{"id":10340,"date":"2024-04-23T01:44:20","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T01:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10340"},"modified":"2024-04-23T01:58:01","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T01:58:01","slug":"waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10340","title":{"rendered":"Waukesha County DA Declines Charges in Brandtjen Campaign Finance Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/\">https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1068\" height=\"713\" src=\"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/MixCollage-22-Apr-2024-08-43-PM-7571.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Brandtjen Campaign Finance\" title=\"Brandtjen Campaign Finance\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(The Center Square) \u2013 Another local prosecutor declined to bring charges against a Republican state lawmaker in a campaign funding raising case.<\/p>\n<p>Waukesha County\u2019s District Attorney Sue Opper said she would not file charges against state Rep. Janel Brandtjen. But Opper said she is not clearing Brandtjen in the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am simply concluding that I cannot prove charges against her. While the intercepted communications, such as audio recordings may be compelling in the court of public opinion, they are not in a court of law,\u201d Opper said.<\/p>\n<p>Wisconsin\u2019s Ethics Commission suggested charges against Brandtjen and a handful of others in a case that investigators say saw them move money around to allegedly skirt Wisconsin\u2019s limits on campaign donations.<\/p>\n<p>Opper said the Ethics Commission investigation was based on \u201creasonable suspicion and then probable cause.\u201d But she added that those \u201cburdens are substantially lower than proof beyond a reasonable doubt which is necessary for a criminal conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Opper said the Ethic Commission could pursue a civil case against Brandtjen and the others. She also opened the door to other investigations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis decision does not clear Rep. Brandtjen of any wrongdoing, there is just not enough evidence to move forward to let a factfinder decide,\u201d Opper said.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s the fourth local prosecutor in the state to decide against filing charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/ (The Center Square) \u2013 Another local prosecutor declined to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":10342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10343,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions\/10343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}