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All right and we can take it off when you're ready.
Great.
Well, thank you, Haley.
Thanks to the state party for organizing this.
I am Josh call.
I want to thank you all for joining us today.
And the reason that.
I want to speak to folks today.
Was to respond to.
I want to thank you all for joining us today.
And the reason that we have come to some of the discussion that we've
seen recently in the discourse regarding the state's supreme
court race.
As a lot of you know, I ran against Brad Schimmel in 2018 and
defeated him when I was first elected attorney general.
And there's been a lot of discussion during the course of the
current state Supreme Court race about some of the topics that
were discussed then, including Brad Schimmel's record as
of untested sexual assault kits.
I thought it was important given some of the comments
that we have seen to set the record straight
on some of the issues that have been discussed.
So first, I just want to highlight that in 2018,
there was only one incumbent attorney general
in the country who was defeated.
That was Brad Schimmel.
And he was defeated in part because he had a failed record
as Wisconsin attorney general.
Now he's trying to rewrite that history.
And it's been several years.
So folks haven't seen the headlines
about Brad Schimmel's failed record
recently like they had when the 2018 election happened.
So I want to speak out and make sure
that we're setting the record straight.
The reality is that as attorney general,
Brad Schimmel had an abysmal record on issues
that were critical to Wisconsinites.
And yet he was essentially on speed dial
for special interests.
Now one of the issues that had come up in this race
and that came up in the 2018 election
is the backlog of untested sexual assault kits.
And I think it's important for folks
to know the context for this.
In 2014, JB Van Hollen, when he was in his last year
as attorney general, his administration did a survey
and they identified thousands
of previously untested sexual assault kits.
Again, that was 2014.
So the next year, Brad Schimmel came into office
with this information that there were thousands
of untested sexual assault kits.
And what the record shows is that Brad Schimmel
failed to respond with urgency.
His administration tested just nine
of the thousands of backlog kits
in his first two years in office.
Now Brad Schimmel has been spinning this issue
really since it occurred, but he continues
to spin it to this day.
But I want to highlight that fact
because this is a fact that Brad Schimmel
does not and cannot dispute.
In his first two years in office,
just nine of the thousands of backlog kits were tested.
And it's not that he couldn't have tested
those kits more quickly.
In two other places, Portland and the state of Nevada,
those locations received grant funding
right around the same time as Wisconsin
and they tested kits much more quickly
in those first few years.
And I encourage those reporters who are on the line
to go back to the news articles from that time.
And you can see that Brad Schimmel simply
was not focused on the details of this issue.
In early 2017, for example, at one point,
Brad Schimmel said that a few hundred kits had been tested.
But a couple days later, his administration
had to acknowledge that the number was not a couple hundred.
It was nine kits that had been tested.
Brad Schimmel said that this was not a backlog.
A PolitiFact reviewed that claim
and they rated that claim pants on fire.
And they pointed a letter from Brad Schimmel himself
that had referred to this as a backlog.
Then in May of 2017, Brad Schimmel was unable
to verify the number of tested backlog kits
that his office had given out.
His office had told the press that 63 kits had been tested
and a reporter asked Schimmel about the number
that only 60 kits had been tested.
And Schimmel said he didn't know where that number came from.
His office then tried to spin that,
saying that he was being very precise
and was confused about 63 versus 60.
But it's part of a pattern that we saw with Brad Schimmel
of not even knowing the details of this significant issue
at that point, more than two years
into his term as Attorney General.
So when I got into the AG's race,
which was in April of 2017,
fewer than a hundred of those thousands
of backlog kits had been tested.
Now testing did finally start picking up
amid that campaign.
But even with the progress that was finally made,
Schimmel claimed in 2018 that he had gotten
that mission accomplished
because the kits were finally tested.
But even then he really misunderstood
why this work was so important.
For one thing, while Schimmel had said
all the kits were tested,
he had not disclosed publicly
that there were about 300 kits that remained to be tested.
I acknowledge that those were different types of kits.
Those were kits in cases where there were convictions.
But Schimmel didn't inform the public
that he was leaving behind work to be done
with 300 more kits to be tested.
But far more importantly,
the reason for testing these kits wasn't just to test them.
It was so that follow-up could happen
in the cases where testing occurred.
So when Schimmel left office,
there were hundreds of cases left behind to be reviewed.
Now I'm proud that my administration
worked through those cases
and we worked to get information
to law enforcement where appropriate.
