Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Walkergate: What's In Your Dumpster?

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a column up with a batch of three stories in it.

The one story that my esteemed lefty blogger colleagues caught on to was the story of Scott Walker's hypocrisy regarding how governor's should behave when they have bad-acting underlings.

But it appears that might not be the most interesting one of Bice's stories.

He also had one about a mystery dumpster that is now part of Walkergate:
The John Doe investigation of Walker's tenure as county executive has taken many odd twists and turns.

But what to make of this?

Last week, Frank Busalacchi, head of the county Transportation and Public Works Department, was asked by investigators for a particular county Dumpster.

"All they asked was if I could move it, and we did," Busalacchi said Thursday. "I think they wanted to look through it."

Was it full or empty?

"I have no idea," he said. "They asked me that, and I said, 'You know, I just got here in November. I don't know what's in a Dumpster on the side of the courthouse. I have no idea.'"

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, who is overseeing the John Doe probe, wouldn't provide any further insight.

"I have no comment," Landgraf said.
Well, I might have some more information on that.

From what I have learned, the dumpster was indeed moved and had to have a lock broken or cut open. Inside, the dumpster was reportedly full of papers of some sort. What kind is unknown, but it took a number of deputy sheriffs and staff from the District Attorney's office to go through and they are probably still sorting through them

Your guess at what those papers are would be as good as mine, but the first thing I thought of was the missing files that were reported shortly after Walker and his entourage left the courthouse at the end of 2010:
The dozens of Walker's file cabinets were virtually emptied of their contents by the end of last month, and 16 bankers' boxes of records retrieved this week from storage by aides to Holloway appear well short of the total paper-load once held in the courthouse's third-floor executive suite.

A tour this week of the sparsely staffed offices revealed banks of empty file drawers, save a set of various bureaucratic forms, county budget books and one stack of papers on various issues left in the office of Fran McLaughlin, who was Walker's county spokeswoman.

The empty drawers, coupled with the absence of any message or memo telling the whereabouts of Walker's office documents - and at least two bins of shredded paper left by Walker staffers - were perplexing, Mester said.
It was probably those or leftover copies of the Milwaukee County First's Survival Guide to Scott Walker's Courthouse.

Sources have told me that the authorities knew just where to go to find this dumpster, which originally made me wonder if they had put it there, until I learned of the need to force the lock. That would tell me that maybe one of the other persons of interest in this ongoing investigation has cut a deal and turned state witness and told them where to find said mystery dumpster'o'fun.  Remember that Darlene Wink has already agreed to testify about the "destruction of digital evidence."

Now, granted, a lot of the details are vague and a lot of pieces to this latest puzzle are obviously still missing, but it does not appear to be a good omen for Walker as he is going to be meeting with the investigators himself in the near future.

The one thing that I can tell you with some certainty is that it definitely appears that the most eye-popping twists to this story are still in store for us.

But wouldn't it be a form of poetic justice if the contents of that dumpster is what puts Walker's political career, and his demented ideological agenda, in the dumpster instead?

31 comments:

  1. Yes, especially because I have heard stories about how the Milwaukee court judges had to empty the trash cans in the courtrooms themselves, because of ...the budget, of course.

    Why wasn't the dumpster emptied?

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    1. It was locked for one thing. And it wasn't with the other dumpsters, otherwise it might have been.

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  2. Wow.

    NEVER saw this coming.

    GREAT photoshop.

    Pass the popcorn.

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  3. You guys, always looking for that smoking gun...uhh, or smoking trash can.

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  4. I had the same question Anonymous had; why would there be a dumpster from 2010 left with the contents still in it? Especially if they were trying to chuck sensitive evidence. Did someone in the court house order it not to be touched? I'd love to find a smoking gun, but I have a hard time believing that it's here. If it is, then these guys are dumber than even I thought, which is really going some.

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    1. My guess would be that was going to be Russell's job, but got fired before he could get rid of it.

