Posted on 09/22/2015 7:38:52 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
MADISON, Wis. — The state Government Accountability Board has long attempted to downplay its role in the political John Doe investigation.
Documents obtained by Wisconsin Watchdog, however, show just how involved the rogue agency was in assisting John Doe special prosecutor Francis Schmitz and other partners in defending the unconstitutional campaign finance probe into Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and dozens of conservative organizations.
“It’s clear that the GAB continued to defend the bogus legal theories in the John Doe long after the board voted to shut it down … and after a federal judge enjoined the agency from continuing to pursue this unconstitutional investigation,” Deborah Jordahl, one of several John Doe targets whose home was raided by law enforcement, told Wisconsin Watchdog.
“Worse yet, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz appears to have lied to the (state) Supreme Court about the GAB’s involvement,” Jordahl added.
The retired judges overseeing Wisconsin’s campaign finance, elections and ethics law agency voted in July 2014 to end the agency’s involvement in the political investigation.
In late January, U.S. District Court Judge Charles N. Clevert Jr. issued a final declaratory judgment and permanent injunction prohibiting the GAB and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm from conducting any investigations into conservative groups using a legal argument rejected by multiple courts.
Clevert’s order speaks directly to Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. v. Barland. The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in May 2014 that Wisconsin’s campaign finance law related to issue advocacy was unconstitutional.
The judge’s declaratory judgment, however, references the John Doe investigation and bans the GAB from enforcing the illegal statute or criminally investigating individuals using the section of law.
Clevert ordered the GAB to post links to the ruling and his order for four years.
On April 2, Schmitz told the state Supreme Court he had received “no support” from the GAB in preparing his legal response related to the John Doe-related challenges before the court. In July, the court ruled the probe was unconstitutional and ordered it shut down.
Schmitz also claimed he had no knowledge of a GAB amicus brief filed with the court.
But agency staff counsel Nathan Judnic, who filed the friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court in March, later acknowledged the GAB’s work with Schmitz and the other prosecutors in the legal defense of the John Doe.
“There are — there’s emails back and forth where you’re at least asking Mr. Schmitz to forward you copies of the briefs,” Eddie Greim, attorney for conservative targets of the probe, asked Judnic in a May 19 deposition. Wisconsin Watchdog obtained a copy of the transcript.
“Yeah. We followed along,” Judnic replied.
Judnic wrote a disclaimer in an email to Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf noting his detailed communication to Landgraf was not “intended to assist in any brief-writing, nor is it intended to promote the GAB’s investigation or promote any legal theories that would assist you in drafting of briefs that will be filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the John Doe cases.”
“This communication is intended to answer day to day campaign finance questions that our office frequently fields and responds to from our partners in various District Attorney offices across the State,” the attorney wrote.
Judnic, under oath, said he wrote the disclaimer and believed he was the only one who used it in communicating with the GAB’s partners in the John Doe.
Judnic wrote the email Feb. 11, two weeks after Clevert issued his order.
In the email, Judnic advised Landgraf on GAB’s theory on how conservative groups supposedly coordinated to transform issue ads — communications that do not directly support or oppose a candidate — into express ads that do. The latter is highly regulated under campaign finance law, the former is a generally protected and unregulated form of political speech.
GAB officials were aware of the communications. Judnic copied Jonathan Becker, administrator of the agency’s Ethics Division, on the email to Landgraf.
On Jan. 18, Schmitz wrote to GAB Chairman Judge Gerald Nichol, underscoring his relationship with the agency.
“It is my understanding that the Government Accountability Board (“GAB”) wants me to formally request the assistance of the GAB staff in responding to the briefs to be submitted in the above captioned matters now pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Please accept this letter as that request,” Schmitz wrote.
He referenced the multiple challenges to the John Doe probe.
The special prosecutor went on to tell Nichol what the chairman already knew: that GAB staff members co-authored “the original brief filed in the John Doe proceedings and principally authored” other key documents in defense of the investigation.
“As I have relied upon: 1), the expertise of the GAB staff to frame the arguments justifying this inquiry into illegal campaign coordination; and 2), the original unanimous decision of the Board members that such an inquiry was warranted, I firmly believe that the continued support of the GAB staff is appropriate,” Schmitz wrote.
In late December, Milwaukee County prosecutor David Robles updated Judnic on the collaborative efforts of the DA’s office and the accountability board, which has long insisted it ran a “parallel investigation,” separate from the prosecutors’ probe.
“Per the meeting yesterday, there was an agreement for a conference call on December 23, 2014,” Robles wrote, going on to discuss the “division of labor” that had been discussed.
The topics of discussion included: initiation of the John Doe; appointment of the special prosecutor; appointment of presiding John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson; and campaign finance issues.
“Robles was going to put together documents and e-mail related to potential ethical considerations relating to the litigants in this case (primarily Wisconsin Club for Growth, one of the 29 groups targeted by prosecutors) and the campaigns of specific Supreme Court justices,” Robles wrote in the third person.
