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Part 315 of 314 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War MADISON, Wis. - He walked into work Tuesday morning to find he had received an "unbelievable" notice. Opening the manila envelope, the Wisconsin conservative learned that government agents had secretly seized his emails - professional and personal - sent and received over a two-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2009. He found out he had, without his knowledge, been dragged into Wisconsin's notorious John Doe investigation, one of perhaps dozens of individuals who in recent days have received similar notices from former John Doe special prosecutor Francis D. Schmitz. Some, like...

MADISON, Wis. - The conservative targets of a politically driven John Doe investigation say they have learned to never underestimate the vindictiveness of the people who have spent years intimidating them. Despite little chance of success, the Democrat district attorneys who signed off on the unconstitutional probe filed a motion Friday to intervene in the legally dead Doe in hopes of taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, the Democrat who launched the secret procedure in August 2012, filed the motion under seal in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Dane County District Attorney Ismael...

Part 307 of 306 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War MADISON, Wis. - With a state Supreme Court deadline looming, a conservative target of Wisconsin's notorious John Doe investigation is urging Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm to take his case to the court. Political activist Eric O'Keefe believes there's a teachable moment here for the partisan DA who launched the investigation more than three years ago. O'Keefe in a statement issued Wednesday said Chisholm should file to intervene in the Wisconsin Supreme Court's recent ruling that reaffirmed the politically driven probe into dozens of conservative groups and the campaign...

MADISON, Wis. - Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, the Democrat who launched Wisconsin’s politically driven John Doe investigation into conservatives, appears to have broken state campaign finance law, according to state Attorney General Brad Schimel. "...(I)t does appear on its face that two maximum contributions were received (by Chisholm's campaign) from the same individual in the same election cycle," Schimel told Wisconsin Watchdog Thursday. Chisholm did not return a call seeking comment. He has not returned any calls from Watchdog. As Wisconsin Watchdog exclusively reported this week, Chisholm's campaign accepted donations in excess of single-contributor limits during the same...

MILWAUKEE. - The Milwaukee Democrat who launched Wisconsin's notorious John Doe investigation into conservatives on allegations of illegal coordination appears to have broken state campaign finance laws. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm accepted donations in excess of single contributor limits, and failed to disclose who provided his campaign with a $38,000 loan, according to an amended petition asking Gov. Scott Walker to remove the district attorney from office. The diverse coalition of Milwaukee county residents seeking Chisholm's ouster also is asking state Attorney General Brad Schimel to file a criminal complaint against the DA. "As not only the top...

Chisholm is guilty of malfeasance, neglect of duty and official misconduct, a group of county taxpayers on Thursday filed a petition asking Gov. Scott Walker to begin the process of removing the DA from office. Interestingly, the citizens are urging the Republican governor to employ a rarely used statute to dispose of the same Democratic district attorney who launched at least two secret and politically driven John Doe investigations into Walker. “Our law in Wisconsin allows you to remove John Chisholm for cause. Cause includes malfeasance in office, neglect of duty or official misconduct. We have provided a dozen charges...

Part 270 of 268 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War MADISON, Wis. – Newly unsealed documents in a lawsuit against the state Government Accountability Board further reveal a rogue agency all in from the beginning of a political John Doe investigation into dozens of conservative groups and the campaign of Gov. Scott Walker – even as their hapless special prosecutor was “really questioning the validity of the case.” Thursday evening, Waukesha County Court released 182 pages of emails, transcripts of closed-door meetings and other previously sealed documents after attorneys for the GAB and the plaintiffs came to terms on precisely...

Our liberal friends in Wisconsin are unhappy. They think someone is leaking emails that make the state’s partisan campaign regulators look bad. We’ll plead guilty to having sources, but the emails are news and they sure are revealing. Today’s installment from court documents concerns how a special prosecutor and regulators at the Government Accountability Board (GAB) targeted the state’s conservative Supreme Court justices. The partisan goal was to force some justices to recuse themselves from hearing a constitutional challenge to their probe of Governor Scott Walker and his political allies. In a Feb. 11, 2013 email, then-GAB staff counsel Shane...

MADISON, Wis. – So how much has it cost Wisconsin taxpayers to defend the rogue prosecutors of a political investigation that has been ordered shut down by the state Supreme Court? More than $1.1 million and counting – $1,189,199.70 to be precise, according to information obtained by Wisconsin Watchdog through a records request. The records were provided by the state Department of Administration. And the bill continues to grow. Taxpayers spent $407,558.25 to defend special prosecutor Francis Schmitz in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by targets of the lengthy John Doe investigation into 29 conservative organizations and the campaign...

