FBI moved to interview Milwaukee police and Wisconsin election officials in DOJ 2020-election reinvestigation

In May 2026, FBI agents acting for a Trump-administration Justice Department investigation of Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election moved to interview Milwaukee Police Department officers who had been posted at polling places and the city's central ballot-counting location on Election Night 2020. The bureau also sought interviews with current and former Milwaukee city and county election officials and with Robert Kehoe, deputy administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, who was asked to explain how the state runs its elections. In at least one instance an agent left a business card at the home of Milwaukee County Elections Director Michelle Hawley rather than contacting her office.

The Wisconsin activity extended a multi-state federal push to reinvestigate Joe Biden's 2020 victories. Agents had seized ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, in January, obtained the Arizona Senate's 2020 audit records by grand-jury subpoena in March, and demanded county ballots in Michigan in April. Wisconsin's 2020 result had been confirmed accurate through recounts, a partial audit, and repeated court rulings that found no widespread fraud.

Election-law specialists characterized the interviews as designed to intimidate the officials who administer elections rather than to build viable criminal cases, noting that the federal statute of limitations for any 2020-election conduct had already expired. Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said the 2020 election had been fair and transparent and that the county would defend against attacks on its administration of the vote.