FBI agents have visited the home of Milwaukee County’s elections director, Michelle Hawley, leaving a business card after attempting to contact her, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said Wednesday, prompting sharp reactions from county officials.
Citing an unnamed source, WISN 12 News reported that the FBI was interested in 180,000 absentee ballots cast during the 2020 presidential election that reportedly have not yet been destroyed.
President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, then unsuccessfully sought in court to overturn the results.
In a statement Wednesday, Christenson said the county will follow up on the FBI’s attempt to interview Hawley. He defended the 2020 presidential election results in Milwaukee as fair, transparent and accurate.
”This has been proven repeatedly over the last six years by the post-election canvass, the Presidential Election Recount, State court-based challenge, Federal court-based challenge, the forensic audit by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, and two additional independent audits,” said Christenson. “Continuing to relitigate settled questions does not strengthen public confidence in elections but it undermines it.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, reiterating that Trump lost the 2020 election, said that Trump has “crossed a line if he is sending FBI agents to the private residence of Milwaukee County’s elections director.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has previously reported that the FBI recently interviewed Robert Kehoe, deputy administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Local officials “will always cooperate with law enforcement officers and the investigations they are pursuing, but this action raises serious concerns of intimidation,” Crowley said. “Regardless of how this situation evolves, the facts are clear: In 2020, election clerks did their jobs. The election was safe and secure. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in Wisconsin. No amount of fear and intimidation from the Trump Administration will change that truth.”
Trump and his supporters have persisted in denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election more than five years ago.
Word of FBI agents visiting election officials in Milwaukee comes after the federal agency seized 2020 ballots in Georgia earlier this year. The British newspaper The Independent reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was seen at the raid, and the New York Times reported that Trump called her on the phone during the raid. Georgia was a focus of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, when he called Georgia’s secretary of state and falsely claimed he had won the state that year.
