Domestic Partner Registry Upheld, With A Twist Of Walkergate

In 2006, Wisconsin brought shame to itself by allowing bigotry to become a constitutional right when they passed the ban on gay marriage.

In 2009, Governor Jim Doyle passed a law establishing a domestic partner registry, giving the LGBT community at least a modicum of human dignity if not quite equal status as the rest of the citizenry.

This made the conservatives apoplectic at the thought that someone different from them might be treated the same.

So a right wing front group improperly named Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) filed a lawsuit, claiming that the registry allowed gays to be treated with too much respect.

The court ruled against their complaint, so WFA appealed. Their appeal was also denied:

In affirming a lower court decision that the law does not violate the state's constitutional amendment banning marriage equality, the court stated: "...it would 'take pages' to list the rights and obligations that go with marriages but not domestic partnerships...It is not necessary to list that many here to demonstrate that...the rights and obligations of marriage are not substantially similar to the rights and obligations of domestic partnerships."

In June 2009, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed domestic partnerships into law, granting limited but important legal protections to same-sex couples, including hospital visitation and the ability to take a family medical leave to care for a sick or injured partner. Wisconsin Family Action brought a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court arguing that the domestic partnership law is a violation of Wisconsin's constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Shortly thereafter, Lambda Legal successfully moved to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of Fair Wisconsin and five same-sex couples.

"The court has affirmed what we have maintained all along - it is ridiculous to suggest that a domestic partnership law could be considered anything closely resembling a marriage for purposes of state law," said Christopher Clark, senior staff attorney in Lambda Legal's Midwest Regional Office. "In fact, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected the plaintiffs' arguments as 'nonsense.' We fought off this ugly attack against the rights and protections currently available to same-sex couples and their families in Wisconsin - a sweet holiday present to loving couples and families."

WFA is promising to take it to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which at the moment has a majority of justices which believe that the Constitution and the law are merely advisory things that can be dismissed when it so suits them.

Obviously, the ruling is a good thing, but not good enough. The amendment which legalizes bigotry must be appealed before their is any justice.

But as with all things in Fitzwalkerstan, there is more. There is always more.

WFA's rationale for their lawsuit is utter hogwash. As the impeccable Emily Mills pointed out at the time (which was also supported in the appellate ruling), there is very little resemblance between the rights allowed in the registry and those given by law to a married couple. WFA is complaining that the apples are too much like oranges.

It should also be noted that when the lawsuit was originally filed, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to do his job in defending the registry. This forced Doyle to spend taxpayer money to do what Van Hollen was charged with doing.

Within months of taking office, Scott Walker fired the private attorneys.

In return, WFA was able to provide Walker and his allies with an inordinate amount of help during the recalls, as reported by the Wisconsin Gazette:

Wisconsin Family Action has spent at least $304,000 in recent weeks on broadcast ads smearing the Democratic opponents of two right-wing state senators. That’s a remarkable level of spending for the small evangelical group, according to political observers.

Although WFA is not required by law to disclose individual donors, contributors are likely to be some of the same out-of-state groups that are shoveling cash into Wisconsin senate races at levels never before seen in the state. WFA executive director Julaine Appling refuses to discuss the source of the group’s sudden windfall.

The Gazette goes on to also show another peculiarity about this group:

In a story that’s notable for its layers of oddity, Appling is a never-married single woman who’s lived for many years with Diane Westphall, another never-married single woman. The two currently share a home they own together in Watertown, and they also work side by side at WFA.

Now, while that might be a bit peculiar, there is something that the Gazette missed which I believe should send off a lot of red flags and Walkergate alerts.

(This is where the "always more" part comes in. Cue dramatic music!)

Also on the board of WFA, and who is named in the lawsuit to prevent gay people from being treated semi-equally is a gentleman named Jaren E. Hiller.

A quick Google shows that Mr. Hiller is a real estate broker with an agency called Hiller Realty Inc.

Now, as it just so happens to be, Hiller Realty Inc is owned and operated by Jaren's brother, John Hiller.

