We learned at the end of last week that the prosecutors had filed their final pretrial papers in preparation for the jury trial of Kelly Rindfleisch, who has been charged with four counts of illegally doing campaign work while working in her Milwaukee County office as Scott Walker's Assistant Chief of Staff.
Among the papers filed was the potential witness list. And heading that list was none other than
John Doe Scott Walker himself.
Monday was the
final pretrial hearing for Rindfleisch.
As one might have expected, the Honorable David Hansher is tired of all the stalling and game playing by Rindfleisch and her attorney, Franklyn Gimbel, and denied the defense's umpteenth request to stay the hearing pending yet another appeal.
Gimbel also asked, via a Motion In Limine, to have the Court
suppress Rindfleisch's statements that she had made to the caucus scandal investigators regarding her knowledge of it being illegal to campaign while at work as a public employee. In other words, she wants to claim that she didn't know it was wrong to do this, despite being granted immunity for doing illegal campaigning during the caucus scandals.
I don't think the judge will grant this wish either, but even if he does, it won't help her case at all. First of all, there is the fact that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Secondly, the Milwaukee County Ethics Board sends out regular reminders of ethics rules and conflicts of interest. So even if the defense argues she didn't know it then, they cannot argue that they didn't know it during her time as Walker's henchwoman.
The judge is expected to make his ruling on October 11, the same day that they are to do the deposition of the mysterious and still unidentified
"Timothy L."
But, as you might expect, when it comes to anything related to Walker - say it with me - there is more. There is always more.
Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Gimbel said that the DA's Office tried to get Rindfleisch to cooperate with their investigation, which she refused. Read this excerpt of
the article carefully (emphasis mine):
A former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker resisted prosecutors' efforts to get her to implicate others in a longstanding John Doe investigation, the aide's attorney said Monday.
Prosecutors sought cooperation from Kelly Rindfleisch, who worked as Walker's deputy chief of staff in 2010 when Walker was still Milwaukee County executive, said Franklyn Gimbel, Rindfleisch's lawyer.
"They tried to get her to turn on somebody in authority, but she declined," Gimbel said in an interview. "They were looking for information on people up the food chain," Gimbel said.
He declined to name them.
Now, there weren't many people above Rindfleisch.
On the Milwaukee County side, there was the Chief of Staff, Tom Nardelli, who so far doesn't seem to have anything concrete to do with Walkergate. And above him was Scott Walker. That's it.
On the campaign side, there were more names, including Brett Davis, whom Rindfleisch was working for as a fund raiser. There was also Cullen Werwie, who was Davis' campaign manager but has also been given immunity. Then there was also Keith Gilkes, Walker's campaign manager and Walker again.
But of greater interest is WHY would Rindfleisch decide to fall on her own secret router rather than save her own butt.
There's only a few reasons that would make sense:
- She really doesn't think she did anything wrong. The problem with this is that she was already tied up in the caucus scandal and does know better, unless she is so psychotic she just can't differentiate wrong from right.
- She is expecting to be pardoned or have her sentence commuted. All I can say to that is if that would happen, the reaction across the state would make the protests from 2011 look like a family picnic.
- She's being paid off. It might make it easier for her to take her punishment if she knows that there's a big bundle of cash and/or a high paying job waiting for her when she gets out of prison. Of course, it would be her mistake to trust any of them, but that's her problem.
- She's such a zealot that she would gladly sacrifice her freedom in the name of "the cause" or for Dear Leader Walker.
That last possibility is truly a frightening prospect. How full of hate are these people that they would give up their lives just to get more money and/or power, even if it would destroy the lives of the working people of state? And people wonder why I refer to them as teahadists.
Justice cannot come quickly enough to the lot of them, especially to the "people up the food chain." It's truly a matter of public safety and for the common good.
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