James Troupis, the former attorney for President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign who played an instrumental role in the fake elector scheme that led to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, has applied for $3.2 million through Trump’s “weaponization” fund. 

Troupis, a former Dane County Circuit Court judge, was part of the trio of Trump campaign aides who conceived the plan to have Republicans posing as members of the Electoral College cast ballots for Trump and send those ballots to Washington D.C. to be certified by Congress as the official results. The false slates of electors were the mechanism through which the Trump-aligned “stop the steal” efforts were organized — culminating in the Jan. 6 attack aimed at forcing Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence to certify Trump as the winner of the 2020 election. 

Troupis also represented Trump in the campaign’s failed lawsuit seeking to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturn the 2020 election results. 

After participating in the plan, Troupis was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice under President Joe Biden and is currently facing felony charges of forgery for his role in the fake elector plot. He also settled a civil lawsuit against him for his involvement in the plan. 

In a letter to Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Troupis complains that his life has been upended because of the justice system’s effort to investigate and charge him with crimes. 

“I was honored to represent President Trump in the Wisconsin Recount,” Troupis wrote in the letter posted to social media by right-wing radio host Vicki McKenna. “Sadly, my life (and the lives of my entire family) has been a nightmare since I stepped forward to represent President Trump … The total real financial cost now exceeds $1.7 million, the annihilation of my reputation and law practice, thousands of hours in preparation and response to those legal actions, five years of time lost with my children and grandchildren, loss of retirement funds used for defense costs and ongoing legal expenses that will likely cost me our family home and the balance of my retirement funds. I now face spending the rest of my life in prison!” 

Troupis adds that he’s become a “poster-child” for the weaponization of the law. Last year, a Dane County judge denied Troupis’ effort to have the state criminal charges against him dismissed. 

“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense,” Judge John Hyland wrote. 

Troupis’ cause has become a favorite of right-wing figures, including U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson — who himself was involved in the fake elector scheme. 

The $1.776 billion fund created by the DOJ as part of a settlement in Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS has been criticized as a tool the Trump administration can use to pay out its allies and the foot soldiers of the Jan. 6 attack. Figures such as Enrique Tarrior, the former leader of the militia group the Proud Boys, have applied for funds through the fund. 

Jeff Mandell, the president and general counsel of Law Forward, a voting rights-focused firm that brought the civil lawsuit against Troupis, said that the request for $3.2 million in taxpayer money continues Troupis’ pattern of refusing to accept the consequences of his actions.

“Wisconsin attorney and former judge Jim Troupis was the primary architect of the national fraudulent-electors scheme,” Mandell said. “As Law Forward’s groundbreaking civil litigation discovered and made clear, absent Troupis’s actions, there never would have been an insurrection on January 6. He is facing criminally prosecution, and we have a pending ethics complaint seeking his disbarment. On January 6, Troupis texted congratulations to one of his colleagues on the fruits of their labor. Troupis was paid by the Trump campaign for the work he did then, has consistently been unwilling to accept personal responsibility for his misconduct since, and now wants to be paid again by the American taxpayers. His actions now continue to be as disgraceful as his misconduct was in the wake of the 2020 election.”

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee in the race for governor of Wisconsin, said at an event that he believes some people charged with crimes after Jan. 6 could “possibly” be entitled to compensation — though not if they assaulted law enforcement officers. 

Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein (D-Middleton) responded to the fund Wednesday by introducing the “No Taxpayer Dollars for Insurrectionists Act” which would apply a 100% state income tax on any money Wisconsinites receive through the fund. She said the fund was the “height of corruption.” 

“Put simply — if you’re from Wisconsin and you stormed the Capitol, you will not receive money from the slush fund,” Hesselbein said in a statement. “Wisconsinites are tired of the chaos and corruption caused by the Trump administration. From reckless tariffs to the conflict with Iran, the President continues to harm hard-working Wisconsin families and businesses by driving up costs. At a time when Wisconsinites continue to struggle with the rising cost of groceries, gas, and housing, our taxpayers must not foot the bill.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

WASHINGTON — A handful of Democratic state attorneys general said Tuesday that expert officials from their offices were denied access to a major White House anti-fraud meeting convened by Vice President JD Vance and attended by Republican AGs.

Two dozen Democratic attorneys general had earlier declined invitations for their own attendance at the White House anti-fraud roundtable, citing extremely short notice and a lack of an agenda in a letter to Vance, who has helmed the Trump administration’s sweeping anti-fraud effort.  

Instead, some sent top officials from their offices to Washington. Democratic attorneys general in California, New York and New Jersey said at a press conference later Tuesday that officials from their states were not allowed to attend the anti-fraud meeting. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James said officials from Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland and Nevada were also turned away and that part of the reason apparently had to do with the officials’ titles. 

