{"id":4774,"date":"2023-08-07T05:03:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T05:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4774"},"modified":"2023-08-07T15:07:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T15:07:38","slug":"hillary-clintons-political-fixer-leads-legal-effort-to-restore-drop-boxes-in-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4774","title":{"rendered":"Hillary Clinton\u2019s Political Fixer Leads Legal Effort to Restore Drop Boxes in Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/hillary-clintons-political-fixer-leads-legal-effort-to-restore-drop-boxes-in-wisconsin\/mkittle\/2023\/08\/07\/<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The liberal D.C. law firm behind a legal challenge to the Wisconsin Supreme Court\u2019s ruling striking down the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the Badger State was founded by Hillary Clinton\u2019s political fixer, the man who helped bankroll the infamous \u2014 and bogus \u2014 Trump-Russia dossier.<\/p>\n

Marc Elias and his Elias Law Group filed a lawsuit<\/a> last week in the liberal Dane County Circuit Court demanding the return of the widespread use of unsecured drop boxes, just as Wisconsin\u2019s high court is about to be led by liberals for the first time in a long time.<\/p>\n

Elias argues<\/a> the ban \u201cburdens the right to vote\u201d and requires voters to depend on the undependable U.S. Postal Service\u2019s \u201cunsecured mailboxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint challenging the Wisconsin Supreme Court\u2019s ruling last year barring the use of absentee ballot drop boxes is not surprising. On August 1, newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz begins her tenure on the bench. The liberal who made clear her progressive leanings<\/a> on the campaign trail gives liberals on the court a 4-3 majority, power the left in Wisconsin has not had for more than a decade. Expect all manner of liberal-led lawsuits challenging Republican policies and conservative rulings in the days ahead.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed against the Wisconsin Elections Commission on behalf of a Milwaukee resident, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, and Priorities USA<\/a>, a \u201cvoter-centric progressive advocacy organization and service center for the grassroots progressive movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elias has long been described as the political fixer for damaged Democrats and the Democratic Party. The powerful D.C. election law attorney has been described by Republicans \u2014 and some of his own \u2014 as \u201cruthless,\u201d \u201cimmoral,\u201d \u201csleazy,\u201d and more, a Chronicles<\/em> magazine piece published last year noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cElias is a stone-cold partisan leading a crusade against Middle America. It is hard to think of a single more consequential Democrat,\u201d Pedro Gonzalez wrote, asking where is the right\u2019s Marc Elias? \u201cHe became a go-to lawyer for Democratic Party after he successfully represented Al Franken in the 2008 recount of the Minnesota Senate race. He dramatically expanded his portfolio to include redistricting disputes, campaign finance law, and \u2018voting rights protection.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also the lawyer behind the phony and destructive Russian dossier.<\/p>\n

Elias, with deep ties to the Democrat National Committee and presidential also-ran Hillary Clinton, represented both in 2016 when he helped bankroll the now-infamous dossier that was supposed to show ties between then-President Trump and the Russian government. Democrats and many media outlets used the Democrat Party\u2019s bogus opposition research to try to bring down the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

Elias gets around.<\/p>\n

The attorney has been the political fixer for some of the biggest names \u2014 and messes \u2014 among the liberal elite, including former President Barack Obama. The list also includes Wisconsin\u2019s junior U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).<\/p>\n

Elias was tapped in 2015 by Baldwin\u2019s campaign to handle crisis control after the Madison Democrat fired a staffer who blew the whistle on Baldwin\u2019s slow response to the Tomah Veterans Affairs hospital scandal.<\/a> A Marine veteran died of a \u201clethal cocktail\u201d of prescription drugs, a tragedy that led to a federal investigation into the overprescription of opioids at the facility.<\/p>\n

Baldwin, in fact, was the only member of Wisconsin\u2019s congressional delegation to receive a copy of a 2014 Inspector General\u2019s report detailing the abuses at Tomah. She did nothing with the information.<\/p>\n

Elias was brought in to make the whistleblower story go away. He was paid north of $90,000<\/a> for his services. Baldwin ultimately offered staffer Marquette Baylor a severance package, complete with a nondisclosure agreement demanding Baylor keep her mouth shut. Baylor filed an ethics complaint, which like most such complaints, went nowhere in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

Elias and his firm at the time, D.C.-based Perkins Coie, where liberal Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul worked, are known for getting their liberal clients out of trouble \u2014 and for making trouble for their client\u2019s opponents.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the DNC reportedly cut ties with their guy. The DNC and Elias parted ways over \u201cstrategic disagreements,\u201d according to<\/a> Punchbowl News<\/em>. A spokesperson for the Elias Law Group, said the firm was \u201cproud of the work it has done for the DNC,\u201d according to <\/a>The Washington Free Beacon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Elias and two former law partners found themselves in trouble when the U.S.\u00a0Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit slapped the attorneys with sanctions<\/a> for violating ethical rules in a voting case. The court later refused to grant Elias\u2019 request to rescind the sanctions for \u201cdeceptively refiling a motion to the court\u201d after it was previously denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo of the three judges on the panel agreed to sanction Elias and his team for the shady attempt to lie to the court. Elias was quickly scolded by the judges for lacking \u2018candor\u201d\u2019in a courtroom setting,\u201d John Locke Foundation\u2019s Jordan Boyd wrote <\/a>in January 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cElias is infamous for using deception, lies, and money to meddle with U.S. elections and push Democrats to the top.,\u201d Boyd wrote. \u201cNot only did Elias fund the discredited Steele Dossier designed to hurt Donald Trump in 2016, but he helped coordinate and design the Democrat-financed effort to change hundreds of election laws in the months leading up to the 2020 election.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
\n<\/strong><\/em>Photo \u201cMarc Elias\u201d by\u00a0Elias Law Group<\/a>. Background Photo \u201cCourtroom\u201d by\u00a0Clyde Robinson<\/a>. CC BY 2.0.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Hillary Clinton\u2019s Political Fixer Leads Legal Effort to Restore Drop Boxes in Wisconsin<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/hillary-clintons-political-fixer-leads-legal-effort-to-restore-drop-boxes-in-wisconsin\/mkittle\/2023\/08\/07\/ The liberal D.C. law firm behind a legal challenge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4774","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\/4774","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\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4775,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions\/4775"}],"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=4774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}