A Cheyenne attorney wants the Wyoming Supreme Court to intervene in a complaint he filed in April against Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray for sharing sensitive voter data with the federal government.
In the petition filed Tuesday, George Powers asks the high court for two things — to command Attorney General Keith Kautz, himself a former supreme court justice, to recuse himself and his office from investigating the allegations contained in the complaint, and to appoint an independent prosecutor to handle the matter.
In April, Powers filed an election code complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, alleging that Gray may have broken state law when, in August, he gave the driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers of every registered voter to the U.S. Department of Justice. The Trump administration began seeking that information from all 50 states in 2025.
Gray has stood by the move, arguing it was in the name of election integrity and made in consultation with the attorney general.
“This is a clear attempt by Leftist attorney George Powers to weaponize the legal system against a conservative for my work on election integrity during a campaign, just like the radical Left did against President Trump,” Gray said in a statement to WyoFile.
Powers says Kautz has a conflict of interest because his office advised Gray, and he asked the attorney general to refer his complaint to an independent party. But since filing the complaint, Powers said Kautz has kept the public in the dark about its status, as WyoFile reported this week.
The petition, filed Tuesday, would force the complaint out of Kautz’s hands.
“Kautz and the attorneys in his office cannot maintain their duties of loyalty and confidentiality to their client, Secretary Gray, while they also fulfill their public duties to vigorously represent the State of Wyoming and conduct a full and fair investigation and, if necessary, a prosecution of Secretary Gray,” the petition states.
“Their duties to their client, Secretary Gray, and the duties they owe to their other client, the people of the State of Wyoming, are directly adverse and cannot be waived.”
Casper-based attorneys Ryan Semerad and Rob Shively are representing Powers.
Their petition asks for a writ of mandamus — a legal action that allows a court to order government officials to perform their public duties. Because it is considered an extraordinary remedy, courts will only grant a petition for a writ of mandamus if it meets certain requirements, including a clear right to relief, a defined duty to act and no other legal recourse in the matter.
How we got here
Last year, the Justice Department started asking states to hand over election-related records and data, including copies of statewide voter registration lists. The Trump administration has argued its efforts are intended to keep elections secure. At a hearing in March, a Justice Department official said the agency planned to run the collected voter roll information against Department of Homeland Security data.
In response to the federal government, most states either provided publicly available versions of their voter registration lists — i.e., data sets without sensitive information — or refused to provide such records, underscoring the fact that the U.S. Constitution explicitly tasks states, and not the federal government, with administering elections. Many states also raised privacy concerns.
So far, the Trump administration has filed 31 lawsuits against states with both Democratic and Republican chief election officials. Eight of those cases have been dismissed. Wyoming, meanwhile, was the first of 15 states to fully comply.
In his April complaint, Powers cited three separate state laws, including one that makes it a felony for an official to violate the election code and another that specifies the confidentiality of certain election records.
One week after Powers submitted his complaint, Kautz wrote him an email.
“Our office received your Complaint of April 13 and a Supplement on April 17, 2026,” Kautz wrote. “We will address them in accordance with our office policies, the law and the Wyoming Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.”
Records indicate that Powers wrote back several hours later, thanking the attorney general for acknowledging the complaint.
“I look forward to receiving your further response,” Powers wrote. “With regard to the ‘office policies’ mentioned in your email, could you please let me know what those policies are or where I can find them?”
“There are no written policies,” Kautz responded 30 minutes later. “No response will be forthcoming.”
A week later, Powers received a letter from Deputy Attorney General Mackenzie Williams.
“I am writing this letter to refute your claims that the Secretary of State has waived attorney-client privilege as applied to the Attorney General’s advice to Secretary Gray,” Williams wrote on April 27.
The letter did not otherwise address the complaint or its status, including whether it had been referred to an independent party. Since then, Powers has said he has not received any more information on his complaint.
It was a request, not any of it is legal as states control voting records. Just because trumpet asks, doesn’t make it legal. And it was illegal. Our State Constitution says it’s not legal. Chuckles swore an oath to the Wyoming Constitution. He broke that oath and the law.
Prosecute him.
Careful all or he will come after all of us the way he went after Clair McFarland. His behavior is despicable.
I saw that. “Radical left” this and that, “defamation” here and there. Pretty unusual “interview” if you’d call it that. Any particular question that Ms. McFarland asked, or attempted to, was “answered” by stock MAGA talking points and attacks. Really classy dude.
Chuck Gray stubs his toe on a coffee table and blames it on the “Radical Left”
Gray says that handing out our sensitive data to the Feds was for “election integrity”..Bullshit, Chucky, you sold us out so you could have a front row seat to kiss the ass of the orange chump. You’re a despicable little man
Poor itty-bitty Chucky. Now’s he’s got all of these meany lawyers picking on him and all he was trying to was to protect our votes. Gimme a break.
If these guys are so squeaky clean they should welcome an independent investigation into whether Gray had the legal rights to do what he did, sending all of our personal information to Washington to get another “great job Chuck” from Trump. If it was legal, so be it and put it to rest. Sometime really stinks here.
That should have read “something really stinks here”… gotta love spell check