But that's work that Brad Schimmel left behind
and wasn't completed when he left office.
Brad Schimmel also didn't accomplish any legislative
to prevent a future backlog of sexual assault kits.
And it's not because he didn't have the opportunity.
There was a Republican legislative majority
and a Republican governor.
But Brad Schimmel didn't propose reforms
to our sexual assault kit laws
until shortly before the 2018 election.
So again, he left that work for us to do.
Now fortunately, I did advocate for changes in the law
and Governor Evers was ultimately able
to sign those into law.
But again, on this issue, Brad Schimmel
didn't deliver for the people of Wisconsin.
And it's not just sexual assault kits
where this issue has arisen.
Another great example is holding pharmaceutical companies
accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic.
Schimmel never filed suit against Purdue Pharma,
the company that we've alleged was largely responsible
for ushering in the opioid epidemic.
Within several months of my taking office,
we had filed suit.
Brad Schimmel also didn't have Wisconsin
join an investigation into opioid distributors.
Again, within several months of my taking office,
we joined that investigation.
That has now been resolved
and there are hundreds of millions of dollars
coming to Wisconsin because of the resolution
with those opioid distributors.
So again, on that issue,
Brad Schimmel did not deliver for Wisconsinites.
But it's not because he wasn't doing anything.
He was delivering for special interests.
He created a Solicitor General's office
with taxpayer money early on in his tenure.
And that office got the Wisconsin Department of Justice
involved in a variety of highly partisan litigation.
One of the cases that office got involved in was a suit
that tried to take healthcare away
from millions of Americans and eliminate protections
for people with a preexisting condition
by trying to end the Affordable Care Act,
a lawsuit that my administration ultimately withdrew from.
Brad Schimmel also put out an opinion
that barred the DNR from considering
the cumulative impacts of high capacity wells,
which was a great benefit to corporate farms
that wanted to use water from those wells,
but not to the other folks who wanted to use that water.
My administration withdrew that opinion.
It ultimately went to the state Supreme Court.
And the state Supreme Court ruled against the position
Schimmel had taken for two with Justice Eagler in the majority.
Likewise, Brad Schimmel put out an opinion
that prevented DSPS, a state agency,
from enforcing a rule that required
this buyer sprinklers be installed on a number of residences
where there were four or more different residences
within a building.
But we withdrew that opinion
and it hasn't even been challenged since then.
And when we withdrew that opinion,
fire chiefs, a handful of fire chiefs in the state
were clear that that was gonna help save lives.
But Brad Schimmel took the opposite position.
Schimmel said he was proud
that there was a case called Planned Parenthood versus Schimmel.
At one point he went to Margalago for a conference
and another point he went to Fancy Resort in California
for a conference with Alliance Defending Freedom.
So as I said earlier, Brad Schimmel had a poor record
on critical issues impacting Wisconsinites,
but he was essentially on speed dial for special interests.
I think those facts are critical for Wisconsinites
to know with a key state's Supreme Court election coming up.
Of course, we've seen Elon Musk put huge amounts of monies
into that campaign in support of Brad Schimmel's candidacy.
And I think it's vital that Wisconsinites know
about this record and know how important it is
that we have a justice on the court
who is going to decide cases fairly based on the facts
and the law and not be somebody who has consistently taken
the side of special interests
and failed to stand up the Wisconsinites where we need it.
So with that, I'm happy to open up your questions.
I see Todd's hand up, but I can't hear him.
Josh, can you hear me?
Yep, can you know?
So there's a big difference between being the AG
and being a Supreme Court justice.
Really, what does any thing with the sexual assault kids
have to do with being a justice on the Supreme Court?
Well, I think there are a couple of things I would say.
First of all, Brad Schimmel has been spinning this record.
And I think one thing we need from our justices
is for people to be straightforward
with Wisconsinites about the reality.
Now, Brad Schimmel has tried to reframe his record
of botching these kids as somehow a success story.
I think Wisconsinites want somebody
who's going to be candid with them
about where they've succeeded and where they've failed.
But instead, Brad Schimmel is trying to spin his record.
The other thing is what we saw in,
we talked about this in 2018
and I'm talking about it today
is being quick to stand up for special interests
but failing to stand up for the interests of Wisconsinites.
And justices will have cases where they may make a decision
that might impact a special interest
or they might impact the people of Wisconsin.
We need people to make those decisions
based on the facts and the law
and take the high capacity well opinion.
