected office in the 2022 Republican convention. During the general election campaign, DePerno was under investigation for his alleged involvement in a scheme to obtain voting machines and lost to Nessel by about 8 percentage points, 45%-53%. In 2018, Nessel defeated Republican Tom Leonard by less than 3 points, 49%-46.3%.
At a Republican attorney general debate in January, Lloyd argued that the “cold, hard truth” is that he and Kijewski differed most in their “electability” in the general election.
“You can have all the messaging in the world, but if the Democrats are able to take your baggage and throw it up on billboards, throw it on bumper stickers and throw it on ads every five seconds, then you’re going to lose,” Lloyd said.
“See, I don’t carry that. I don’t carry any baggage,” the Eaton County prosecutor added.
On Kijewski’s dismissed charge from 2020, Roe said it doesn’t matter what the truth is. It matters what evidence Democrats can point to, he said.
“Good luck explaining that to the electorate,” Roe quipped.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Ex-wife’s claims rattle Michigan attorney general race
Reporting by Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
