Sunday, February 9, 2014

Walkergate: Meet The Does At The Cross Rhodes

Last week, Scott Walker was having a bad day on the double campaign trail when Appellate Court Judge Patricia Curley ordered that the emails and other documents involved with the trial, conviction and sentencing of Kelly Rindfleisch be unsealed.  Judge Curley gave Rindfleisch and her mouthpiece, Attorney Franklyn Gimbel, 30 days to go through the documents to pull out anything that might have to do with Social Security numbers or personal medical issues.

Rindfleisch has decided that it's too much hassle to further protect Walker in this manner and said that she's :
not going to go through the papers
Kelly Rindfleisch
A former aide to Gov. Scott Walker convicted of misconduct in public office declined Friday to look through "tens of thousands" of pages of emails to identify which should be withheld from public view.

On Tuesday, an appeals court judge said she planned to unseal documents used to prosecute Kelly Rindfleisch, a former aide to Walker when he was the executive of Milwaukee County.

Judge Patricia Curley gave Rindfleisch 30 days to review documents and request that certain information, such as Social Security numbers or medical information, remain confidential. At that point, Curley said, she would issue a final ruling and release the records.

But in a letter to Curley Friday, attorney Franklyn Gimbel said it would be too expensive and time-consuming for his client to review all of the records, which Gimbel contends were collected using "overbroad" warrants that violated his client's right to privacy.
Now, before the gentle reader gets too excited, there are some things that he or she should know.  There's always more.

We already know that Scott Walker and WISGOP has been funding Rindfleisch's legal defense by throwing buckets of money at her through her "doing jobs" for them. This was the way they were buying her silence.  Sadly for Rindfleisch, even then, she had problems staying out of trouble.

About a year ago, Rindfleisch got a knew gig at a political consulting agency named Cross Rhodes Strategies.  The registered agent for this agency is none other than Judith Rhodes Engels.  Interestingly, the website that they once had for their agency is no longer to be found.  In fact, the only traces my meager Googling skills could find was on a couple of aggregate sites - Find the Company and Bizapedia.

Interestingly, sources report that more than a few GOP legislators have Cross Rhodes listed in as an expense in their campaign finance report.  Another interesting tidbit is that Engels' husband just received a cushy state job last summer.

We became familiar with Rhodes Engels during the original Walkergate investigations.  She is the favorite fundraiser of Senator Scott Fitzgerald.  Rhodes Engels is also known for her past caucus scandal involvement and her Harley riding skills.  And despite her rub-ins with the law, Rhodes Engels is either a slow learner or just indifferent and got caught getting involved with the gerrymandering scandal, although she should not be involved in governmental business at all.

But the most interesting involvement with Rhodes Engels is a fact we learned during the Rindfleisch trial.  We had learned from the Rindfleisch transcripts released then that Rhodes Engels had emailed Fitzgerald's campaign donor spreadsheet to Rindfleisch:


As I wrote at the time:
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to one of the smoking guns.

Judi Rhodes, aka Judi Rhodes-Engels, is someone else we know. She is the Harley Davidson-riding GOP operative that specializes in raising funds for State Senator Scott Fitzgerald. Rhodes sent a spreadsheet named "All Contributions-cfis-xlsm" to Rindfleisch, on what would be normally considered a work day during normal work hours.

This means not only was Walker having county staff running his campaign and doing fundraising on county time, and not only were the same staff coordinating things with the Davis campaign, but also was coordinating with WISGOP staff, under the leadership of State Senator Scott Fitzgerald. How was this arrangement approved and by whom?

In summary, you have a distinct pattern of Walker using his county staff and his county executive office which was doing campaign activity, most of which was a fund raising fundraising operation not just for himself, but also for his choice for Lieutenant Governor, Brett Davis. On top of all that, they were coordinating across multiple facets of WISGOP, most notably (for now) State Senator Scott Fitzgerald.
Do I really need to remind the gentle reader that the Sons of Doe investigations is supposed to involve the possible collusion of a political candidate's campaign and third party groups, including WISGOP itself?  And what do we have here? Clear collusion between Walker's campaign and WISGOP. Given what else we already know from the John Doe investigations and Walker's infamous phone call with the faux Koch that there were acts of collusion between the campaign and other third party groups like Americans for Prosperity, Wisconsin Club for Growth and MacIver Institute.