I mean, that's a time where the AG is issuing an opinion
that's meant to reflect the state of the law.
According to four of the six justices
who went in on that case, including Justice Ziegler,
Brad Schimmel got it wrong on that issue.
He took the side of the special interests
over the side of protecting our water in Wisconsin.
And I think that's relevant for folks.
I see Zieg Schultz.
Can you hear me?
Yep.
There's a discrepancy in the numbers
that we see a lot considering the backlog
of 6,800 kids in the backlog, 4,100 that were tested.
I understand that 2,000 plus discrepancy,
some of those were cases that were already adjudicated,
some were found to be unverified.
How many of those remain
that all the way through up to current date
that never did get tested?
And is that for certain they will never be tested?
Or is there still a chance some of those
could go back to see if there was a serial rapist
or something else involved beyond the scope
of that particular case?
Yeah, Zieg, I want to speak to the numbers,
but I also want to make a second point.
So let me start with the numbers.
As I mentioned, there were over 6,000 kids
that had gone untested in Wisconsin
that had accumulated in evidence locker rooms
and hospitals around the state for a number of years.
And in 2014, JB Van Halen completed a survey
where he provided information about that.
There was a further analysis done,
but there were over 6,000 kids.
Now, what Wisconsin DOJ did was they tested only the kids
where there was consent from the survivor to test them.
They took a victim-centric approach.
And I agree with that approach.
I think we should only be testing kids
when the survivor wants to test them.
That basic principle has actually been now codified
into Wisconsin law because under current law,
if a survivor doesn't consent,
the kids are stored at the crime labs
for a period of up to 10 years.
Now, if at some point the survivor does consent
to the testing of that kit, they will be tested,
but this gives survivors control over the process.
But I do think it's important to emphasize
that I know that part of the spin
that Brad Schimmel has put into place
is going into the details on these numbers
and talking about which kids should be tested
and which ones shouldn't be.
Those are legitimate appropriate debates to have.
But the criticism about Brad Schimmel's record
as AG with the testing of the kids
is not about that issue at all.
It's about the fact that in over two years,
his administration only tested nine of the backlog kits.
That's just inexcusable.
It is an abysmal record.
And again, at the same time, he was prioritizing issues
like developing the Solicitor General's Office
to engage in partisan litigation.
Todd?
Yeah, Josh.
Piggybacking on Zach's question,
we almost got there, but we didn't quite get there.
So there's 6800 in the backlog.
When Schimmel said it was done, it was 4,100.
And you say that there were several hundred more
that you found untested when you came in the office?
Is that correct?
Because I know in November 2019, you said it was done.
Yeah, so first of all, yeah, so Todd,
I remember you and I spoke about that in 2019.
So here's the deal and you can go on the website
and find this information,
but there were over 6,000 kits that were identified.
Now, of those 4,000 and some were cases
where the survivor had consented
to having the kits tested.
And so Schimmel shortly before the 2018 election announced
that testing had been completed on those kits
that were slated for testing.
The disparity between what Schimmel said
and what I then later said is,
in cases where there was consent
and there had not been a crime solved,
those kits had been tested, that is true.
But there were about 300 more kits
that the Schimmel administration had agreed to test
in cases where there was a conviction,
but they hadn't yet tested those kits.
So we got that done in my first year as AG.
Now, there are still a number of kits in cases
where the survivors did not consent to testing.
Those kits have not been set for testing
nor will they be consistent with that principle I mentioned,
which is only testing kits when the victim is consented.
Yeah, a quick follow-up if you can hear me.
Yeah.
So how many cases have been charged
as a result of the testing overall?
Yeah, I don't have a precise number offhand,
it's on the website,
but there are a handful of cases
that resulted in convictions.
And what I think is really notable
is the significance of some of those convictions.
So in one of the cases, a person named Matthew Crockett
was convicted of offenses in Racine and Kenosha County,
including three separate charges
of I believe second degree sexual assault.
He was sentenced then to 18 years in prison.
And this is somebody who was free,
who was on the street, who had not been identified.
And it shows why it's so important to test these kits
and ideally to test them a lot faster
than they were tested under Brad Schimmel
so that perpetrators can be identified
and held accountable.
All right, and we have time for one more question.
If anyone has one.
All right, seeing none, I'll turn it over to you,
Attorney General, if you have any closing thoughts.
No, I just wanna say thank you to everybody for joining us.
And thanks for this opportunity
to share some information about this.
Take care.
Thanks.
Thank you.
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Thank you.