Posted on 08/09/2015 7:17:29 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
MADISON, Wis. – A newly released audio recording of the 2011 raid on the home of a former aide to Gov. Scott Walker confirms that the political John Doe investigation into dozens of conservative groups was a “fishing expedition aimed at ensnaring” the Republican governor and his associates, says the attorney representing Cindy Archer in her civil rights lawsuit.
And according to a statement released Tuesday by Archer’s legal counsel David B. Rivkin, Jr., the recording adds important details “regarding the true purpose of the raid and tactics” used by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.
Rivkin was responding to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story that asserts audio of the Sept. 14, 2011 raid on Archer’s Madison home contradicts her account of the incident. Archer has said Chisholm’s John Doe investigators screamed at her, failed to read the language of the search warrant, and didn’t inform her of her constitutional rights.
The Journal Sentinel, which obtained the audio, describes what it calls “tense but mannerly exchanges between Archer and Aaron Weiss.”
Weiss, an investigator with the Milwaukee County DA’s office, led the pre-dawn raid, which involved local law enforcement officers and FBI agents.
The operation was part of Chisholm’s ever-expanding and supposedly secret John Doe probe.
Last month, Archer filed her lawsuit against Chisholm and several members of his staff claiming they violated her civil rights. In defending themselves, investigators David Budde and Robert Stelter, received permission from original John Doe Judge Neal Nettesheim to unseal the audio and other records that would otherwise remain secret under Wisconsin’s John Doe law.
The audio indicates Weiss did read the search warrant and the accompanying John Doe secrecy order to Archer and that he did inform her of her rights. But Rivkin said the tape confirms Archer’s account of the “traumatic morning in every relevant aspect.”
“As discussion on the recording confirms, Archer was roused from her sleep before dawn; the team of officers demanded that she open the door before she was dressed; the officers came in with guns drawn, threatening Archer’s dogs; Archer was detained for hours and followed at every moment of the raid; Archer’s partner was detained for the same duration despite the absence of authority in the warrant to detain her; and Archer and her partner were threatened with contempt for discussing the events that occurred in their own home with anyone,” the attorney said in his statement.
“It can clearly be heard that, as the Milwaukee investigators questioned Archer, her home was being ransacked in the background.”
Given the trauma of the day, Rivkin said, “it is not surprising that a victim of these abuses may not remember every detail with perfect clarity; what is remarkable is that, despite being roused from sleep by officers threatening to knock down her door, being falsely accused of serious criminal activity, and being aggressively questioned as officers swarmed her home, Ms. Archer’s memory of these events holds up in nearly all of their particulars.”
The bigger problem for the John Doe prosecutors and investigators is what is also caught on the audio recording.
The recording reveals that Weiss told Archer that the John Doe “investigation has been going a long time,” and that prosecutors “touched a lot of people in this” with a “pretty broad net.”
Rivkin said that describes a political fishing expedition by a Democrat district attorney against Walker and conservative activists.
“Judging by the recording, the real purpose of the raid was to intimidate and interrogate Ms. Archer,” Rivkin said. “Indeed, the Milwaukee investigator is surprisingly candid about the purposes of the John Doe, (with Weiss) actually (telling Archer) that it was ‘politically charged,’ a ‘broad net’ that ‘touched a lot of people,’ a campaign that had ‘grown and grown and grown’ and ‘gone on for a long time.’
“Their target in all of this was Governor Scott Walker, and the Milwaukee investigator urged Ms. Archer to sell Walker down the river,” Rivkin said.
The audio recording captures Weiss telling Archer, “My opinion is it’s time to look out for Cindy Archer now and not anyone else,” and “People who you think are your friend are not always your friend.”
In a late June Wall Street Journal column headlined, “Why I’m Filing a Civil Rights Lawsuit”, Archer wrote:
“Nothing could have prepared me for waking up to the shouts of men with battering rams announcing that they were about to break down my door on that morning in 2011. It was so unexpected and frightening that I ran down from my bedroom without clothes on.”
Archer recounts agents with weapons drawn swarming her house and barging into the bathroom where her partner was showering.
She clearly states on the recording that she has done nothing wrong.
The audio recording makes it clear that Archer is very worried about the officers harming her dogs.