“They gave various reasons that conflicted, and that didn’t really make sense,” James said. “At the end of the day, the message is, is, that there were experts who have been working on complex fraud cases, that have worked in our respective offices over the year — they have engaged in successful criminal prosecutions, investigations and settlements resulting in millions and millions of dollars, and they were all turned away, despite the fact that they had RSVP’d on Friday evening, and in some cases on Saturday.”  

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the press conference, said “we won’t be used as props in Vance’s political performance.”

Bonta was joined by James, along with Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul. 

“The truth is, Democratic AGs have recovered billions of taxpayer dollars, secured criminal convictions and implemented reforms to strengthen the security of our programs,” Bonta added.

The California attorney general noted that “the short notice we were given sends a clear message that we were either an afterthought or we weren’t really welcome.”

Though the initial invitation was made to AGs only, exceptions were made for chiefs of staff or deputy attorneys general, according to an individual familiar with the fraud roundtable. 

Lower ranking staff members, both Republican and Democrat, did not participate and guidelines were made clear in advance of the roundtable, that individual said, speaking on background.

Trump administration anti-fraud campaign

At the meeting, Vance and administration officials gave brief remarks before ushering out the press so that they could have “the real conversation.”

Minnesota has taken center stage in the administration’s efforts to combat alleged fraud. Just last week, administration officials announced they were charging 15 people in the state for alleged Medicaid fraud schemes totaling millions of dollars in intended loss. 

In a list provided by the Republican Attorneys General Association ahead of the event, the attorneys general slated to attend the Vance meeting included: Tim Griffin of Arkansas; Raúl Labrador of Idaho; Todd Rokita of Indiana; Brenna Bird of Iowa; Kris Kobach of Kansas; Russell Coleman of Kentucky; Lynn Fitch of Mississippi; Austin Knudsen of Montana; Mike Hilgers of Nebraska; Drew Wrigley of North Dakota; Andy Wilson of Ohio, Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma; Marty Jackley of South Dakota; and Derek Brown of Utah.  

Bird, of Iowa, said in a press release that she attended the fraud task force meeting with other AGs to “discuss collaborative efforts between the White House and state attorneys general on combating benefits fraud, as well as the resources needed by attorneys general to fight fraud in their states.”

She added, “When bad actors commit fraud—whether it’s against the government, against businesses, or against individuals, the American taxpayer always ends up on the hook. I’ve been fighting to protect Iowans against fraud for the last four years as attorney general, and I don’t intend to stop.”

Dems complain about short notice

The two dozen state Democratic attorneys general had written to Vance earlier Tuesday that while they “would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda,” per a letter obtained by States Newsroom. 

The group added that “this short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners.” 

POLITICO, which first reported on the letter and the Democrats’ choice to not partake in the meeting, noted that Republican attorneys general were invited days earlier and initially the event was only supposed to include them. 

“As I’ve said repeatedly, this does not need to be — this should not be — a partisan effort,” Vance said during the roundtable. 

“Everybody should care about fraud, everybody should care about rooting out fraud, everybody should care about saving the American taxpayers money, and importantly, everybody should care about actually protecting the programs that only work and are only properly funded if the money funding those programs isn’t being stolen by fraudsters.” 

The vice president said at the meeting that representatives from the attorneys general in Connecticut and Oregon were in attendance. 

In a statement after the meeting, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association bashed Democrats.

“While Republican Attorneys General are aggressively fighting fraud, waste, and abuse, Democrat AGs like Keith Ellison in Minnesota and Letitia James in New York knowingly aid and abet scams and fraud in their states,” said Adam Piper, the executive director. “Republican AGs are thrilled to roll up our sleeves and work with JD Vance, Republican AG staff alum Andrew Ferguson, Scott Brady, and the White House Task Force to save taxpayers billions of dollars and deliver maximum accountability. Vice President Vance is right – this is not a partisan issue. However, historical Democrat inaction speaks volumes.”

A new legal battle is underway between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican leaders in the Legislature.

Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul are suing the co-chairs of the Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee to overturn a 2018 law that requires JFC approval of legal settlements involving the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

The law was passed by the Republican majority in the Legislature and signed by outgoing Gov. Scott Walker in December 2018 just before Evers and Kaul took office. It was among a group of laws that gave lawmakers increased power over executive branch actions, including control over aspects of the DOJ’s civil litigation.

In June 2025, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling held that the law was unconstitutional as applied to two categories of DOJ lawsuits.

The ruling stripped the JFC of the authority to intervene in DOJ settlements in suits on behalf of state agencies that enforce civil penalties, and settlements in other suits the DOJ files at the request of state agencies.

The new suit was filed April 7 in Dane County Circuit Court. Its existence was first reported Tuesday by Wisconsin Public Radio.

