Posted on 09/14/2011 1:16:20 PM PDT by Jean S
Madison - About a dozen law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, visited the home of a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday as part of a growing John Doe investigation.
The home on Dunning St. on Madison's east side is listed in property records as belonging to Cynthia A. Archer, who was until recently deputy administration secretary to the Republican governor.
"We're doing a law enforcement action," one of the FBI agents told a reporter.
He didn't identify himself or provide further comment but confirmed that he and three others were with the FBI and that sheriff's deputies were also involved.
The raid on Archer's home coincides with a John Doe investigation in Milwaukee County, started last year after the disclosure that another Walker staffer at the county had posted political commentary on websites while on her job in the county executive's office. As part of the investigation, authorities earlier seized the work computers of two former Walker staffers and executed a search warrant of one of their homes.
Archer said in an email Friday to the Journal Sentinel that she was "not involved in any way in the John Doe investigation."
John Doe investigations are secret proceedings in which witnesses can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify under oath about potential criminal matters and are forbidden from talking publicly about the case.
The governor's campaign retained former U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic after it received a subpoena for campaign email shortly before last year's November election. His campaign has paid nearly $60,000 to Biskupic's firm, Michael Best & Friedrich, in the first half of the year.
Archer's neighbors said about a dozen law enforcement officers arrived Wednesday sometime before 7 a.m. One agent took photos of the house, and others wore jackets that said they were responsible for gathering evidence.
Around 9 a.m., a reporter saw four FBI agents - two of them wearing latex gloves - talking in Archer's backyard before going into her house. Later, one removed a large box and put it in the trunk of an FBI car. They left about 10 a.m.
When a reporter rang the doorbell shortly after the FBI left, no one answered the door.
At least one of the agents came from the FBI's Milwaukee office, according to a card left with one of her neighbors, Dale Riechers.
Archer didn't immediately return a message left on her personal cellphone or an email sent to her personal account. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said he had no comment and that the governor would not take questions on the issue Wednesday.
Walker has previously said he has not been contacted personally by prosecutors. He said officials asked his campaign last year for emails and information apparently related to the staffer who was posting pro-Walker messages on websites during work time.
Officials at the U.S. attorney offices in the eastern and western districts of Wisconsin declined to comment on the search. Leonard Peace, spokesman for the Milwaukee office of the FBI, referred questions about the search to the Milwaukee County district attorney's office.
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm also declined to comment.
A Dane County sheriff's deputy provided perimeter control during the visit to Archer's house but was not involved with the search itself, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Elise Schaffer.
Sources indicated Wednesday that Chisholm's office continues to take the lead in the case of Walker's former county staffers, with federal authorities providing assistance with computers and other digital technology.
Milwaukee County prosecutors launched the probe at about the same time Darlene Wink quit her county job as Walker's constituent services coordinator in May 2010 after admitting that she was frequently posting online comments on Journal Sentinel stories and blogs while on the county clock. Nearly all of her posts praised Walker or criticized his opponents.
Authorities later took her work computer and that of Tim Russell, a former Walker campaign staffer who was then working as county housing director, and executed a search warrant of Wink's home. Neither Wink nor Russell landed a job at the statehouse when Walker took office in January.
Asked Friday about the John Doe, Russell's attorney refused comment. "I don't have anything I can discuss," Michael Maistelman said.
Sources have said the investigation has increasingly focused on the activities of Archer and Tom Nardelli, Walker's former county chief of staff.
Archer and Nardelli were Walker's top two lieutenants for the last three years of his eight-year tenure as county executive, including the busy months leading up to the November election.
Archer, who abruptly left her top post with Walker's administration last month for "personal family matters," had another politically appointed job under the governor already lined up.
She took a $25,000 pay cut in moving to a position at the Department of Children and Families, but the nearly $100,000 salary in that job is still tens of thousands of dollars more than the pay of others who have had the job.
State officials have said Archer remained on leave. Department spokeswoman Stephanie Hayden has not answered whether Archer was being paid while on leave, saying that was confidential.
Archer, 52, followed Walker to Madison from Milwaukee County after the former county executive won the governor's race in November. She had held the county's top staff position under Walker.
Before she abruptly quit on Aug. 19, she was making $124,000 as deputy secretary in the state Department of Administration, the agency that oversees state contracts, the state budget, the state workforce and other key government functions. At the time, state officials said only that Archer had taken a personal leave of absence, giving no details on reasons for the leave, how soon she'd come back or what her duties would be.
