Saturday, January 7, 2012

Oh, What A Tangled Web(site Problem) They Weave!

As the most recent events of Walkergate unfold, namely the arrest of Tim Russell, long time friend and close associate of Scott Walker's, things are starting to creep closer to Walker.

Despite Walker and his campaign quickly trying to backpedal away from Russell after his foretold (by yours truly) arrest was made, they are finding it hard to get away from a decades long relationship.

As I had reported on the day of the arrests, the criminal complaint against Russell shows that he used the purloined money that he stole from the veterans and used it to buy a large number of websites, including those being used for the unofficial official campaign website for Walker. (And yeah, I called it that that website was being run by people in Walker's county executive office.)

Now, Walker knew that Russell was in the thick of the Walkergate investigations. Walker himself claimed that he only knew what he read in the papers. Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done an excellent job of covering it, including pointing out Russell's involvement in almost each of his Walkergate stories. Despite this knowledge, Walker was perfectly comfortable with having Russell and his roommate, Brian Pierick, who was arrested for child enticement, do the administrative work for his official campaign website.

In fact, Russell was listed as the administrator up to and through the day before the arrest.

I also find it interesting that Russell did his work through his realty agency's website, which he had paid for with the money he stole. Apparently doing campaign work through work computers was a common habit for Russell, no matter where he worked.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin had already caught on to this too and have filed a complaint with the GAB alleging that Walker failed to report the in-kind donations in his campaign finance report for the cost of the domains.

Walker's new mouthpiece for the campaign, Ciara Matthews, claims that the complaint is frivolous and that none of the domain names were associated with the campaign.

I don't know, but when your site administrator is also setting up and contributing to another website that closely resembles, to the point of being identical, to the campaign website, it would seem that there was a bit of a connection there.

It will be interesting to watch as more of the missing pieces of the Walkergate puzzle come to the light of day.  But there is no denying from where the stench of corruption is coming from.

8 comments:

  1. Maybe you and Chuck Chvala should go have a kumbya moment. Is he out of prision yet? Oh yeah, I forgot, we don't mention Democrats going to jail now do we?

    How about Peg, career in the ditch Lautenschlager?

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  2. Ohhhhh....Forgot Chris, five finger discount Larson....Wasn't he arrested for shoplifting?

    Great Poster Child....

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  3. Perhaps we should talk of the other Scooter. Jensen is found guilty but buys his way out of jail. Corrupt through and through.

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  4. Oh, and should we talk about how Jensen's been laundering money into the Walker campaign while we're at it?

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  5. 3:53 and 3:55, you talk pretty tough hiding behind your lazy anonymous handle.

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  6. Great job here, Capper. I check in daily. Keep up the good work - alpuz3

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  7. The more the trolls attack, the more you are on the right track. Well done, Capper. I also visit daily. Thanks for the info.

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  8. How about the FBI traces cash withdrawals from Tim Russell controlled accounts and deposits/spending by Mark Block & Herman Cain while we're at it... Funny how Tim Russell thought he was indispensible to the Hermain Cain campaign strategy -- or was Walker eyeing & buying a VP slot? Scooter (and the Wis GOP for that matter)are not smart enough to understand the white collar crime unit's ability to piece together the movement of dirty money. Mark Block has talked to the Grand Jury and I'll bet Mark Block will protect Mark Block. I'd be worried...very worried, if I were Scott Walker.

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