The liberal D.C. law firm behind a legal challenge to the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling striking down the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the Badger State was founded by Hillary Clinton’s political fixer, the man who helped bankroll the infamous — and bogus — Trump-Russia dossier.
Marc Elias and his Elias Law Group filed a lawsuit last week in the liberal Dane County Circuit Court demanding the return of the widespread use of unsecured drop boxes, just as Wisconsin’s high court is about to be led by liberals for the first time in a long time.
Elias argues the ban “burdens the right to vote” and requires voters to depend on the undependable U.S. Postal Service’s “unsecured mailboxes.”
The complaint challenging the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 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 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.
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 “voter-centric progressive advocacy organization and service center for the grassroots progressive movement.”
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 — and some of his own — as “ruthless,” “immoral,” “sleazy,” and more, a Chronicles magazine piece published last year noted.
“Elias is a stone-cold partisan leading a crusade against Middle America. It is hard to think of a single more consequential Democrat,” Pedro Gonzalez wrote, asking where is the right’s Marc Elias? “He 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 ‘voting rights protection.’”
He’s also the lawyer behind the phony and destructive Russian dossier.
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’s bogus opposition research to try to bring down the Trump presidency.
Elias gets around.
The attorney has been the political fixer for some of the biggest names — and messes — among the liberal elite, including former President Barack Obama. The list also includes Wisconsin’s junior U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).
Elias was tapped in 2015 by Baldwin’s campaign to handle crisis control after the Madison Democrat fired a staffer who blew the whistle on Baldwin’s slow response to the Tomah Veterans Affairs hospital scandal. A Marine veteran died of a “lethal cocktail” of prescription drugs, a tragedy that led to a federal investigation into the overprescription of opioids at the facility.
Baldwin, in fact, was the only member of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation to receive a copy of a 2014 Inspector General’s report detailing the abuses at Tomah. She did nothing with the information.
Elias was brought in to make the whistleblower story go away. He was paid north of $90,000 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.
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 — and for making trouble for their client’s opponents.
Earlier this year, the DNC reportedly cut ties with their guy. The DNC and Elias parted ways over “strategic disagreements,” according to Punchbowl News. A spokesperson for the Elias Law Group, said the firm was “proud of the work it has done for the DNC,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Elias and two former law partners found themselves in trouble when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit slapped the attorneys with sanctions for violating ethical rules in a voting case. The court later refused to grant Elias’ request to rescind the sanctions for “deceptively refiling a motion to the court” after it was previously denied.
“Two 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 ‘candor”’in a courtroom setting,” John Locke Foundation’s Jordan Boyd wrote in January 2022.
“Elias is infamous for using deception, lies, and money to meddle with U.S. elections and push Democrats to the top.,” Boyd wrote. “Not 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.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Marc Elias” by Elias Law Group. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Clyde Robinson. CC BY 2.0.
