MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has been eyeing a 2016 presidential run since his battles with labor unions made him a Republican star, is in the midst of dealing with the fallout of two criminal investigations at home that could complicate his move to the national stage.
One is ongoing, and while the other is now closed with no allegations of wrongdoing by Walker, it has the lingering potential to embarrass him.
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That could begin as early as Wednesday with the release of more than 25,000 pages of e-mails from an ex-staffer that were gathered as part of the now-concluded investigation.
The e-mails and other previously sealed court documents showed that there was nearly daily coordination between Walker, public employees in Walker’s county executive’s office and his campaign team in the run-up to his 2010 election as governor. The probe focused on Walker’s time as Milwaukee County executive before his 2010 election as governor and led to convictions of six former aides and allies.
Two of Walker’s aides from that time were convicted of criminal offenses for co-mingling county and political business and Walker’s level of knowledge of those activities has long been a question.
The new documents show that it was Walker himself who directed that his county staff and campaign aides hold a daily conference call to coordinate strategy. Walker also routinely used a campaign email account to email county staffers also using private email addresses, a strategy prosecutors have said was used to shield political business from public release.
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Walker faces an additional inquiry from state prosecutors, who are believed to be looking into whether his successful 2012 recall campaign illegally coordinated with independent conservative groups.
That investigation could prove damaging if it hobbles key Walker campaign aides as he gears up for an expected vigorous reelection challenge in November. Combined with the possibility of additional future disclosures from the first investigation, the new probe threatens to hurt the governor as he attempts to gain momentum as a White House contender amid the scandal that has dimmed the 2016 prospects of a fellow star GOP governor, New Jersey’s Chris Christie.
The Wisconsin investigations have been particularly mysterious due to the state’s unusually strict secrecy laws, which have resulted in gag orders even for witnesses and targets. The rules have hampered Walker’s ability to respond and left critics and allies alike uncertain of the extent to which the probes could damage him.
Walker’s spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. But some of the governor’s allies have criticized the investigations as politically biased, and one group, the Wisconsin Club for Growth, last week filed a federal lawsuit calling the probe into possible illegal coordination a violation of free-speech rights.
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The e-mails being released Wednesday come from the files of Kelly Rindfleisch, a former Walker deputy chief of staff who in 2012 pleaded guilty to a felony for performing political work for a Walker-backed lieutenant governor candidate during hours she was being paid by taxpayers to do county business. The e-mails are being unsealed as part of her appeal.
Prosecutors said she sent 1,400 e-mails on county time related to political fundraising. More than 2,200 e-mails, they said, went to Walker campaign officials.
Many were sent using a private e-mail address and an Internet router installed in the county executive office suite with the intention of shielding the work from public access, prosecutors said.
Walker was copied on a handful of e-mails, released by prosecutors during Rindfleisch’s sentencing, that showed county workers and campaign aides jointly coordinating strategy.
Prosecutors said then that Walker was not a target, and he was not charged.
But Wisconsin Democrats hope the new e-mails could still prove politically harmful to Walker, perhaps providing examples of times when he appeared to be aware of the router or of political work being performed on the county’s dime.
Democratic officials in the state are salivating over the chance to draw comparisons to Christie, who enjoyed an image among national Republicans as a stand-up fighter for conservative causes until internal e-mails revealed a plot by aides to create a massive traffic jam as possible political retribution against a Democratic mayor.
“Will there be indication that Scott Walker knew about the illegal behavior that took place? I don’t know,” said Mike Tate, chairman of the state Democratic Party. But, he added, “all we need is something bad to be in these 27,000 e-mails, and all attention will turn to Wisconsin.”
Others believe the reams of paper will produce nothing new from a three-year investigation from which Walker emerged without serious political damage.
“The convictions they got were on the periphery and really had nothing to do with Scott Walker. It was collateral damage,” said Craig Peterson, a former Wisconsin Republican campaign strategist. “What they wanted to find was corruption and they didn’t.”
