Wisconsin governor slams GOP over election probe: They’re ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) slammed state Republicans on Monday over plans to spent $680,000 on an investigation into the 2020 election, accusing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) of “drinking the Kool-Aid” after a recent meeting with former President Trump.

“Things changed a bit when Robin Vos went down and visited Donald Trump and got that nice picture on the plane,” Evers said, according to The Associated Press. “Apparently they’re all drinking the Kool-Aid. But I think it was really, really unfortunate.” 

“What it tells me is that this is going to be wide-ranging and probably $680,000 at a minimum and they’re going to be coming up with all kinds of things that frankly aren’t true,” he added. 

Evers’s remarks came ahead of a planned vote by a state Assembly committee designating former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman as special counsel to lead the investigation. The contract with Gableman would allow the legislature to spend up to $680,000 in taxpayer money on the probe.

The $680,000 spending limit is far more than the original contract with Gableman had called for. The massive increase came after Vos traveled with Trump to a political rally in Alabama earlier this month. 

Trump and his allies have continued to insist without evidence that systematic irregularities and widespread voter fraud compromised the 2020 election and led to his defeat by President Biden.

Evers called the election probe “outrageous,” and insisted that the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin was conducted fairly. 

“Joe Biden is president and the continued attack on our democracy is just absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

Republicans in other states have called for full-fledged investigations into irregularities in the 2020 presidential election, most notably in Arizona, where the GOP-controlled state Senate undertook a months-long audit of the election results in Maricopa County. 

Gableman has already traveled to Arizona to meet with Republicans involved in that audit.