ICYMI: Newly Released Documents Add Urgency to Remove Fake Elector Architect From Post as Judicial Ethics Advisor

MADISON, Wis. — Newly released documents shed more light on Jim Troupis’ role as an architect of the fake elector scheme to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss. The latest revelations give even more reason for Troupis to be immediately removed from his appointment as an ethics advisor to Wisconsin judges, according to A Better Wisconsin Together Deputy Director Mike Browne.

Troupis was appointed to the Wisconsin Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee with the support of MAGA faction Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and a then-conservative court majority and re-appointed in 2023, even after news broke that he was involved in the MAGA faction efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

“Jim Troupis has disqualified himself from ever holding a place of public trust in Wisconsin. He’s time and again schemed to undermine our freedom to choose who governs in our name,” said Browne. “That he continues to do so today is completely unacceptable, especially now that we see in detail the depths to which he sank in trying to undermine our freedom and overturn the results of an election his side lost.”

The Associated Press reported last week that:

Two attorneys for then-President Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails.

Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.

Troupis is a longtime right-wing figure in Wisconsin politics whose unsavory resume includes:

Supporting MAGA Michael Gableman’s shady first judicial appointment

Troupis was helping oversee judicial selections at the time Michael Gableman, the head of Wisconsin’s sham 2020 election inquiry, got his start as a judge. Gableman was not among the finalists, or even original applicants, for a county judgeship in 2002. But shortly after making campaign donations and helping to organize a fundraiser for then Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, he got the seat.

[Wisconsin State Journal, 2/21/08]

Helping Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler fight ethics charges

Troupis represented Justice Annette Ziegler in proceedings brought by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission over Ziegler’s participation in cases involving a bank on which her husband served on the board of directors, while she was a county circuit court judge. Ziegler was publicly reprimanded by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court for her ethical lapses. [Wisconsin State Journal, 5/29/08]

Trying to force a partisan motivated voter roll purge before the 2008 presidential election

Wisconsin’s then Republican Attorney General, who was also serving as chair of the GOP presidential nominee’s Wisconsin campaign, brought a lawsuit to try to force a voter roll purge in advance of the 2008 presidential election. Troupis represented the Republican Party of Wisconsin in their effort to intervene in the legal proceedings. The action, which was ultimately unsuccessful, would have threatened the registration status of an estimated one million voters mere weeks before the election. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9/12/08]

Helping Republicans gerrymander Wisconsin’s legislative district lines 

In 2011 and 2012, Troupis was part of the legislative Republicans’ legal team that drew one of the most partisan gerrymanders in U.S. history, which locked in Republican control of the state legislature for over a decade. The effort in which Troupis participated was conducted with unprecedented secrecy, requiring legislators to sign confidentiality agreements and resulting in Republican attorneys being harshly and publicly criticized by federal judges for improperly withholding documents that should have been turned over as part of legal proceedings.

[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 8/20/11; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 2/16/12]