In his book, “Unintimidated,” released last year, Walker noted that efforts to use the probe against him in the 2012 recall campaign fell flat.
“I reminded the voters that as an Eagle Scout, ‘I live by the standards of integrity I got from my parents,’” he wrote.
Walker wrote that the probe began after his own chief of staff alerted the local district attorney to possible embezzlement at a veterans’ charity.
That sparked what is known as a “John Doe” investigation, a Wisconsin criminal tool that allows prosecutors to interview witnesses and subpoena records in front of a judge instead of a grand jury.
The scope of the investigation proved surprisingly broad: Rindfleisch was one of two Walker aides convicted of mixing political and public business.
Tim Russell, another Walker deputy chief of staff was one of two people convicted of stealing from a veterans’ charity. Russell’s partner was found guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And a Walker campaign donor pleaded guilty of exceeding campaign finance limits by reimbursing employees of his railroad company for their donations.
“It was like a slow-moving glacier, picking up everything as it went,” said Michael Maistelman, a Democratic attorney who for a time represented Russell. “You turn over enough rocks, you’re going to find something.”
Even in the face of profound pressure from prosecutors, Walker’s aides did not turn on him — and there is no sign that any are likely to provide new attention-grabbing information in the future.
“I am certain that Kelly Rindfleisch isn’t going to be that person,” said Franklyn Gimbel, Rindfleisch’s attorney. “Under any circumstance, for any reason. Because she doesn’t believe he did anything.”
It is believed that some piece of evidence turned up during the probe that resulted in the opening of the still ongoing second investigation.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in October that the investigation is probing possible illegal political coordination during the 2012 recall elections and has spread to five Wisconsin counties, two of them with Republican district attorneys who have joined three Democratic prosecutors in turning the case over to a special prosecutor.
It is illegal in Wisconsin for candidates to coordinate their campaign activities with outside organizations that do not face the same restrictions on donations if the groups advocate for their election.
Democratic groups have long complained that the 2012 race was awash in outside spending, as conservative groups rallied to keep Walker in office. A Walker political adviser, they note, also served as a spokesman to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which spent heavily on the race.
Conservative groups have moved aggressively to convince federal and state judges, as well as the public, that the ongoing inquiry is an unfair partisan push meant to immobilize the right and embarrass Walker.
A sealed judicial opinion issued earlier this year and obtained by the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page has fueled the effort. The document showed that a judge quashed a set of subpoenas in the probe, ruling that prosecutors had failed “to show probable cause that a crime was committed.”
The Journal editorialized that the ruling vindicated their suspicion that the “probe is a political operation intended to shut up Mr. Walker’s allies as he seeks re-election this year.” Prosecutors will likely appeal the ruling.
In its lawsuit, the Wisconsin Club for Growth, one of 29 right-leaning groups that have received subpoenas in the matter, charged that the still-secret probe is “calculated to chill protected speech” and therefore violates the civil rights of the group and its leader Eric O’Keefe.
David Rivkin, a Washington-based lawyer for the Club for Growth, said that already, the investigation has largely halted the group’s political activities in the state. He said the probe has sidelined the anti-tax group from weighing in on behalf of a $500-million tax cut Walker is now advocating, while the secrecy rules inhibit its ability to fully defend itself. Even the group’s federal complaint is heavily redacted in deference to the John Doe rules. “This is worse than anything I’ve ever seen,” Rivkin said of the secrecy. “It’s Kafkaesque. . . . And bad things happen when there is no sunlight.”
The lawsuit also accuses Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat who launched both probes, of political bias. It notes, for instance, that there has been no indication that any left-leaning groups have faced similar prosecutor’s scrutiny though unions were active in the election as well.
If conservative groups succeed in undermining the investigation’s legitimacy, the result could ironically convert the probe from a possible Walker weakness into an unexpected strength, rallying conservatives around a governor perceived to be holding firm against liberal bullies.
This article originally appeared in The Washington Post
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