On Friday morning, Milwaukee County District Attorney, a Democrat, announced that an investigation into illegal campaigning and other illegal acts while current Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was the county's executive had concluded nine days earlier. Three former Walker aides, a political appointee, and two private citizens were sentenced. Two county officials pled guilty to crimes relating to campaigning on government time; two others stole money, one from a not-for-profit group and another from a county commission. One private citizen was sentenced for exceeding campaign contribution limits and laundering contributions; the other pled no contest to importuning a 17 year-old boy.
Walker himself was not charged. A top state Democratic Party official was so angry that he tweeted Jeffrey Dahmer analogies. It is pretty obvious, based on word choices he made in his related writeup, that the Associated Press's Scott Bauer, whose biased coverage of Walker has been clear for at least the past two years (previous NewsBusters posts with his tag are here), was also extremely displeased (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
SECRET INVESTIGATION INTO WALKER AIDES CLOSES
A secret investigation into illegal campaign activity [1] by former aides and associates of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker quietly closed last week without any charges against the Republican darling of the national conservative movement. [2]
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced Friday that the so-called John Doe investigation [3] ended on Feb. 20, the same day Walker delivered his budget address to the state Legislature.
The investigation has hounded Walker - a possible 2016 presidential candidate - throughout his first two years in office. [4] Walker steadfastly and repeatedly denied he had done anything wrong, even as six people around him were charged with crimes [5] stemming from activity in the Milwaukee County executive's office when Walker held that position between 2002 and 2010.
... "We appreciate the effort that was undertaken and to bring appropriate matters to justice," Walker said in a statement issued through his campaign.
... Walker hired high-profile criminal defense attorneys from Chicago, started a legal defense fund that grew to $200,000 through the end of 2012 and met voluntarily with prosecutors in April. [6] He always maintained his innocence and said he did not know that county workers were illegally campaigning while on the job. Walker said he had built a firewall to ensure county workers were not ordered to do campaign work while on county time.
Democrats insisted that evidence uncovered during the investigation showed that Walker was involved in illegal campaigning. [7]
"It's not a feather in Scott Walker's cap that he was not charged with a crime," said Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski. [8] "This is unprecedented in Wisconsin history and it speaks to the poor values of this governor."
Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate said he hoped all documents related to the case would be made public to present a complete picture of Walker's involvement. [9] But the judge overseeing the case, in his order closing it, also kept in place a secrecy order affecting documents and other information gathered during the probe.
Notes:
[1] -- The investigation, as seen in its results was into matters besides "illegal campaign activity."
[2] -- If Walker were a Democrat, Bauer would likely have written that Walker was "exonerated" or "cleared." All he could manage here was a "without any charges," seeming to imply without any support that there was damning evidence, just not enough of it.
[3] -- It's not a "so-called John Doe investigation," Scott. It is a John Doe investigation. It's what Decmoratic DA Chisholm called it in his press release.
[4] -- The investigation has "hounded" Walker so badly that he was able to win the Badger State governor's race, get his legislative agenda passed despite unprecedented lawlessness by opposition Democrats who fled the state for some time rather than allow its passage, and handily defeat a richly-funded union-backed effort to recal him. every politican would love to be "hounded" like that.
[5] -- That sentence has a significant guilt-by-association undercurrent. Bauer can'y see how Walker can deny wrongdoing when others associated with him were charged. Geez, very few in the establishment press presumptively made criminal associations when shady characters around Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or Barack Obama were involved.
[6] -- Image that. Walker decided he should aggressively defend himself -- with lawyers from Chicago, no less. That must mean he's guilty. (/sarc)
[7] -- Well, since it was a secret investigation, it's hard to imagine what "evidence" the Dems are referring to -- unless they want to admit to illegal activity in getting it.
[8] -- Bauer, whose dispatch carries a 5:57 p.m. Friday time stamp, surely knew that this isn't everything Zielinski had to say about Walker's de facto exoneration. Zielinski put up a series of tweets late Friday morning (if not earlier; my determination is based on a 3 p.m. ET story at the Daily Caller where Zielinski's tweets show that they were posted "3 hrs. ago," which would be 11 a.m. Central Time), one of which stated that "@GovWalker had better lawyers than Jeffrey Dahmer in beating the rap. Clear that he committed crimes." If a Republican spokesperson had tweeted something similar, it would have been a prime national news story in milliseconds.
[9] -- The reason the investigation is secret (quoting from the DA's press release) is "to prevent the public disclosure of allegations that are not well-supported by the evidence." The only reason Dems want what would arguably be an illegal release of such information is to continue their all-out smear campaign against Walker. Sorry guys, the DA and the judge aren't going to help you with that -- or at least they shouldn't.
Looking at the bright side, at least Bauer didn't dishonestly write that Walker's legislation resulted in "stripping most public employees of their union right to collectively bargain" -- as he did just after Walker prevailed in the June 2012 recall.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