Archer first told her story to the National Review in April. In that vivid account, the former Walker aide recalled that she “begged and begged investigators, ‘Please don’t shoot my dogs, please don’t shoot my dogs, just don’t shoot my dogs.’ I couldn’t get them to stop barking, and I couldn’t get them outside quick enough. I saw a gun and barking dogs. I was scared and knew this was a bad mix.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece fails to capture the breadth of the raids and the tactics used by the John Doe prosecutors over several years.
At least 15 homes and offices were raided during the political investigation, which began in 2010 when Walker was Milwaukee County executive campaigning for governor. The ever-expanding probe netted six convictions, four of which had nothing to do with the original reason for the John Doe: a report by Walker of a possible theft in a county veterans fund.
Chisholm in August 2012 asked for and received, from Nettesheim, permission to launch the secret operation that would become a multi-county investigation of 29 conservative organizations and Walker’s campaign. The premise, that the groups illegally coordinated with the governor’s campaign during Wisconsin’s bitter recall season, has been roundly rejected by three judges, including most recently the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Before sunrise on Oct. 3, 2013, more than two years after the raid on Archer’s home, Milwaukee County investigators led raids on the homes of several other John Doe targets.
Conservative strategist Deborah Jordahl, and by extension her family, was one of those targets. She told her story to Wisconsin Watchdog last month.
Armed law enforcement officers, led by Milwaukee County District Attorney investigator Anna Linden, rooted through Jordahl’s Middleton home. They hauled out computers, smartphones, paper records and an array of “evidence” that had nothing to do with the investigation, including personal possessions that weren’t listed on the sweeping warrants.
Through it all, Jordahl, her husband and their teenage children were confined to their family room, guarded by Dane County Deputy Sheriff Linda Kohlmeyer.
“At one point early on, I started to get up from the sofa,” Jordahl told Wisconsin Watchdog. “I told the deputy who was guarding us that I wanted to call my lawyer. She backed me down on the sofa and told me I could not call anyone.”
“I felt completely helpless in my own home.”
As Wisconsin Watchdog reported earlier this year, affidavits show Chisholm and his fellow prosecutors, with the approval of Judge Nettesheim, conducted a years-long spying operation on the conservative targets, tapping into Internet service providers and cellular phone networks. According to court records, the prosecutors seized more than 3 million documents over the run of the John Doe.
The raids on the homes of Archer and others appeared unnecessary.
“To begin with, the recording (released this week) shows that the purpose of the raid was not to obtain additional evidence relevant to any criminal matter involving Ms. Archer’s work for Scott Walker, given that (as a Milwaukee investigator discusses on the tape) the District Attorney’s office had already seized Archer’s personal and work communications prior to the raid, as well as those of every other individual targeted by the investigation,” Rivkin stated.
That’s where the intimidation and harassment of this political probe are driven home, according to the attorney.
A brief filed by Budde and Stelter, defendants in Archer’s lawsuit, notes a criminal complaint “naming Archer and others” had been drafted, but that Chisholm opted not to file charges.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story does not explain why Chisholm decided against charges. (Chisholm and his staff have refused to return dozens of communications from Wisconsin Watchdog inquiring about their actions in the investigation.)
Perhaps Chisholm refused to charge because he had nothing to go on. That was the finding of the state Supreme Court in its 4-2 ruling last month ordering the John Doe probe ended.
“It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing,” Justice Michael Gableman wrote in the opinion. “In other words, the special prosecutor was the instigator of a ‘perfect storm’ of wrongs.”
One of the greater ironies of the raid on Archer’s home is found in the audio tape. In it, Weiss explains to Archer the mechanics of the John Doe probe, that it’s like a grand jury but with a greater emphasis on secrecy. The secrecy order made it clear that targets could go to jail for saying anything about the investigation.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it, “Weiss said he believed Archer would appreciate” the fact that this very public raid, with officers hauling possessions out of her residential neighborhood, was all part of a secrecy-bound investigation.
“This is a way of conducting an investigation without the whole world knowing,” Weiss said. He added, “Nobody’s going to know about what you and I talk about today unless it became evidence in a criminal case.”
