Governor’s office rejects plea for investigation of attorney general

The chief lawyer for Gov. Tony Evers has told Michael Bell of Kenosha that the governor lacks the power to act on Bell’s complaint targeting Attorney General Josh Kaul in connection with the 2004 police killing of Bell’s son.

Bell urged Evers in late October to investigate Kaul because, Bell said, the attorney general had repeatedly declined to respond to Bell’s request to discuss his son’s death. Bell has been raising concerns about the Kenosha Police investigation of his son’s death, asserting that numerous inconsistencies in police accounts demand a new look at the case.

In a letter that Bell received in the mail on Saturday, Nov. 20, Ryan Nilsestuen, Evers’ chief legal counsel, told Bell that the state Department of Justice is not subject to the governor’s office. 

“The Department of Justice is an independent agency overseen by the attorney general, who is an elected constitutional officer,” the letter states. “The governor does not have authority to investigate DOJ.”

The letter also notes that crime victims can file complaints with the Wisconsin Crime Victims Board, and that the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division “has authority to review whether local law enforcement agencies have violated an individual’s constitutional rights.”

In an email message to the Wisconsin Examiner, Bell said that Evers, along with Kaul, “continue to sidestep this issue.” Noting that he had taken out an ad in the New York Times last week to publicize his concerns — at what he suggested as potential risk for legal liability to himself — Bell said he believes that Evers “must address underlying police corruption” reflected in the handling of his son’s death and in subsequent Kenosha police shootings, including the one in August 2020 when Jacob Blake was left paralyzed.