Archer, in her resignation letter emailed to Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, said simply that she was done with her job that same day.
But documents provided by the state show she actually was already hired a day earlier, on Aug. 18, to the $99,449-a-year job in the Department of Children and Families, as the department's legislative liaison. That's according to a letter released Friday from Eloise Anderson, who heads the department. Archer's appointment to the new job was effective Aug. 20.
Anderson said Monday that Archer has a higher salary than her predecessor because of Archer's extensive background in state and local government and higher educational attainment.
On Aug. 25, Archer said by email that she would leave any announcement about her leave of absence or eventual return to a state job to the governor's office. Walker's office has deflected questions on Archer to the department she left and to the one to which she is now assigned.
Nardelli, another former county employee who took a state job with Walker, quit his state job as administrator for the Division of Environmental and Regulatory Services in July. That was three days after he had accepted the job, a transfer from another state administrative position. Nardelli was Walker's chief of staff in the county executive's office.
Nardelli said Wednesday he knew nothing about the reason for the FBI visit to Archer's home. Nardelli said no law enforcement had visited his home.
The John Doe investigation has already resulted in one conviction.
William Gardner, president and chief executive officer of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Co., was sentenced to two years' probation after pleading guilty to two felony violations of state campaign finance laws for exceeding the donation limits and laundering donations to Walker and other Wisconsin politicians.John Diedrich and Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
These FBI tools best be careful. If they’re carrying out a hit job on orders of Obuma or Holder, those orders, even from a president, do not give you blanket immunity (I was just following orders) from charges of treason or various other crimes.
A man with a badge can be hanged dead as easily as a man with no badge. In this climate, you FBI people better decide real soon whose side you’re on.
“another Walker staffer at the county had posted political commentary on websites while on her job in the county executive’s office”
As identified by BOs full time bloggers.
Why is the FBI involved in what appears on surface to be a state issue? If someone is posting anonymously on the internet from a state office, I don’t see why the FBI should be involved in it.
Reminds me a bit of the MD4BUSH fiasco here on FR in 2004. I don’t recall the FBI getting involved there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic#MD4Bush_Incident
Hmmm... a man who made a bomb threat to a Republican candidate got no jail time:
http://www.buffalonews.com/incoming/article555219.ece
Makes you wonder and worry maybe.
Now there is an FBI agent with an above average I.Q....
Waste time with chicken shite like this while a Kenyan muslim w/no verifiable credentials destroy our nation.
Great job Feebs .. such profiles in courage.
J.Edgar must be puking in his grave.
Sheesh.
What, exactly, are they investigating? Using an office computer for personal use can get you fired, but it’s not a crime.
I hope they get as much as Sandy Berger got for stealing Top Secret documents and violating the national security laws he swore to uphold.
Is this in America? I have never heard of such a thing. Sounds Kafkaesque.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial
“John Doe investigations are secret proceedings in which witnesses can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify under oath about potential criminal matters and are forbidden from talking publicly about the case.”
With all the raids going on, I have to wonder how many of these top officials have actually seen the “Dont Talk to Cops” youtube vid.
Hmm...
Martha Stewart would have wise to keep her trap shut
Holder will get his comeuppin’s soon.
This can't be about a state/local public employee posting political advocacy on work time> Hell, that's what 1/2 of all CA state employees do all day, every day.
Perhaps she sent threatening emails to legislators..........oh wait, that was someone else, yet to be prosecuted.
Man, this stinks to high heaven. USKGB, comrade?
The FBI is acting on information submitted to www.AttackWatch.com.
I don’t think Republicans can afford to permit this story to be a big nothing burger. More and more socialist legal officials are conducting KGB like witch hunts against their political opposition. From the TSA naming socialist political enemies “domestic terrorists” to these kind of legal witch hunt prosecutions conducted against the socialists’ political opposition. Not to mention Fast and Furious designed to give the socialists an excuse to disarm the American public... These government people are acting like the KGB.
I think the prosecutor who is doing this political witch hunt needs to be brought to justice himself. It should be a big dang deal to have this happening over and over again in the US.
Holder is a socialist with a visious racist twist.
Or his Toyota
If God is real, 30 years to life. If he knew more about Gunrunner I would put the death penalty on the table. Mr. Holder yeah I said that come send your goons after me!!!
Why would the FBI be involved in suspected wrongdoing in this case? Shouldn’t this be a state issue?
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