Wisc AG Considers Probe of John Doe Leak Exposing Republican Venality

Stung by a blockbuster report exposing lies, deceptions, criminal schemes and corruption throughout Wisconsin Republican state government, Republicans in the Dept of Justice are considering investigating the sources(s) of the embarrassing revelations, reports Molly Beck in the Wisconsin State Journal.

I bet Republicans are very curious.

Email after email shows Walker and his campaign aides coordinated with the independent group, Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Walker is "flying around the country collecting money from billionaires and corporate interests to protect himself," notes Democracy Now this morning.

Wisconsin Republicans Lied Over and Over

Wisconsin Republicans are crooks and liars.

Ed Pilkington of the Guardian offers a blockbuster report based on leaked documents from the John Doe probe revealing why Republicans are desperate to stop the publication of Scott Walker-related emails from the John Doe II investigation.

Emails written before and during the 2011-12 Recall-Walker and allied state senators' campaign show the rats' nest of Republican corruption and law-breaking extending throughout Wisconsin elected government seemingly into most every corner Republicans befouled with their illegal campaign schemes.

Writes Pilkington:

By 20 March, two weeks before the election, worry is distilling into panic. Brian Fraley of the Wisconsin-based conservative think-tank the MacIver Institute, shoots an impassioned plea for help to what he calls his 'group' of like-minded lobbying groups and individuals, forwarded to Walker's chief of staff and other top advisers in Madison.

'David Prosser is in trouble,' Fraley begins. 'And if we lose him, the Walker agenda is toast, as could be the Senate GOP majority and any successes creating a new redistricted map. That's not hyperbole.' 

The Guardian report comes as next month the United States Supreme Court will likely vote to hear the federal case that will show corrupt Wisconsin Supreme Court judges improperly heard a Wisconsin John Doe case bearing directly on some judges' personal legal and political futures,  i.e. judges had a personal interest in the outcomes of the John Doe case and should have recused themselves, (No. 15M121. John T. Chisholm, et al., Petitioners v. Two Unnamed Petitioners, et al, (Ferral, The Capital Times).

Notes Pilkington:

John Doe files obtained by the Guardian give clues as to why the prosecutors have raised doubts about impartiality in the state courts. They suggest that two of the conservative judges on Wisconsin's top court who voted to halt the John Doe investigation may have themselves been intimately connected to the same campaigning network of rightwing politicians, lobbyists and major donors that the prosecutors were investigating.

Take David Prosser. He was one of the four conservative judges who approved the July 2015 ruling that terminated the John Doe investigation, sacked Schmitz from his position as special prosecutor and ordered the destruction of all the documents that had been collected (later that order was softened a little to a demand that the prosecutors hand in all the documents to the court which would keep them secret under seal).

At precisely the same time as the six Republican senators were embroiled in their recall election, Prosser was in his own electoral fight for survival. He was up for re-election in April 2011 and facing a tough challenge from JoAnne Kloppenburg, then Wisconsin's assistant attorney general. The Prosser election and the recall election were intertwined in that Kloppenburg was attempting to turn her battle against Prosser into a referendum on Governor Walker's anti-union legislation, Act 10.

The Guardian report reveals corruption and lies from Wisconsin
Republicans, as life as usual proceeds in the sleepy state.

Noted also from the email leak is the coordinated widespread Republican disinformation campaign fabricating the voter fraud canard.

From Rick Hasan's Election Law site:

Recall Elections Blog:

... Rick Hasen at the Election Law Blog notes one specific email, where 'a Republican operative' suggests "messaging ‘widespread reports of election fraud’ so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number."

Longtime readers, if any, of this blog may remember that this early push on election fraud claims definitely happened in a very specific way:

Here is Scott Walker claiming that he needs over 53% of the vote because voter fraud is going to claim 1-2% of the vote.

Here’s RNC Chair Reince Priebus backing up the same voter fraud claim.

Here’s future state House Speaker Robin Vos claiming that the Republican’s loss in a Wisconsin Senate recall race was partly due to fraud.

Cheat, lie, steal and lie. It's the Republican way.

Scott Walker's Illegal Collusion Case Before U.S. Supreme Court

"Gov. Scott Walker's campaign and a supposedly independent conservative group were 'one and the same,' prosecutors told the U.S. Supreme Court in a filing this week seeking to reopen a probe of the governor's campaign that state (Republican) courts shut down," (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) (PRWatch) (U.S. Supreme Court) (The Capital Times) (Capital Times document - On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari).

A John Doe investigation looked into Scott Walker and right-wing groups' possible collusion in the 2011-12 Recall campaign to determine if and by whom a crime may have been committed.

In response, in July 2105 right-wingers on the discredited Wisconsin Supreme Court shut down the John Doe probe, and declared a new doctrine of the First Amendment speech clause as it relates to campaign finance law, (PRWatch) days after Walker declared his run for the presidency (Healy, NYT).

