Appleton Post Crescent: Scott Walker Owes Explanation about Secret Email System

The Appleton Post-Crescent blasted Scott Walker in a weekend editorial condemning Walker for his hostility to the Wisconsin people's right to know.

The blistering editorial in the wake of revelations of secret emails follows similar blasts from the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, the Beloit Daily Herald, the Wisconsin State Journal, the Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

It's no wonder Walker and the Republicans attack voting, gerrymander the legislative districts in secret, attack open government in criminal violation of the law; one can go on listing the Walker assaults against democracy.

Scott Walker is all about evading accountability for his actions against the people of Wisconsin.

Walker will say in quickly muttered bursts: I want to talk about the future, not the past.

Of course Walker does, this way he doesn't have to account for his criminal past. And Scott Walker's promises about the future are as unreliable as his commitment to the public's right to know what their governor is doing and has done to their state.

Scott Walker should face the people of Wisconsin, and answer their questions to their satisfaction.

The Appleton Post-Crescent editorial reads in part:

It’s about responsible government and subverting the public’s right to know. ...

Walker has refused to answer questions about the email system, but he needs to. Did he know about it and participate in it, as at least one of the emails states? And if so, how does he think this secret system was ethical? How does he think hiding communication that’s considered a public record was serving his constituents?

His answers will speak to his integrity not just when he was Milwaukee County executive but today, as governor. His lack of answers so far speaks to it, too.

The Wisconsin Campaign for Governor in 2014—A Morality Play

Suppose a Wisconsin officeholder assumes public office and one of his first acts is to arrange a campaign operation inside the very office confines to which he was elected.

Not just a political infrastructure, but an active campaign with electioneering, email system and laptops, monitoring the media, secret communications in violation of Wisconsin's public records law (a primary check against New Jersey-style political corruption), regular meetings of campaign and public office staff inside the office (a courthouse office) and his top aides and the officeholder using the public office to coordinate campaign strategy with carrying out public duties. And with top aides reminding each other to carry out the campaigning covertly.

Any reasonable person would see this as knowingly committing misconduct in office, criminal misconduct in office.

We don't have to suppose; we have Scott Walker. His aides were convicted or took immunity deals.

Walker was elected governor and the evidence in emails and testimony obtained by law enforcement resulted in 15 criminal convictions.

After using the Milwaukee County Executive's office as a campaign office, including but not exclusive to Walker's 2010 run for Wisconsin governor, Walker again betrayed the Wisconsin people as governor and sold out to big-moneyed interests and his own extremist ideology on which he dared not campaign, while making unequivocal promises of 250,000 new jobs.

Scott Walker's Non-denial and Slur on Walker's Older, Secret Intranet System; File This

For future use, file Scott Walker's flack and his statement trying to knock down Bob Kiefert's piece: "I can report that Walker knew about this [illegal] system as far back as 2002. How do I know? I helped Tim Russell set it up."

Walker campaign spokesman Jonathan Wetzel said, in reference to Kiefert's exclusive being picked up by the Wisconsin State Journal, "That a recent blog post by a Democrat Party activist, unsubstantiated in any way whatsoever, is being reported as factual is ridiculous." (DeFour. Wisconsin State Journal)

Ridiculous? Unsubstantiated?

Wow. Sounds like reckless disregard and defamation to me.

How about suing Kiefert and the Green Bay Progressive for libel and defamation, if Scott Walker and Jonathan Wetzel really believe Kiefert's story is ridiculous.

Maybe former Walker aide, Tim Russell, can get in the act as well; he'll be out of prison soon for embezzling from veterans.

Or, how about suing the Wisconsin State Journal's business entities?

Don't look for a comment or a lawsuit from Scott Walker's office though; truth remains a compelling defense against charges of libel.

Stay tuned though for more from Kiefert.

Scott Walker Has Smoking 50-caliber As Emails Network Administrator Comes Forward

The release of some 27,000 emails from the secret e-mail system used by Scott Walker and his Milwaukee County and campaign staff should put to rest the myth that Scott Walker didn't know of or Scott Walker has not been part of the system on which Walker and his most trusted County and campaign aides communicated.

No smoking gun, say some observers.

Now comes late-breaking news from Matthew DeFour in the Wisconsin State Journal:

Gov. Scott Walker's Milwaukee County executive office was using a secret Internet system as early as 2002, according to a former county administrator who said he helped set up the network.

That's several years earlier than prosecutors disclosed in a complaint against one of Walker's former aides who was convicted of using a secret system to campaign on the taxpayers' dime.

Milwaukee County human resources assistant director Bob Kiefert said he was called into Walker's office in 2002 by then-deputy chief of staff Tim Russell. Kiefert showed Russell how to set up a hard-wired Internet connection using a DSL modem and a telephone line. The network allowed county executive staff to send and receive emails and surf the Web outside the public system set up by the county's Information Management Services Division in 1998.

Kiefert first disclosed the story in a piece in the Green Bay Progressive.