Senator Ron Johnson’s campaign has been answering for payments of $13,287.50 and $7,000 made to attorney James “Jim” Troupis’s firm for legal consulting. The line item that has captured national attention is attached to the $7,000: “Recount: Legal Consulting.” A longtime election-law attorney, Troupis was involved with forwarding a slate of false electors on January 6. As one might imagine, this has caused some controversy and condemnation, with the Left accusing Johnson of planning to do in Wisconsin what he is alleged to have done in 2020, should the senator appear to lose to Mandela Barnes.
The media has done its job in reporting this event. What the press has not done nearly as thoroughly is communicate to the Wisconsin people that Johnson’s opponent has gone out and spent four times as much ($88,936) this year on a similarly partisan attorney, Marc Elias of Elias Law Group. Elias, formerly of Perkins Coie, has made a name for himself cleaning up tight elections in court and instigating political controversy by funding specious material such as the Steele Dossier.
Elias secured Al Franken’s razor-thin Minnesota victory in 2008 and has spent years as a guest on cable news, conspiracy-mongering with claims of voter suppression always quick to his tongue. He’s a Democrat-variant of Troupis, but with a better website and a more unfalsifiable bailiwick of “voter suppression” as opposed to “stolen election” that allows him to appear marginally less conspiratorial.
“Whataboutism,” you might say. Eh, not really. I offer no positive defense of Johnson’s move — simply a correction to the narrative that what he’s done is somehow unique. Barnes and Johnson have hired legal goons to give their campaigns the best shot at winning the election. It may appear dishonorable — it does from where I sit — but in Machiavellian terms, if it were me running, I’d be tempted to hire the same sort of schmucks. These partisan election attorneys want to win, whether on Nov. 8 or in court weeks after the fact. Election law is rather specialized, and most who are interested in it are politically and financially motivated. I don’t defend it, merely report its reality.
As UW–Madison professor of political science Barry Burden shared with Wisconsin Public Radio about Johnson’s consultant:
Jim Troupis is a well-established attorney. He’s been involved with elections in Wisconsin well before Trump was on the scene. But he is connected to this movement and he did have some role in trying to forward the names of fake electors through Sen. Ron Johnson’s office. . . . That makes him an unusual person among the attorneys campaigns normally pick up to help with recounts and other legal issues.
To be clear, Ron Johnson has taken on a . . . a bit of a hack as a consultant, but Barnes has done much the same. At least Johnson hired a locally grown farm-to-field sophister instead of bringing in a D.C. equivalent at quadruple the price.