Judnic later responded that the call was set for Dec. 23, as advised.
The argument has been the GAB, up to a point, could help in the formulation of legal arguments and in the filing of amicus, or friend-of-the-court-briefs, in the court proceedings. Conservative targets suing the GAB argue the agency has illegally defended an unconstitutional investigation that lacked probable cause at taxpayer expense.
In their response to allegations of GAB involvement in the John Doe investigation, attorneys for the agency wrote in July 2014 the GAB “has not been involved … except in so far as it has been informed, from time to time, of developments in the investigation.”
A plethora of email communications argue against that assertion.
Nichol has defended the accountability board asserting that GAB staff had not taken action related to the investigation “without the Board’s full knowledge and prior approval.”
“We do not undertake investigations lightly, and do not participate in fishing expeditions or partisan witch hunts,” Nichol wrote in a letter in January to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.
Emails, however, show some accountability board members raising questions about Schmitz’s letter asking for more legal assistance from the GAB.
A GAB motion with the Supreme Court in March insisted its friend-of-the-court brief wasn’t filed “in support of or in opposition to any of the named parties before the court.”
“The board’s interest in this matter is to assist the court in determining whether the investigation into coordinated activities between the candidate’s personal campaign committee and other organizations was initiated on valid statutory and regulatory grounds, and whether such statutes and regulations are consistent with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the motion stated.
“Resolution of these cases will provide the board guidance on the enforcement of campaign finance laws in the areas identified by the court,” the motion asserted.
The board’s interest, critics charge, is to keep its illegal, partisan probe alive and to protect itself from litigation moving forward.
LEGAL WORK: Deborah Jordahl, one of many conservative targets of the secret John Doe probe charges the GAB kept working on a legal defense of the investigation after it was told to stop.
RELATED: Explosive email exposes GAB attorney’s partisan motivation in John Doe probe
I had the privilege of hearing Kittle and Eric O’Keefe (target of one of the John Doe’s and the man with the chutzpah to bring a lawsuit to court that declared these raids unconstitutional) speak to our Republican group on Saturday night. The scary thing that they revealed is that the leftists are trying to bring these investigations and attempted political lynchings of conservative groups nationwide. It will be harder because Wisconsin’s John Doe law and its forced secrecy is unique across the nation and dates back to Wisconsin’s Territorial days. If you get a chance to hear Kittle, run (don’t walk) to attend.
FReep mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
We all did wrong by Scott Walker and we ignore Wisconsin at our peril.
Amen!
Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Who are "we" and how did "we" wrong Scott Walker?
Thanks for the ping.
By consistently misinterpreting his words and then broadcasting that misinterpretation as if it were gospel. And I don't mean you personally -- just a lot of people on this forum and elsewhere. That's OK. He'll live to fight another day. He's a good man.
If walker had fought harder and shined a bigger spotlight on this, he’d be higher in the polls now, and not out.
We all did wrong by Scott Walker and we ignore Wisconsin at our peril.
________________________________________________________
Until Trump got in I really thought Walker would be the next president, I was kind of hoping for it if Cruz couldn’t make it. Walker isn’t close to the constitutionalist that Cruz is but he has gonads and does what he is supposed to do to liberals, beat them.
Walker was enjoined by law from commenting, although I agree that he should have spoken out in defense of his volunteers who were targeted. Of course Walker was comfortable in the thought that he started the whole investigation by looking into some missing money when he was County Executive. Those people were caught and prosecuted. And the John Doe folks kept saying that Walker was not a target. Our law is such that there is no control over the investigators. And when they do wrong, their defense if paid by the taxpayer, while the complaining party must pay for their own defense plus court costs. The legislature is seeking to change that now. And Walker will be here to sign the changes once the legislation is ready.
Walker was a lousy candidate who was a prisoner of the consultant class. He has no one to blame but himself. FR has little to no impact on the polling process or Walker’s presentations on the hustings or in the debates.
What? Scott Walker did himself in all by himself. How that has any connection with ignoring Wisconsin escapes me. Walker has been, and continues to be an excellent governor and I wish him well in continuing to give that state the huge political enema it needs. I just wonder what the airhead GOP state legislature is doing there dicking around and not passing legislation forever banning the GAB. I guess you have your compliment of RINOs too.
Furthermore, they are also seeking to disband the GAB which is rather awkward because it is an invention of Republicans (gone wrong) to replace the equally incompetent and corrupt Board of Elections.
See #13
“Our law is such that there is no control over the investigators. And when they do wrong, their defense if paid by the taxpayer, while the complaining party must pay for their own defense plus court costs. The legislature is seeking to change that now.”
So what’s taking them so long? This should have been a slam dunk!
I guess you've never noticed how a FR blitz can turn a poll withina couple of hours.
Process. Process.
Besides, the legislature has been out of session after they passed the budget.
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