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.
Many more to come as his Heydrich Holder goes down the list.
Mr Walker’s time is limited. The regime will begin to move more openly against its opponents.
I suspect he knows this. God be with him.
They are just following orders. It is what they are trained to do, and they will do it because the alternative is to quit or get investigated themselves.
They are no different that millions though out history that have just followed orders, including many FBI men who did what they knew was wrong.
The myth of a noble government worker is just that, a myth. There may be some, but few people will disobey authority.
As identified by the administrator of AttackWatch.com
For the government union employees. This country is getting more like NAZI Germany every day. Ask Gibson - they donated to the lefts political enemy. They had to de destroyed.
This "raid" needs to be investigated. Their are a lot of Pulitzer prizes to be had from this administration. Where are the motivated journalists?
Yet I’ll bet many hope it turns into a Hamburger Holocaust!
Anyone else find this "funny?"
Sounds like a Curt Weldon thing.
The FBI is searching for posts made while folks are at work? Something stinks here....to high heavens!
Criminalization of the political opposition. They’ve gone full-on Red Army here, folks. Don’t tell me that the word “Communist” is too strong for this crowd.
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."
***
Sara - there is nothing that can be done in this instance.
In this instance, at least one Milwaukee County employee of then-County Exec Scott Walker who was also a political supporter of Walker's gubernatorial election campaign used county computers during county work time to respond to articles and web postings that were negative to Walker on the Journal-Sentinel website. The individual involved accepted responsibility for his actions and was fired.
DA Chisholm is using the incident to allege that the employee's actions were directed by Walker, Walker aides or the Walker gubernatorial campaign. If that occurred, it is a criminal act.
Enforcement of that violation is generally applied only against Republican politicians by partisan Democrat DA's. Dozens of documented incidents in 2010 & 2011 of Democrat candidates (legislators, teachers and other government employees) using government email accounts, computers and other equipment for campaign purposes that have not been investigated or prosecuted by Democrat county DA's from across the state. Useless RINO State Attorney General JB Van Hollen has also failed to act on these cases.
Anyway, Chisholm only needs to have the cloak of a possible criminal violation to "persuade" a Democrat Milawukee County judge to order a John Doe investigation. With a John Doe, a DA is permitted to use the FBI to investigate the matter and gather evidence.
Even though neither patisan hack DA Chisholm or the partisan hack judge acutally believe a crime has been committed, the cloak shields them from any provable charge of misconduct in office.
It sucks that Democrats can abuse the rules to harrass Republican politicians, but that's just the way it is. And it will continue to be that way until a Republican DA abuses the rules to harrass a prominent Democrat politician. Only when Democrats understand that they too can be made subject to the same Star Chamber proceedings as Republicans, the bogus John Doe investigations will stop.
In the meantime, because John Doe investigations are secret (even though Chisholm's office is leaking like a sieve to liberal interest groups and media outlets), we have no actual idea exact idea about what or who is being investigated. Given the pressure being placed on top Walker aides who have moved from Milwaukee County government to his Administration in Madison, we can assume that Walker is the ultimate target of the imagined "crime".
We "know" that DA Chisholm is conducting a partisan hack fishing expedition to harrass Gov. Walker, we just can't prove it or do anything about it.
***
No, here is what happened.
A liberal IT employee of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel informed a liberal investigative reporter at the paper that pro-Walker comments were being posted to the paper's web blog from a Milwaukee county government employee's email address.
The reporter traced the email to a county employee loyal to Walker.
The reporter then approached Journal Sentinel management to change the paper's web posting policy which had previously promised the anonymity of any web poster.
The liberal management of the paper then changed the anonymity policy so their reporter could run the story to damage the Walker gubernatorial campaign.
The publication of the story instigated the bogus investigation by the liberal county DA's office.
The bogus investigation by the liberal DA enabled a liberal county judge to order a bogus John Doe investigation.
The bogus John Doe investigation allowed the liberal DA to bring the FBI in as investigators and gatherers of evidence.
The FBI probably doesn't want to be involved, but they are compelled via the John Doe to act in support the liberal county DA by the order of the liberal county judge.
Throughout the process, the liberal DA has been leaking info to the liberal news media.
The Journal Sentinel now has 5 reporters working on this non-story that they manufactured from the beginning.
If we can not legally hold them accountable for abusing the power of their office, can we at least prepare a huge political backlash against them for acting as KGB agents and conducting political witch hunts under the color of law.
Can we make their lives miserable...recall the judge and have the next Republican administration fire the DA? We have to make it costly for the communists who do this in the US. We need to follow these people to the ends of the earth and haunt every breath they take after their witch hunts are concluded and they find nothing. It is terrifying and makes politics if one is not a communist, risky.
Can we make their lives miserable...recall the judge and have the next Republican administration fire the DA? We have to make it costly for the communists who do this in the US. We need to follow these people to the ends of the earth and haunt every breath they take after their witch hunts are concluded and they find nothing. It is terrifying and makes politics if one is not a communist, risky."
****
Sadly, the answers to your questions are No, No and No.
While Wisconisn county offices are non-partisan posts, Milwaukee County government is a Democrat machine. The election of Republican Scott Walker as County Executive was a probably a fluke one-time occurance (although he was re-elected to a second term). Walker was initially elected in a recall campaign after the former Exec and County Board lined their pockets (along with most long-time county employees) with a pension, sick leave and vacation fund scam that paid each employee exhorbitant cash backdrop payments (some in excess of $100,000) in addition to their other retirement and health benefits. Several dirty County Board members were recalled as a result of the scandal.
Unfortunately, most of the "reform" Board members were defeated in the next election by the stupid and predominantly Democrat Milwaukee County electorate. The stupidity remains today. A liberal legacy millionaire was elected to replace Walker as County Exec, Milwaukee County is broke and taxes and fees are rising. Unless the County decalres bankruptcy or there is another epic scandal, there will be no political backlash.
And any mythical future conservative County Exec (remember the post is "non-partisan") couldn't fire the DA. County District Attorney is an elected "non-partisan" position. The partisan situation is even worse in Dane County (more commonly referred to as the People's Republic of Dane County). That's where the liberal government officials allowed the forced occupation of the beautiful Capitol Rotunda by a mob of teachers, unionistas and other dirty, smelly, Bolshevik hippies and abused the DA's office and County Sherriff's office in the Supreme Court kerfuffle with Prosser and the deranged Ann Walsh Bradley.
There is literally nothing that can be done to fix the 3rd world Banana Republics of Dane & Milwaukee County government. Any conservatives who live in these 2 counties need to speak up, but they damn well better watch their backs when they do so. The rest of the state is much more tolerant.
>“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.”
Sounds like a violation of the 6th Amendment.
Wow. Thanks for the education. I’m glad I don’t live there.
Democraps woould NEVER do that...
probably because they don't have jobs. Or at least jobs where they are allowed to touch the important computers
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