Wisconsin Republican Mayor Faces Aftermath Of ‘Very Political’ Raid Over Ballot Drop Box
Wausau Mayor Doug Diny had just finished a city directors meeting when he walked into his office to find three law enforcement agents rooting through his possessions. Suffice to say, the mayor was “surprised.”
But Diny said he knew what this raid was all about. As The Federalist first reported a week ago, Democrat Attorney General Josh Kaul has ratcheted up his nationally watched investigation into the mayor for removing an unsecured absentee ballot drop box from outside city hall. For Diny, it all feels “very political,” an investigation and a raid the Wall Street Journal editorial board has described as “out of proportion to Mr. Diny’s action.”
Diny told the lead state Department of Justice investigator, special agent Mary Van Schoyck, that if the raid squad wanted to talk to him they should first contact his attorney. She showed him a search warrant, signed off by an Eau Claire County judge, and told him to sit down and read it.
“The whole time they were badgering me to turn my phone over,” Diny told me in a phone interview from his office Thursday evening. He did as he was told, he said but realized he then had no way to call his attorney. The contact was, of course, in his cellphone.
“She [Van Schoyck] said, ‘Who is your attorney? I’ll Google it for you,’ Diny said. “That part pissed me off. I said, ‘You’re the lead investigator and the right-hand man for Josh Kaul, you don’t know who my attorney is?”
The mayor was more concerned about his wife. Simultaneously, at 3:15 p.m. on Oct. 16, five agents dressed in black were raiding the Diny home, a few blocks from city hall. Jean Diny was taking care of the couple’s 18-month-old grandson.
“She was caught off guard,” the mayor said, noting that his wife is “former military” and “doesn’t take sh-t from anyone.”
“She was a little perturbed at first and let them know. One of the guys said to her, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do this in front of the toddler.’ My wife said, ‘I’m babysitting. I’m certainly not going to hand him over to you.’”
Sweeping Search Warrant
The warrant, obtained by Wispolitics, notes the list of items to be seized. “All personal computers. Mobile communication devices, or digital devices owned, utilized and/or possessed” by the mayor. Agents seized Jean Diny’s phone, too. They searched the couple’s vehicles. The warrant also gave agents the right to search the mayor and his wife’s bodies.
Diny said the law enforcement officials asked a neighbor to help them access the secured multifamily, brick apartment building where the couple reside. Van Schoyck sought the authority to search for “certain things which evidence, or tend to evidence the crime of: Election fraud … and/or are relevant to” the Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation’s probe into Diny’s removal of the ballot drop box.
The warrant allowed agents to take photographs and to videotape Diny’s office and personal property. They sought to “obtain exact forensic copies of the content[s) of the hard drives or internal storage media or operating system of any seized device and the contents of any seized external storage media, for the purpose of permitting and conducting a full or partial digital forensic analysis.”
‘Preposterous’
It’s quite an investigation into a small-city mayor who says he was simply trying to do his job and protect the integrity of Wausau’s elections. It seems the state is accusing Diny of election fraud for attempting to prevent election fraud through an unsecured ballot receptacle. Wisconsin’s current governor is a Democrat.
While officials from the attorney general’s office and the Department of Justice have not responded to The Federalist’s multiple requests for comment, the warrant claims the investigation is looking for “evidence of communication reference [sic] the City of Wausau Official Drop Box.” Evidence suggests, according to the search warrant, that Diny was involved in discussions about the drop box before he was sworn in as mayor on April 16.
It must be noted that conservative Diny had defeated incumbent Mayor Katie Rosenberg, darling of Wisconsin’s leftist elite and absentee ballot drop box twerker (yes, you read that right) in Wisconsin’s spring elections.
Van Schoyck’s warrant seeks “authorization” to grab Diny’s communications going back to April 1 — before he was elected — through Oct. 16.
The mayor called the search timeline “preposterous,” noting that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had yet to decide on the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in elections.
In July, more than three months after Diny was elected, the leftist-controlled court reversed a 2022 conservative-majority ruling that had declared the widespread use of absentee ballot drop boxes illegal under state law. In the 4-3 July ruling, the Supreme Court gave Wisconsin communities the ability to decide whether they want to use drop boxes.
As The Federalist reported last month, many election offices have opted out. More than 60 local governments have decided against their use, All Voting is Local complained to CBS 58 in Milwaukee. Four years ago, drop boxes were found in 66 of 72 counties, according to the news outlet.
Diny said Wausau’s ballot drop box was in a state of disrepair by the time he was elected, with rusted locks and other security concerns. He did run for mayor on a pledge to remove the drop box, which could not be legally used at the time. But he has said that he wanted the Wausau City Council to vote on the future of the drop box after this past summer’s Supreme Court decision. The council never did. In fact, the council recently refused to take up Diny’s request for funds to better secure the drop box.
‘Infuriating Abuse of Power’
As The Federalist reported last week, the left went ballistic after the mayor was photographed carting away the ballot box and placing it inside city hall. It was not bolted down and was subject to security breaches before Wisconsin’s absentee ballot season got underway, he said. The city clerk quickly returned the drop to its position outside city hall. It has been in operation since.
But leftist lawfare groups have been out for blood since the mayor acted on Sept. 22. As the local paper reported, a group of four residents, including Marathon County Supervisor Randy Radtke, delivered a request to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District seeking intervention.
“We believe that Mr. Diny may have broken federal law by using his official position to interfere with citizens’ right to vote,” the residents wrote in their letter to U.S. Attorney Timothy O’Shea. “The drop box was set to be secured and ready for use by Monday, September 23, which Mr. Diny has now prevented. Citizens prepared to use this drop box for voting are now deprived of their right to do so.”
But the fact that anyone, including the mayor who is responsible for upholding the laws of the city, could cart away a ballot box on a hand trolly “should itself prove that the drop box wasn’t appropriately secured,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board opined in a piece headlined, “Election Lawfare Escalates in Wisconsin: The State AG uses his office to intimidate a Republican mayor.”
“The warrant and raid are all out of proportion to Mr. Diny’s action, and Mr. Kaul has succeeded if his goal is to stir partisan suspicion and passions,” the board wrote.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has said the probe and the accompanying raid “are the actions of jack-booted thugs.” Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican who represents Wausau in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, told conservative talk show host Vicki McKenna last week that he would like the House Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, to look into Kaul’s politically driven probe. State Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, called the raid “an infuriating abuse of power.”
“It appalls me that we fund Josh Kaul’s department to conduct politically motivated actions such as this. With all the issues our state has at the moment, this is what Josh Kaul has prioritized?” the lawmaker said in a statement.
But Kaul’s investigation goes on. Diny’s supporters, listed as “Wausau Taxpayers,” have set up a GiveSendGo page for the mayor.
“I retired 2 1/2 years ago from a private sector job,” the 62-year-old mayor said. “I don’t have a political career. I’m not running for anything. I just want to do a good job here.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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