{"id":10360,"date":"2024-04-24T05:03:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T05:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10360"},"modified":"2024-04-24T05:59:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T05:59:21","slug":"waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10360","title":{"rendered":"Waukesha County DA Declines Charges in Brandtjen Campaign Finance Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/tcsquare\/2024\/04\/24\/\">https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/tcsquare\/2024\/04\/24\/<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<h5>by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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 (pictured above) 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<p>\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n<p><em>Benjamin Yount is a contributor to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/wisconsin\/article_fc91effa-00a4-11ef-bee0-bb9ddfd8d8b6.html\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\">The Center Square.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/tcsquare\/2024\/04\/24\/\">Waukesha County DA Declines Charges in Brandtjen Campaign Finance Case<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\">The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/waukesha-county-da-declines-charges-in-brandtjen-campaign-finance-case\/tcsquare\/2024\/04\/24\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 Another local prosecutor declined to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10360","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10361,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10360\/revisions\/10361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}