MADISON, Wisconsin — If Kelly Rindfleisch finally does receive justice at the U.S. Supreme Court, it will come after she completes her six-month sentence as the first — and hopefully last — political prisoner in Wisconsin’s secret John Doe investigation. Rindfleisch, the former aide to Gov. Scott Walker when Walker was Milwaukee County executive, in June asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review her 2012 conviction on a charge of misconduct in office. She cited the highly questionable search-and-seizure practices of the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office. As Wisconsin Watchdog reported last month, some of the brightest constitutional minds in...

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...

MADISON, Wis. – Michael Lutz, the highly decorated former Milwaukee cop and John Doe whistleblower, fatally shot himself early Sunday morning just inside the Milwaukee County line. Multiple sources tell Wisconsin Watchdog that Lutz lived an agonized life in the years after he was shot while on the job in 2005. Things got worse, those sources say, after he went public about Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm’s “hyper-partisan” pursuit of Republican Gov. Scott Walker. “I know Mike, and the worst thing he could have imagined was being in a mug shot, in an orange jumpsuit on a perp walk,”...

Michael Lutz, the Wisconsin whistleblower and former prosecutor who alleged that the union-operative wife of “John Doe” prosecutor John Chislhom was behind the targeting of conservative activists that recently was thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.... Is dead in what police are terming an apparent suicide....Lutz, 44, a former Milwaukee police officer, suffered an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound “while in the presence of Menomonee Falls tactical officers after a brief tactical situation,” the medical examiner’s office said in a release issued Sunday. Lutz was pronounced dead in the 12300 block of W. Mill Road in Milwaukee at 4:05 a.m.,...

Now that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has forcefully terminated the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin, the targets of those probes can now speak openly of their experiences at the hands of politically motivated prosecutors. Some of those experiences began leaking out a few months ago, courtesy of David French and his mainly unnamed victims of the Government Accountability Board’s jeremiad against Scott Walker supporters. The court decision offers a few more description of the nighttime and dawn raids on homes and the prosecutors’ abuse of the rights of those targets, but now with the case at an end, the victims...

MADISON, Wisconsin — This is what an abusive, politically motivated investigation looks like: The sun had yet to rise when deputies pounded on the door of Deborah Jordahl’s home in a quiet suburb of Madison. They had a warrant, and they were coming in. Armed law enforcement officers, led by Milwaukee County District Attorney investigator Anna Linden, proceeded to root through the home. They hauled out computers, smartphones, paper records and an array of “evidence” that had nothing to do with the investigation, private possessions that weren’t listed on the sweeping warrants. Through it all, Jordahl, her husband, and her...

In an attempt to limit the damage to its viability, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) has issued two press releases since the state Supreme Court ruled last Thursday to terminate the agency’s secret investigation of conservatives. The releases contain a single truthful sentence: “The Legislature expected and intended the Government Accountability Board to operate in a professional, unbiased, and nonpartisan manner.” The rest is myth-making. Myth 1: GAB was a bystander in the John Doe investigation and ensuing litigation, and merely filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court.The truth is GAB Director Kevin Kennedy and the GAB began...

The Wisconsin Supreme Court voted to end an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations in Gov. Scott Walker's 2012 recall election campaign. Outside groups question the impartiality of some of the justices who voted in the case. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign has just begun, but on Thursday the Wisconsin governor received a boost from the Supreme Court in his home state. A ruling dismissed a three-year probe into alleged campaign finance violations by Governor Walker’s gubernatorial campaign and outside conservative groups. The so-called John Doe probe had launched in 2012, investigating allegations that the coordination between the organizations violated the...

Madison— Dealing Gov. Scott Walker a victory just as his presidential camapaign gets underway, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday the governor's campaign and conservative groups had not violated campaign finance laws in recall elections in 2011 and 2012. The ruling means the likely end of the investigation, which has been stalled for 18 months after a lower court judge determined no laws were violated even if Walker's campaign and the groups had worked together as prosecutors believe. It could also prompt the escalation of other litigation over the probe. The ruling dealt with three pieces of litigation, and the...

It was still dark outside when “Jonah” (not his real name) heard the pounding on his front door. As luck would have it, he was awake — or mostly awake. He’d gotten up at 4:00 a.m. on October 3, 2013, to see his parents off to the airport. They were leaving on a quick trip to raise money for the children’s charity his father runs. Jonah was 16 at the time, old enough to stay home alone for a short time, but not old enough to deal with what awaited him on the other side of the door. The pounding...

Among the many questions I’ve received in response to my article on the Wisconsin “John Doe” raids is, “What should happen when executing a search warrant on a home?” If the police are asked to search a home, and there’s no indication of a physical threat, how should they conduct themselves? While the Left has been mostly silent in response to the story, some lefty commenters have responded by asserting that’s simply how searches are conducted. In other words, if the police search a home, that’s how they do it. I reached out to Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke,...