Given the obvious ties between Walker's groups and the third party groups, even if it didn't lead to criminal charges, much less convictions, if these emails and other documents were to be made publicly available, it would greatly damage Walker's chances of reelection as governor, much less really put a damper on his presidential aspirations.

Therefore, it would not be surprising if Walker and company tells Rindfleisch to take it to the Supreme Court. He's going to want to delay their release as long as possible.

28 comments:

  1. Walker is sticking to his playbook:

    1. Stonewall the investigation
    2. While stonewalling, give high priced criminal attorneys plenty of time to research and find a loophole or threaten a lawsuit.
    3. If all else fails, let it go to his home court, and put a "chokehold" on releasing the emails.
    4. Have right wing media claim this is a witch hunt and that Walker is the true victim.
    5. Use fundraising letters and speeches to rewrite history for their followers.

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  2. Then combine it with Rindfleisch getting the gig with GOP mega-donor (and fellow crook) Michael Eisenga right after Walker got elected, and it sure seems like Kelly's got a lot of ghost jobs with connected folks, doesn't she?

    If Dan Bice wasn't busy scouring recall lists and denigrating private citizens up North, it might make for an interesting story.

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  3. Good stuff - keep getting as much as you can and publishing it. The local media may not care but national media are looking harder at Walker as Christie's star has faded as are Walker's potential primary rivals.

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  4. Can't we get these illegal connections front and center in newspapers across the state as the Journal Sentinel won't give it coverage. There has to a way to get this information into the hands of the voters in this state before November, 2014.

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    Replies
    1. If Dems ran ads connecting these dots, then the media would have to mention it. But the DPW would have to grow a pair to do that.

      The dots are pretty easy to connect if someone wanted to do, you know, JOURNALISM.

      Delete
  5. This should help also:http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/koch-brothers-palm-springs-donor-list

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  6. Capper, thanks for your continued digging and turning over stones to find the connections between these unscrupulous characters. Did anyone else recognize the Eisenga name, most recently from Rep. Joel Kleefisch's lame attempt to pass a bill to lower this millionaire's child support (bill written by Eisenga, by the way). We need to shine the light in every corner and get rid of these cockroaches.

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  7. Wow!

    Capper, can't say enough good about your ability to keep digging, keep connecting the dots, keep making it accessible.

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  8. W/R/T messaging, Mary Burke is the de facto leader of the Democratic party in Wisconsin. Anytime she appears in public, she's got a microphone in her face. She has an unobstructed path to the November ballot. She most certainly could and should tell this story.

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  9. FWIW, "New arguments coming over jury award to O'Donnell Park victims

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/new-arguments-coming-over-jury-award-to-odonnell-park-victims-b99201707z1-244641831.html#ixzz2ssCHWNZJ

    If there's a new trial, there could be increased pressure to review the admissibility of Keith Gilkes' (and others in the Walker administration) emails into evidence of a cover-up after the death.


    From 2013:

    "New emails show Scott Walker played role in O'Donnell Park news flow"
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/new-emails-show-scott-walker-played-role-in-odonnell-park-news-flow-b9964849z1-217511151.html

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  10. Rachel Maddow's been doing terrific work on NJ Gov. Chris Christie. It's a longshot, but if there's a lull in that story, she might be willing to give Walker, Grebe, Sykes, WI Supreme Court the same kind of attention. @Maddow

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  11. Folks, I just emailed a copy of this to key national reporters. Please do the same. Feed them the information that the MJS refuses to print on the front page. Get this info in the hands of specific reporters. You can find email addresses on various news website. Try sending to the UK Guardian as well. They've covered the Walker/JohnDoe angle, too. The more of us that funnel this info to them, the more likely it is to get published nationally or globally.

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  12. Speaking of websites disappearing, Tea Party Kim Simac's northwoodspatriots.blogspot.com -- which I believe may have been a 501(c)(4) entity posting virtually 100% political rantings -- has also disappeared! At the same time, her gun-loving, anti-abortion, anti-birth-control, gay-hating son is now EVP for Julaine Appling's Wisconsin Family Action, which is funded primarily by Wisconsin Club for Growth, which has connections itself to Catholic bishops/churches in Wisconsin.

    It's all one big, incestuous tax-evading family of Republican religious folks, who are now busily erasing their online tracks now that the John Doe is heating up.