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    2. Wouldn't Russell have had some friends still on the job that he could count on to get rid of the trash?

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  5. As your chewing on your popcorn and feeling good about yourselves, why dont you give the "unenlightened" people what you think this investigation will come up with? What was in those deleted digital documents? Lets hear some guesses.

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  6. Sure, "Imustberacist". We'd be glad to help you.

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  7. I wonder if that was the " off site storage" that also contains my marriage certificate, that was never found when I requested a copy of it. I did request it when all of this was going on.

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  8. The moment a subpoena was issued, that dumpster could not be emptied or otherwise handled legally by anyone in Walker's office, if it contained documents involving administration records -- official or under the table. Any halfway decent lawyer would have told Russell or anyone else that.

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    1. I want this to be true, so please convince me! Wouldn't the documents in the dumpster have to be handed over to the DA's office, if they were covered by the subpoena? Who would have gone halfway, saving them but not handing them over?

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  9. As for passing the popcorn...please, NOT @RepVos's popcorn. I hear it's rancid.

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    1. is that what Representative Meyer of Vila Co had?

      www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=14668&SectionID=9&SubSectionID=9

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  10. imustbe,

    MJS published this back on January 25:

    "John Doe investigation looks into bids to house county workers"

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/corruption-investigation-looks-into-bids-to-house-county-workers-0s3t07c-138020933.html

    Then Scott hired an ILLINOIS attorney, John Gallo, who works for Obama's old law firm, Sidley Austin. From Gallos' bio as a US attorney: "......He also was involved in cases involving complex money-laundering schemes; *****real estate fraud;***** and violations of the federal securities laws." Asterisks are mine.

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  11. Money-laundering schemes, real estate fraud and violations of Federal securities laws; yes that pretty much covers it. Actually it reminds me of the good-old-days of the Thompson administration.

    The difference between Thompson and Walker is that Tommy knew how to buy off enough of the opposition --and journalists-- to advance his agenda without starting a war. While Scottie, the self-claimed "Desperado", assumed he could just steamroll everyone.

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    1. Thompson did his fair share of steamrolling. Recall his "Let's stick it to Milwaukee" campaign?

      Rallied the rest of the state to impose an added sales tax on the area around Milwaukee County, in flat violation of the state constitution's requirement of equal taxation -- by the device of creating a "regional" entity, wholly owned by the state, that would tax its own "region."

      And here the usefulness of a totally compliant state supreme court was demonstrated, by rubber-stamping it.

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  12. I'm so jealous of your photo editing.

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  13. Wow; All I have to add is this; WHY DID THEY WAIT OVER A YEAR AFTE RWALKER TOOK OFFICE OF GOV. TO GET RID OF ALL THAT PAPERWORK?? I wonder if it had anything to do with the goings on of today, and what evidence did they destroy that would or could implicate Walker in all of this. OOPS!!!

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  15. Raven, thanks. Did not know.

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  16. This are all very interesting theories, but until charges are brought up, they are only theories. Just like when nobody is charged for vote fraud, it must mean everyone is innocent, right?

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  17. While you are exactly right, imustbe, we actually have evidence and pleas and what not. On voter fraud, not so much.

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  18. The only reasons I can think of that they would bother to toss incriminating evidence but then not pick up the dumpster is a) someone was planning on using it as an insurance policy or b) there may have been one honest person in that office who wanted to secure the evidence. My guess would be a).

    And this is all assuming there's anything in the durn dumpster worth looking at.

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  19. capperFeb 7, 2012 05:00 AM

    "My guess"

    The substance of this blog...

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  20. Substance of this blog? Meaning its full of hate, animosity and hopefull conjecture? There is enough of that here to fill a dumpster.

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  21. Boy, you guys are being awfully salty. I can't imagine why... (WINK, WINK, nudge, nudge).

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  22. Capper ... Can you give us any info on what's happening with the lawyers that are bailing out on the accused in the John Doe investigation ?

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