Former Wisconsin Prosecutor: Hyperpartisan Wife, Hyperpartisan Prosecutor, Hyperpartisan Staff Drove the Walker Investigation

Cherchez la femme.

The story comes from Stuart Taylor, who is, as far as I can tell, pretty much the only liberal in America who has any interest in keeping liberalism honest (i.e., the only liberal in America actually interested in liberalism). *

The media published six thousand stories on the investigation of Scott Walker -- many of them after the investigation had been quashed by a judge for being wrongful prosecutions, without informing readers of that fact -- but I don't think there'll be much interest in this latest chapter.

The future of the Wisconsin’s governor’s race could hang on a federal appeals court in Chicago hearing a potentially explosive case today.

Depending on how the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decides, the ruling will have major impact on the scope of political speech, the role of voter’s donations in politics, and the fate of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a 2016 Republican presidential hopeful.

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Gov. Walker, a Republican, is at the center of a sweeping and secretive four-year criminal investigation by Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, and other prosecutors, that is now focused on alleged "illegal coordination" of campaign funding by the governor and 29 independent nonprofits -- virtually the entire conservative movement in Wisconsin.

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Now a longtime Chisholm subordinate reveals for the first time in this article that the district attorney may have had personal motivations for his investigation. Chisholm told him and others that Chisholm's wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward at St. Francis high school, a public school near Milwaukee, had been repeatedly moved to tears by Walker's anti-union policies in 2011, according to the former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office. Chisholm said in the presence of the former prosecutor that his wife "frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved ...She took it personally."

Citing fear of retaliation, the former prosecutor declined to be identified and has not previously talked to reporters.

Chisholm added, according to that prosecutor, that "he felt that it was his personal duty to stop Walker from treating people like this."

The prosecutor says that it wasn't just Chisholm's wife who was a hyperpartisn -- Chisholm himself was one, or became one, as well. And his staff, too.

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Still, Chisholm's private displays of partisan animus stunned the former prosecutor. "I admired him [Chisholm] greatly up until this whole thing started," the former prosecutor said. "But once this whole matter came up, it was surprising how almost hyper-partisan he became … It was amazing … to see this complete change."

The culture in the Milwaukee district attorney’s office was stoutly Democratic, the former prosecutor said, and become more so during Gov. Walker’s battle with the unions. Chisholm "had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who were just fanatical about union activities and unionizing. And a lot of them went up and protested. They hung those blue fists on their office walls [to show solidarity with union protestors]... At the same time, if you had some opposing viewpoints that you wished to express, it was absolutely not allowed."

There's more. The investigators kept petitioning the "John Doe Judge" to continuously permit them to expand the investigation to include any kitchen-sink rumor they heard. The judge did so each time she was asked.

Then one day she recused herself for an as-of-yet-unspecified conflict of interest in the case.

The new judge was far less sympathetic to the ever-expanding John Doe investigation.

The lawsuit being heard today on appeal concerns two of the targets' suit against the prosecutors.

A federal court District Judge enjoined the John Doe proceeding and allowed the lawsuit to continue against the prosecutors in their individual capacities (since technically, they were acting as investigators not prosecutors and therefore cannot claim immunity).

The lower court found that the suit could continue, and now the prosecutors are asking the appeals court to reverse the decision.

In case you're wondering why this obviously enormous story is only being linked by conservative blogs --

Because Chisholm's wife just happens to be the news director of all three networks and also CNN.

Or, okay, so she's not technically the news director of all corporate media, per se -- but, like Beatlemania, it's an amazing simulation.

* Well okay there are others, too, including Taylor's sometime partner KC Johnson. And some lawyers working in the public interest on civil liberties issues.

But it's a pretty small set.

Those who used to make fun of ideological liberals will have to find new targets -- because most ideological liberals are ideological liberals no more. They are simply remorseless, conscienceless partisan Democrat machine hacks.

After this kind of post, I always link Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine, and then I change it after three minutes, because man, that song is not good at all.

So here's the song I always change it to, Pigs (Three Different Ones), aka Haha, Charade Ya Are.

posted by Ace at 12:52 PM

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