Walkergate: The Legal Cooperation Fund

Ever since Scott Walker announced that he has retained two high profile attorneys to help his cooperation with the ongoing Walkergate investigation, one of the most repeated questions is who's paying for them?

There was little doubt that a good chunk of the more than $12 million would be going to these two, but he couldn't pay them from the campaign.

In what is becoming an almost weekly tradition for Walker, he pulled another late Friday afternoon news bomb to state that he was creating a legal cooperation fund.  But wouldn't you know, that darn liberal media goes and keeps calling it a legal defense fund.  As if Walker did anything wrong, right?

As one of my friends quipped, "$2,000 an hour buys some premium cooperation."

But is it really cooperation?  Did I really need to ask that?

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel consulted with a couple of experts, including, Michael Maistelman, on what it means:

But election lawyers said the governor's move appeared a tacit acknowledgment that Walker is under investigation for violations of state election law. 

"If you create a legal defense fund, you are either being investigated, being charged with or have been convicted of a criminal violation of Chapter 11 or Chapter 12," said George Dunst, a retired state election lawyer. 

"The only way you can set that up is if you are under investigation or being prosecuted," said Michael Maistelman, an election lawyer who is representing former Walker aide Tim Russell in the John Doe investigation. "One can only draw the conclusion that either one of those two things is happening."

But Ciara Matthews states otherwise:

But Walker spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said late Friday that the fund was set up "under the guidance of the GAB." 

"We reiterate that Gov. Walker has been told that he is not a target of this investigation," Matthews said.

Please note that she didn't say who told him this.  My guess it was her doing the talking.  Then again, if you take her word at face value, she just accused Walker of illegally setting up the legal cooperation fund.  If he's not a being investigated or charged, he can't set up the fund.  See?! I told you she was going to be the perfect fit for Walker's campaign! She is as bumbling as he is.

And since the right is so into digging into people's lives and exposing everything they can, I'll return the favor.  Here is the preliminary paperwork for Walker's filing of the legal cooperation fund.

But I must caution the reader to be patient.  It will be a while before we get to see Walker do the perp walk.  Methinks there are some other people that will be going down before Walker does.

But just to keep you from being too disappointed, I thought I'd share this picture of the future with you:

I think his bracelets are quite becoming, don't you?