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Senate Probes DOJ on Outside Environmental Prosecutor
The head of the Wisconsin Senate’s investigative committee is once again making a formal request for information about the state’s special, outside environmental prosecutor.
Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, on Friday sent a letter to the state’s Department of Justice asking for information about the Micheal Bloomberg-funded prosecutors who handled certain environmental cases.
"Oversight is a core responsibility of the Legislature, and the DOJ consciously chose to not turn over the records that the legislative committee originally requested. Wisconsinites deserve transparency, especially when it’s about outside influence in Wisconsin’s Department of Justice," Felzkowski said in a statement.
The Senate opened its official investigation into A-G Josh Kaul’s use of prosecutors funded by the New York University State Energy & Environmental Impact Center.
Kaul hired at least two special prosecutors in his office. Felzkowski and other Senate Republicans say nothing in state law allowed for that. They say it is against the law to out-source cases to a privately funded prosecutor.
"Wisconsin agencies may exercise only those powers provided by statute. The Committee finds no statute authorizes DOJ to deputize and empower attorneys paid by third parties to act with the authority of assistant attorneys general. The Committee further finds that the SAAG model improperly bypasses the Legislature’s constitutional and statutory control over staffing and appropriations," the Senate's Special Committee on Oversight of the Department of Justice wrote in a report last month.
The committee held a hearing in February, and called a string over witnesses.
Now, Felzkoski said they have more questions.
"The request made [Friday] includes all the records from the Senate’s original request, as well as records relating to a hiring freeze at DOJ while attorneys funded by outside, partisan groups were being brought in to DOJ," Felzkowski added.
Kaul’s office has not commented on Friday’s request, but he said in the past that the Senate investigation is an election-year "partisan stunt.”
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