The lawsuit argues that it is unconstitutional for the Legislature to insert itself in settlements when the state itself, not just a state agency, is a plaintiff — for example, if DOJ sues a federal agency on behalf of the state to challenge a federal regulation.

In addition it argues that lawmakers don’t have the right to intervene when the state is a defendant in a lawsuit and the settlement would not require the appropriation of additional funds. An example could be representing the Department of Corrections in a lawsuit brought by a prisoner charging a civil rights violation.

The suit names the Joint Finance Committee as well as co-chairs Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam). The lawmakers did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Citing the 2025 ruling, the lawsuit argues that the Legislature only has a potential role in resolving a civil suit if the resolution requires lawmakers to enact a new law or the Legislature is a client in the litigation.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Wisconsin filed three lawsuits Thursday against online prediction market companies that the state Department of Justice accused of “working together to facilitate illegal sports betting throughout the state.”

“Except in limited circumstances, sports betting and other forms of commercial gambling have long been illegal in the state of Wisconsin,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said during a news conference Thursday afternoon. “No company is above this law, no matter how creatively those companies try to disguise the activity that they’re engaged in.”

The lawsuits were filed as Wisconsin prepares to renegotiate 11 tribal gaming compacts to include online sports betting under a law Gov. Tony Evers signed earlier this month. The legislation legalized online sports betting on the condition that the required computer servers are housed on tribal land.

Sports betting has been legal in Wisconsin since 2021, but only in person at tribal casinos.

The state’s lawsuits target online prediction markets that allow users to put money on the outcome of everything from major world events to sports outcomes.

The emergence of prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket has prompted states across the country to enact legislation and file lawsuits, Stateline reported in March.

The online platforms have been estimated to generate more than $13 billion every month, with the bulk of those revenues coming from sports betting, Stateline reported.

Kaul said Wisconsin was filing its own lawsuit, but a handful of other states, including recently New York, have filed similar suits citing their own state regulations.

“These companies have chosen to flout Wisconsin law by thinly disguising the sports betting that they facilitate through what are called event contracts,” Kaul explained. “But our position in this case is that event contracts are no different than ordinary sports bets. The companies collect a fee, we allege, for every bet that’s made, leading them to earn significant revenue from Wisconsinites through violations of our state’s gambling regulations.”

The goal of the suits is to shut down the platforms in Wisconsin, Kaul said. The state isn’t currently seeking monetary damages, but he said that possibility hasn’t been ruled out should there be a legal basis to demand them and the facts to support such a demand.

He said the suit was filed in response to “a huge increase in this type of activity” in the last few years.

Each of the three lawsuits is filed in Dane County circuit court as a “complaint to abate public nuisance” and accuse the defendants of “facilitating illegal sports betting throughout the state.” They ask the court to find them in violation of state law and to issue an injunction against the companies for sports-related trading by Wisconsin users.

One suit names Kalshi Inc., along with four affiliates; Robinhood Markets and two affiliates; and two Coinbase companies. The second names three companies doing business as Polymarket or affiliates of Polymarket. The third suit names Foris Dax Markets and North American Derivatives Exchange Inc., doing business as Crypto.com.

In a statement received late Friday, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal pointed to a Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling April 6 that states don’t have jurisdiction over prediction markets.

“Congress was clear — consumers deserve uniform, federal oversight over derivatives markets,” Grewal said. “As the Third Circuit held, state enforcement that seeks to prohibit prediction markets — like Wisconsin’s lawsuit [Thursday] against Coinbase and others — ‘is exactly the patchwork that Congress replaced wholecloth by creating the CFTC.’ Wisconsin should accept clear and consistent CFTC oversight of prediction markets — just as Congress intended.”

All of the businesses in the lawsuits list an identical street address in Wilmington, Delaware, except for the three Robinhood companies, which list an address in Dover, Delaware.

All three suits also include as defendants unnamed private individuals or entities that “facilitate” the platforms’ transactions.

The lawsuits focus on sports betting, although the platforms also host transactions involving other kinds of events and predictions. Kaul said the state alleges sports-related gambling is “a very large part” of the activity on Kalshi and other platforms.

The suits describe transactions on the platforms as “indistinguishable from an ordinary sports bet” as defined in Wisconsin law.

Crypto.com, for example, “relabels its sports bets as ‘event contracts,’ meaning contracts traded between buyers and sellers at agreed upon prices that mimic the odds of a sports-related outcome,” the lawsuit naming Crypto.com states. “Parties to these ‘event contracts’ wager money on whether a given sports-related outcome will occur, just as when people bet on that same outcome using traditional casino-style sportsbooks.”

On April 3, 2026, the suit states, “traders could buy contracts taking the position that the University of Michigan would win its Final Four matchup with the University of Arizona for around $0.54, which reflected a roughly 54% projected chance of Michigan winning. When Michigan won, event contract holders who bet on that team winning received $1 per contract and those who instead bet on Arizona winning received nothing.”