Reported PRWatch:

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson was stripped of her title after an election earlier [in 2105 in] which WMC spent $600,000. Her dissent in the John Doe [ruling] is stinging: "Lest the length, convoluted analysis, and overblown rhetoric of the majority opinion obscure its effect, let me state clearly: The majority opinion adopts an unprecedented and faulty interpretation of Wisconsin's campaign finance law and of the First Amendment. In doing so, the majority opinion delivers a significant blow to Wisconsin's campaign finance law and to its paramount objectives of 'stimulating vigorous campaigns on a fair and equal basis" and providing for "a better informed electorate.'"

Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature and Scott Walker then in October 2105 rewrote the Wisconsin John Doe statute explicitly prohibiting public integrity and corruption probes, (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Now Wisconsin right-wingers are targeting Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm politically and legally in retaliation for investigating Walker-right-winger machinations.

Republicans changed the date for the Wisconsin state primary from September to August shortly after they gained power in 2011 to facilitate running GOP-friendly candidates in low turnout primaries.

Scott Walker's New Scheme to Use Government Against Opponents

Most Americans believe we live in a Constitutional representative democracy where citizens can at least count on elected representatives to make policy with an eye toward the welfare of the citizenry.

Republicans no longer believe in this.

Government is a tool used against political opponents, against the right to vote, used to reward financial benefactors, and used as a means of keeping in power, through gerrymandering, the very corrupt politicians now infesting the body politic.

Scott Walker, who has already turned civil service positions into political appointees, now wants the civil service-hired employees to become part of a Republican machine to be used against opponents.

Do you trust your personal information with Republican-vetted bureaucrats?

Believe that Wisconsin Republicans will maliciously use the Department of Justice, the Department of Revenue and other levers of government for corrupt purposes.

If you trust Republican Party forbearance and ethics will keep the corrupt use of public office in check, you're dreaming.

Consider Scott Walker's corrupt use of the Milwaukee County Executive's office and his illegal scheme to coordinate massive private pay-off money for his own corrupt purposes, and the elimination of independent checks on corruption that Republicans wish to eliminate.

Wisconsin's survival as a healthy democratic state depends on not just an aroused and informed citizenry, it depends on a federal check against the public misconduct of the Walker administration and all its fetid tentacles.

Bear in mind Scott Walker will remain a corrupt, narrow-minded lightweight not fit for public office.

Walkers—Rapacious, Mindless Creatures Are Back and in Trouble

Scott Walker might just be looking to establish another criminal defense fund, make that cooperation fund because Dan Bice reports this morning that another Wisconsin John Doe probe has commenced.

"A former top-level assistant U.S. attorney (Francis Schmitz) has been appointed a special prosecutor in a burgeoning, secret investigation into a wide variety of state issues, including possible campaign violations during the recent recall elections, multiple sources said.

"Overseeing the case is Kenosha County Circuit Judge Barbara A. Kluka, who has been used by Milwaukee County judicial officials in past John Doe cases."

A probe to find the truth, and prosecute those who can be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? I'll believe it when I see it.

It would be nice if Schmitz' probe could look into David Koch's money funneled into the Wisconsin recall election. After all, Koch is on record noting that "he took credit for the fact the Republicans maintained control of the legislature in the Senate" recall elections held in August 2011.

Koch said it "was the work our people did, what Americans for Prosperity did and the money spent that enabled them [the Republicans] to keep control in the [state] senate."

Americans for Prosperity to which the Koch brothers have contributed $ Millions is a 501(c)(4) organization and not a 501(c)(3), as had been reported in many media outlets.

There is no controversy that (c)(4)s may legally participate in political elections, but 501(c)(3)s are not allowed to do substantial electoral work. The MacIver Institute, for example is a 501(c)(3), and has advocated for Scott Walker during the recall elections.

Notes Bill Lueders: "Groups registered as 501(c)(3)s can do some lobbying for or against legislation (but not candidates), so long as this is 'an insubstantial part' of their overall activities, a threshold the IRS has not clearly defined. Most groups that engage in issue advocacy opt for a different tax status, 501(c)(4)."

The political world will be looking even more closely at Scott Walker now.

Wisconsin statute 968.26 on John Doe proceedings is the statutory authority for conducting John Doe probes in Wisconsin.

As noted here, the purpose of a John Doe investigation is to determine if and by whom a crime has been committed in a given court's jurisdiction, by statute.

There are a very wide range of causes why a district attorney might request a judge to convene a John Doe proceeding: Conflicts of interest, practical difficulties, and so on.

Scott Walker on motorcycle at Operation Freedom event.
Walker's personal aides stole from fund meant for veterans

And stonewalling, like in 2010 when Scott Walker's gang led investigators to conclude that Walker's bunch were unwilling or disinclined to explain why Walker's county executive office staff and campaign ripped money off from military veterans, among other crimes

Remember Operation Freedom, advertised by then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, as "thanks (to) our Armed Forces members and veterans for their service." (July 5, 2009).

Remember Timothy Russell, former and personally appointed aide to Scott Walker?

Russell had no veterans' advocacy experience, no non-profit experience but was appointed by Walker anyway and proceeded to embezzle (among other felonies) some $20,000 from a veterans' picnic called Operation Freedom, sponsored by Walker while serving as Milwaukee County Executive.