Tony Evers weighs in on security threats facing Wisconsin elections chief Meagan Wolfe

WAUNAKEE – As former President Donald Trump targets the state's top election official with false accusations about the 2020 election, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said state officials will do all they can to protect her safety while acknowledging the presumptive GOP nominee's First Amendment rights.

"First of all, he's making accusations that are nothing but a freakin’ lie. And then second of all, he's the guy that has the biggest megaphone in the world," Evers said Monday following an Earth Day event at Governor Nelson State Park. "And so how would anybody that's watching today feel about Donald Trump doing something like that to them? It's just irrational."

Trump's decision to attack Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe came as Evers had already added security measures for the state's chief election administrator in light of continued threats against her, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel previously reported.

Asked whether the state Department of Justice would get involved, Evers said, "if it gets bad enough, certainly we must."

"At some point in time, maybe there's something we can do," Evers said, noting that Trump's speech is still protected by the First Amendment. "It's tough, but we'll keep (Wolfe) protected the best way possible."

The former president is publicly and falsely accusing Wolfe of rigging the upcoming November election four years after Trump and his allies pressured Georgia's secretary of state to overturn Trump's loss to President Joe Biden there and terrorized two Georgia poll workers, leading to election subversion charges and a civil defamation lawsuit.

"Meagan Wolfe will try and steal another election," Trump said in an interview earlier this month with conservative radio show host Joe Giganti on "The Regular Joe Show," which aired on Green Bay-based WTAQ. "Robin Vos should terminate Meagan Wolfe and they should put somebody in who's going to be fair, not for the Republicans — just fair. And if they do that, we're going to win the election by a lot in Wisconsin."

"I've given out big ship contracts ... a lot of big contracts that nobody else would have given to Wisconsin I gave and it never made sense to me," Trump continued. "Now, we find out why. No, she should be gone."

Election officials and experts interviewed by the Journal Sentinel have warned Trump's rhetoric could lead to fewer people entering the election administration field, more distrust of election outcomes and, at worst, threats to workers' physical safety.

Asked about the former president's platform at the Republican National Convention, which Milwaukee will host in August, Evers said, "Whatever he's saying now he's going to say then, plus, he'll double down, triple down, quadruple down. And we'll just continue doing our good work, and sooner or later that kind of effort on his part, it will fail."

Wolfe has become a symbol of Trump's false 2020 election narrative. She represents a commission that has been under fire for four years by those who say they believe in false claims put forward by Trump to convince supporters he won an election he lost and because of policies commissioners approved during the 2020 presidential election to navigate the coronavirus pandemic.

Danielle Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said Wisconsin election officials "continue to drive down faith in elections," citing a complaint Republican National Committee officials filed this month alleging clerks in Madison and Milwaukee did not hire enough Republican election inspectors. The clerks have said the allegations are incorrect.

President Joe Biden won Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes in 2020, a defeat that was key to Trump's reelection loss that year. The election outcome was confirmed by judges, state audits, Trump-financed recounts, a Republican-led review and a study from a conservative law firm.

Jessie Opoien and Molly Beck can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com and molly.beck@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Evers weighs in on security for elections chief Meagan Wolfe