Perhaps more ironic is the fact that a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter was first on the scene to document much of the “secret” raid.
RAID SOUNDS: Newly released audio from the 2011 raid on the Madison home of Cindy Archer, former aide to Gov. Scott Walker, only confirms the abusiveness of the political probe, Archer’s attorney said.
DOE HORROR STORIES: Deborah Jordahl was among dozens of conservatives targeted in the John Doe probe. The political strategist’s home was one of several raided in October 2013.
Here’s hoping these bastards get clobbered in court.
May they never own a piece of property as long as they live.
Thanks to Dr. Bogus Pachysandra for pointing out that I had failed to post this chapter of the John Doe saga. IOW, the Journal Sentinel allegations were WRONG! The audio backs up Cindy Archer’s memories of the horrific pre dawn raid on her home.
FReep Mail me if you want on,or off,this Wisconsin interest ping list.
I'm afraid none will ever see the insides of the graybar hotel...
Has Chisholm reserved a cell and hired a decorator for it, yet? A photo of Mike Nifong might go well with the bars.
Interference in elections should be a federal offense.
There’s space available in the federal pen in Colorado.
Those local here in Milwaukee. Charlie Sykes currently interviewing deb johrdal on channel 4 Sunday insight
bump
Lefties thinks of the Federal and State apparatus as their personal tool to DESTROY their opponents.
That what the Holder “Justice” department was.
Look at the State’s attorney of Pennsylvania.
Look at the retarded Baltimore mayor and prosecutor awkwardly dancing for Soros, and Valerie Jarrett.
Channel 4
Noting that “law enforcement” was complicate in this.
Let’s call this what it was. Terrorism....
Who is this guy John Doe? He’s always getting in trouble.
CJ will not see anything close to this on the lefty hack accounts that she is peddling. Those people pretending to be journalists are nothing of the sort, and only the clueless still believe in their nonsense.
CJ, time for you to come to the rescue of these Nazi thugs, their time for reckoning is nigh, and they need their supporters to join with them. Their vile deeds have been exposed and more is coming. Unfortunately, their punishment will not likely fit their crimes, but at least the truth of their despicable behavior will be laid out in open court.
These are all disgusting Nazis and anyone who supports what they have done are also.
KELLY: Governor Walker, in February you said that we needed to gain partners in the Arab world. Which Arab country not already in the U.S. led coalition has potential to be our greatest partner?
WALKER: What about then, we need to focus on the ones we have. You look at Egypt, probably the best relationship we’ve had in Israel, at least in my lifetime, incredibly important.
You look at the Saudis — in fact, earlier this year, I met with Saudi leaders, and leaders from the United Arab Emirates, and I asked them what’s the greatest challenge in the world today? Set aside the Iran deal. They said it’s the disengagement of America. We are leading from behind under the Obama-Clinton doctrine — America’s a great country. We need to stand up and start leading again, and we need to have allies, not just in Israel, but throughout the Persian Gulf.”
Then Scott Walker was asked about Iran: “To me, you terminate the deal on day one, you reinstate the sanctions authorized by Congress, you go to Congress and put in place even more crippling sanctions in place, and then you convince our allies to do the same. This is not just bad with Iran, this is bad with ISIS. It is tied together, and, once and for all, we need a leader who’s gonna stand up and do something about it.”
What does it mean, “This is not just bad with Iran, this is bad with ISIS. It is tied together . . .”
Egypt is in Israel? Who knew?
I did....I pay attention
when the brotherhood was over thrown relations with Israel reverted to the old status quo. The fact was widely reported
Biggest bunch of gibberish of the night. Nobody, including you, knew what he was talking about. Completely incoherent.
Changing the subject. A very typical maneuver of the Lefty propagandists. Address the point, you have never done so.
Large-capacity magazines.
Armor-piercing ammunition.
Full-automatic weapons.
Problem solved.
She knows about as much about the Middle East as she knows about Wisconsin. Nothing. But, she is trying to hijack the thread and change the subject since she refuses to respond to the challenges to her activity. She has been a left wing cancer upon Free Republic for some time, spreading the nonsense of the Lefty journalist and blogger allies of John Chisholm and his gang of Nazi thugs.
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