    So, suggestion...take screen shots of blogs, websites, etc of these extreme right wing activities. It just might come in handy for the John Doe DA or the IRS to nail these people for illegal political work all dressed up as a social welfare "charity". Let's help bring all this dark money activity down.

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    1. As for disappearing websites, you can also get archived screen snapshots taken through a website's history at the Internet Archive, which has a program called the Wayback Machine:
      http://archive.org/web/
      A great source for documenting things they now don't want you to see.

      Delete
  13. I'd sure like to see a flow chart of the dark money connections in Wisconsin -- just like the Washington Post recently did with the Kochs/AFP/Club for Growth/Patient Group & hundreds of other shady front groups where money flows from one corporation to another. Kind of like front companies used by the mafia and drug lords to hide their activities.

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  14. Things I don't get.

    1. Ms. Rindfleisch is claiming her privacy was violated by warrants for "work" emails in which she was supposed to be discharging her responsibilities to the Milwaukee County taxpayers.

    2. Judge Curley allows her the chance to scrub said emails and she refuses. How does that not undercut her original claim that her privacy was violated?

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps she has just resigned herself to the realization that she has been used by Walker and the GOP. No cavalry is riding in to rescue her.

      Delete
    2. Perhaps her attorney feels creating an "undue burden" on Ms. Rindfleisch would provide an out for the right-wing Supreme Court to throw out all the emails as unnecessary and a burden on a private citizen to review. Ha. They are really desperate, aren't they?

      Delete
    3. Here's a guess:
      It could well be that these "work" emails contain personal and or incriminating information sent by or concerning other interested parties (waves and gives the finger to John Doe and all his friends and financiers).

      Rindfleisch refuses to scrub them, look for an injunction from the other "aggrieved" parties.

      Note: I'm sure I wouldn't want to be on the hook to scrub these emails pursuant to a judicial order.

      Delete
  15. Walker is using the DOA to keep an eye on Cullen Werwie, who was given immunity in John Doe #1. He's keeping Werwie close...but not too close. The shift in responsibilities beings up another interesting connection between Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald...because the new kid on the block filling in Werwie's old shows is...none other than Scott Fitzgerald's old spokesman, Tom Evenson. Evenson, if you will recall also worked on Scott Walker's campaign and in his press office. Remember, it just takes one person to talk in a moment of weakness...if they haven't already talked. I wonder who already has an attorney who is working on cutting a deal to save their ass

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    Replies
    1. Walker is going down in this one. He will do everything in his power to avoid taking responsibility, but it is too late. Walker made too many mistakes. This is going to be one of the best political take-downs yet. Tonette may want to get a job now.. she is going to need some income after Scott gets nabbed. I hate that it is taking this long, but this case will be iron clad - Walker will wear orange. Count on it.

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  16. Out of Eau Claire:

    http://chippewa.com/news/local/former-menomonie-restaurant-to-pay-over-firing/article_116b139b-1087-5d2f-92f9-deb8e7039110.html

    One should check into those corporate holdings companies.

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  17. JS is now covering this and their headline is interesting, "Ex-Scott Walker aide declines records review, paving way for release"

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/ex-scott-walker-aide-declines-records-review-paving-way-for-release-b99202011z1-244716611.html

    It's Pat Marley's byline, which suggests that the sources are in Madison. If you're buying that, there is speculation in the comments that Walker wants to get "the bad news out of the way."

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    1. Well, given that the slime at Wisconsin Club for Growth are desperately trying to block the John Doe (again), there's definitely SOMETHING BIG to be revealed here. And given that Bice is mentioning Rindfleisch as part of the John Doe, maybe she is giving herself up.

      It would certainly explain why these Koch/ Bradley groups have been trying to taint this investigation. Keep it coming, Capper

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  18. Jake, nice catch. Latest from Bice:

    "Court filings identify Rindfleisch, O'Keefe as subjects in John Doe probe"

    http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/244737031.html

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    Replies
    1. lol at this comment at the JS:

      http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/244737031.html?viewAll=1#comment-172946566

      Delete
  19. Ms. Rindfleisch was convicted of illegal campaigning way back in the day. John Doe #1 lead to Ms. Rindfleisch being convicted a second time, this time receiving 6 months in prison and 3 years probation. Can you imagine what being convicted a THIRD time will do to her prison term in John Doe #2 ? Rindfleisch has to be looking at a very, VERY long prison sentence.

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    Replies
    1. Maybe that's why she didn't take a plea deal th second time...

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