Kaul said there was “no direct relationship” between the lawsuits and the enactment of the new law allowing online sports betting. “What we are alleging is violations of Wisconsin law, and the allegations would be the same whether or not there had been the new legislation passed.”

This report was updated 4/27/2026 with a statement from Coinbase. 

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case that highlights how judges can apply different interpretations of the law and constitution to suit their ideological viewpoints.

The case resulted from disagreements between the Republican-led Legislature and Attorney General Josh Kaul following the 2018 lame-duck session that limited the powers of the incoming Democratic administration. 

The lawsuit, which the Legislature filed in 2021 when there was a conservative majority on the state Supreme Court, focuses on who has oversight of the dollars the state receives from legal settlements. The Legislature argues the 2018 law requires the attorney general to put money from a financial settlement in the general fund, which state lawmakers control. Kaul argues that he can put settlement funds in accounts that the Department of Justice oversees and still comply with the law.

In December 2024, the 2nd District Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling reversed part of a circuit court decision that said Kaul could continue to direct settlement dollars into DOJ-controlled accounts.

The Appeals Court opinion was written by Judge Maria Lazar, a conservative who is running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April against liberal Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor. Lazar ruled the language in the 2018 law aligns with the Legislature’s arguments that settlement dollars belong in the general fund. 

“Despite the legislation expressly designed to bring all settlement funds under legislative control and despite the simple and plain language of that legislation, the Attorney General has continued to act precisely in the manner which the Legislature sought to end,” Lazar wrote.

But in a dissent, retiring Appeals Court Judge Lisa Neubauer, the only liberal on the Waukesha-based District 2 Court of Appeals, criticized Lazar for basing her decision on what the Legislature intended, rather than a strict reading of various clauses in the law that may give the attorney general wiggle room.

The oral arguments this week follow a series of decisions in recent years on lawsuits challenging the separation of powers between the Legislature and the executive branch. In June, the court unanimously struck down a portion of the 2018-era lame-duck laws that required the attorney general to receive approval from the Legislature’s budget-writing committee to settle most civil cases. For the 4-3 divided liberal-majority court, the rulings in these cases have shown agreement among the justices over the need for clear boundaries between the core powers of the branches of government, legal experts said. 

Where this latest lawsuit differs is the debate seems focused more on the language of the law than the separation of powers, said Chad Oldfather, a professor at the Marquette University Law School. Typically the conservative approach to statutory interpretation has been to focus on the basic meaning of the law while the liberal approach has been to examine the law’s intent. That has been the opposite in this case, Oldfather said.  

“The advocates are kind of flipping a little bit the usual ideology of the statutory interpretation approach,” Oldfather said. “And all that’s going on while it’s clear that there are some people on the court who want to fundamentally shift the way the court does statutory interpretation. So there’s a real interesting mix of issues going on in this case.” 

The law in question has been wrapped up in a yearslong debate over separation of powers that has made its way to justices in recent years, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. In many of those cases, the Supreme Court opinions have shown the justices interested in balanced branches of government. 

“There seems to be an inclination to reinstate greater separation of powers between the branches and preserve the important roles of various actors, whether that’s the attorney general or the governor or the Legislature,” Godar said. 

For example, in a 6-1 decision in 2024, with Justice Annette Ziegler dissenting, the court ruled the Legislature’s Republican-led budget-writing committee could not block spending by the Department of Natural Resources for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund. 

“While the legislature’s motivation for overseeing the public fisc may be well-intentioned, fundamentally, the legislature may not execute the law,” Justice Rebecca Bradley, a member of the conservative bloc, wrote in the majority opinion. “The people gave the executive alone this power.”

In the 7-0 decision last June on the Legislature’s approval of the attorney general’s civil case settlements, Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote that the constitution does not give lawmakers the ability to execute the law when there are financial decisions. 

“If the Legislature has a constitutional interest in the execution of the laws every time an executive action involves money, there would be virtually no area where the Legislature could not insert itself into the execution of the law,” Hagedorn wrote. 

There are still areas of disagreement among the court in these types of cases. Last July, the court reached a 4-3 decision in a lawsuit between Gov. Tony Evers and the Legislature, which determined 2018 lame-duck legislation that gave a legislative committee the ability to delay rules and policy changes from executive agencies was unconstitutional.

In that case, the court’s four liberal justices were in the majority. Hagedorn wrote an opinion both concurring and dissenting with the majority’s decision, while Bradley and Ziegler dissented.

“The majority has created a grave constitutional imbalance by strictly construing, and thus confining, the constitutional powers of the legislative branch while not doing the same when it comes to the power of the executive branch,” Ziegler wrote.

Latest Wisconsin Supreme Court case flips the script on which judges strictly interpret the law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.