Madison election clerk interviewed by FBI about 2020 election

MADISON - The top election official in Wisconsin's capital city was interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in recent weeks about the 2020 presidential election.

Madison clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl is at least the second election official in Wisconsin to be questioned about the election by federal authorities as efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to subvert the election outcome continue to be scrutinized.

Witzel-Behl's interview took place earlier this summer, Madison City Attorney Michael Haas told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday. Witzel-Behl declined to share details about the interview.

Witzel-Behl's interview with the FBI took place at a time when federal prosecutors were also broadening a special counsel probe into Trump's actions leading up to the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Milwaukee Election Commission executive director Claire Woodall-Vogg told the Journal Sentinel she met virtually with federal prosecutors working for Special Counsel Jack Smith and the FBI in May.

Trump lost Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes in 2020 to President Joe Biden but has sought to undermine the election results, including by pushing conspiracy theories about the race. The outcome has been confirmed by recounts he paid for in Dane and Milwaukee counties, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and a study by a prominent conservative group.

Trump's focus on Wisconsin in his effort to cast doubt on the election results have continued since he recently announced a bid to retake the White House.

In a nationally televised town hall event hosted and aired by CNN in May, Trump falsely claimed voters in Milwaukee cast "so many illegal votes, they didn't know what to do with them."

To appease Trump, Assembly Republicans in 2021 launched a partisan and fruitless probe into the 2020 election that focused on liberal-leaning cities, including Madison.

The review's leader, former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, unsuccessfully sought to take depositions from election officials including Witzel-Behl and Woodall-Vogg behind closed doors.

Gableman's efforts resulted in more than $1 million in costs paid by taxpayers and a steady drumbeat of explosive court hearings and rulings in lawsuits over Gableman's desire to jail election officials and mayors who refused to be interviewed behind closed doors, and his decision to ignore requests from the public for records related to his probe.

The probe was been fraught with mishaps, like a botched deposition after an attorney tasked with conducting an interview with a local official subpoenaed by Gableman was not licensed to practice law in Wisconsin. At times Gableman was at the center of its controversy by making misogynistic comments about women he sees as adversaries.

There were no tangible results of the review but it boosted Trump's baseless accusations of widespread fraud occurring in Wisconsin's 2020 election.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin election clerk interviewed by FBI about 2020 election