Brad Schimel planned to keep secret records of trip, his emails show

Keegan Kyle | USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel planned to keep secret a $4,100 trip last year that was funded by a Christian legal organization accused of being a hate group, according to newly released records.

The five-day trip to a southern California resort in July 2017 surfaced this month after Schimel alluded to a conference paid for by the Alliance Defending Freedom in annual financial disclosures.

The Republican attorney general has since faced criticism from Democrats and a national civil rights group. ADF has been previously called an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Schimel appeared on conservative talk radio programs last week to refute the criticisms, saying in one interview that there is "nothing anti-gay" about ADF and he attended the conference to speak on a panel about states' rights.

"I’ve never gone to a conference where there was frankly so much love," Schimel said during another interview.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says ADF has supported criminalizing homosexuality, defended state-sanctioned sterilization of transgender people and developed legislation that would deny lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people goods and services on the basis of religion. ADF says it works to preserve freedoms for all Americans.

Weeks before ADF's conference, Schimel wrote in an email to Department of Justice aides that the trip was none of the public’s business.

"Since the conference is personal/political travel not in any way funded by tax payers, I do not plan to have any portion of it become public information," he wrote. "When I get an agenda, I do not plan to have it become an official document."

As attorney general, Schimel oversees state laws requiring transparency in government record-keeping and meetings. When he ran for office in 2014, he made improving government transparency a prominent theme of his campaign.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin obtained Schimel's email and other documents related to his ADF trip from Department of Justice officials under state open records laws. Asked about Schimel's email, a spokeswoman said the attorney general was using "shorthand phrases" with a scheduler.

"The AG was simply instructing his scheduler that she did not need to place the agenda in his official travel records file since the travel would be privately funded," spokeswoman Rebecca Ballweg said. "The agenda was obviously a public record and has been provided."

Ballweg also said Schimel's description of the trip being "personal/political" was shorthand for it being privately funded. She said his remarks at the conference "were provided in his official capacity," although Schimel defended his attendance last week by saying, "This was a conference on my personal time."

Schimel and other Wisconsin officials are prohibited by law from using state resources for personal or political purposes. A couple weeks prior to the ADF conference, Schimel's emails indicate he consulted with a Department of Justice employee to prepare for his panel and suggested a meeting over lunch.

Asked if that meeting violated state law, Ballweg said "taxpayer resources were not used to assist (Schimel) in traveling to the conference."

Newly released records show Schimel and his wife attended ADF's conference. Ballweg said ADF invited Schimel's wife to attend. ADF paid for the hotel room the couple shared and some of her meals. The attorney general personally paid other expenses related to his wife's travel.

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, said it was unclear from Schimel's emails whether his meeting with a staffer before the conference qualified as misusing state resources since a lunch meeting could be considered personal time.

"It does look like Schimel attempted to separate state time from personal/political time," Heck said after reviewing the emails. "I guess the question would be if the briefing for the conference occurred on state or personal time and it appears the attempt, at least, was to do it on personal time."

Schimel met with Deputy Solicitor General Kevin LeRoy, who also attended the ADF conference. Ballweg said ADF paid for LeRoy's hotel and meals, and state taxpayers covered other expenses. The Associated Press reported Friday the trip cost taxpayers about $1,000.

"He attended the conference as a lawyer to learn more about religious liberty issues," Ballweg said. "It is not uncommon for DOJ to pay travel expenses for attorneys to attend legal conferences."

Ballweg said Wisconsin Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin also attended a portion of the conference to co-lead a session. She said ADF and Tseytlin split the costs. USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin filed an open records request Friday for Department of Justice records about LeRoy and Tseytlin's travel.

Unlike Schimel, neither LeRoy nor Tseytlin is required to report privately funded travel to state ethics officials for annual financial disclosures.

The records released this week about Schimel's travel include agendas he planned to keep out of public view. The agendas show ADF invited him to join attorneys general from Nebraska, South Carolina and Texas to speak about states’ legal challenges to federal law. The panel was titled, "Reinvigorated Federalism: Innovative (and Constitutional!) State Efforts for Human Flourishing."

In response to requests for records of Schimel’s remarks at the conference, Department of Justice officials said his comments were unscripted and the state has no recordings or transcripts. A panel itinerary outlines only wide-ranging questions touching on free speech, adoptions, policing, gender-related case law and other issues.

Schimel, who is campaigning for re-election this year, has defended ADF's handling of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that involves a Colorado cake baker who refused to provide services for a gay marriage.

"Nobody’s suggesting that same-sex people shouldn’t be married," Schimel told WTMJ radio’s Steve Scaffidi. "(The baker) just wants to exercise his religious freedom. We’re just trying to get the Supreme Court to recognize that there is a line."

"No one hates anybody at the Alliance Defending Freedom," Schimel said.

ADF spokeswoman Brianna Herlihy said her organization believes everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. She called the Southern Poverty Law Center a “discredited, violence-inciting organization that does very little other than raise money off of defaming” others who disagree with its ideology.

Josh Kaul, the attorney general's Democrat challenger, and Human Rights Campaign, which calls itself the nation’s largest civil rights organization for LGBTQ people, have condemned Schimel for attending ADF’s conference.