And, as the gentle reader might remember, John Hiller was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years, until he was suddenly dismissed right after Walkergate exploded. Hiller was also on Walker's transition team after being elected.

It would not be a stretch to think he was distancing himself from Walker and his campaign, especially considering Hiller might have had a hand in some of the pay for play and bid rigging going on while Walker was running for governor.

So let's recap this.

While Walker was running for governor, the brother of Walker's campaign treasurer (who has a sordid history himself), who was part of a right wing front group as well as worked with his brother in their realty agency, filed a lawsuit in order to make Doyle look bad (this was before Doyle chose not to run).

Gee, do you think that there just might have been some collusion between WFA and Walker's campaign?  Just a little, maybe?

Perhaps we need to put John Hiller on the list of names to watch in 2013 as the next wave of Walkergate sweeps the state.

And can't the right wing do anything openly and honestly? Do they have a code against that or something?

Walkergate: Following Russell's Revelations Down The Rabbit Hole

On Tuesday night, I said that I thought Wednesday would be an interesting day for the ongoing saga of Walkergate. I am pleased to say that I was again proven to be correct, but not in a way I would have imagined.

As the regular readers (all 4.3 of them) already knows, Tim Russell's defense attorney, Dennis Krueger, had filed two motions, one to dismiss the case outright, and failing that, to suppress the evidence against his client. I thought the chances of these to succeed were laughable.

I found them even more laughable after Assistant District Attorney filed his responses to Russell's motions.

And, of course, I was correct.

The Honorable David Hansher found the defense's motions to be without merit and dismissed them.

The next official event will be on September 1, 2012, when both the state and the defense present their proposed questions and proposed instructions for the jury. The actual jury trial is scheduled for September 10.

Judge Hansher also ordered the prosecutors and Attorney Krueger to meet in the near future to have a discussion on whether a long laundry list of things taken from Russell, including 16 computers, an iPhone, financial records for the Republican Party of Milwaukee County (Russell was their treasurer), and assorted documents dealing with Operation Freedom as well as emails from John Hiller and Jim Villa (This is important! Remember this!).

Steve Schultze, who covered the hearing for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, gave the story his usual level of incompetence and misleading reporting.  From Schultze's original report:

In an unusual twist, prosecutors disclosed that Michael Maistelman, Russell's original lawyer in the case, was "a person of interest" in connection with the John Doe investigation. The judge did not clarify why Maistelman was a focus of that investigation, which began more than two years ago and has been broadened at least seven times.

The judge has ordered that documents filed on the Maistelman matter be kept secret.

The issue came up because Russell's current attorney, Dennis Krueger, is Maistelman's law partner. That raised a question of whether Krueger had a potential conflict of interest in representing Russell, Hansher said. Russell said he was satisfied with keeping Krueger on his case.

Maistelman leaked information about the investigation to radio talk show host Charlie Sykes, according to a court filing by Landgraf last month. Maistelman tipped off Sykes in January that two other Walker aides at the county - Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch - would be charged in the John Doe investigation, Landgraf wrote.

Wink and Rindfleisch were charged four days later with doing campaign work while on their county jobs.

Attorney Michael Maistelman

When I first read this, I was taken quite aback. Schultze was making it seem like Maistelman was one of the corrupt Scott Walker's henchmen! That was hard to swallow since Maistelman has always been very upright in all of my dealings with him. And I know for a fact that Maistelman has the respect of many of Wisconsin's top officials and is one of the go to attorneys, especially when it comes to election laws. Furthermore, it was unlikely behavior for someone who was just named one of 2012's Leaders in the Law.

Indeed, by the time I got online and pulled up the story, I see that Schultze had to correct his story by adding these lines (emphasis mine):

District Attorney John Chisholm said Maistelman was not a target of the investigation. Chisholm said he couldn't reveal the reason prosecutors had an interest in Maistelman.

Maistelman said: "A person of interest is someone who may have information related to any investigation."

Sadly, some wannabe citizen reporters didn't get the message. Sites like "Voices Newspaper Blog" took Schultze's misreporting of the facts and actually found a way to make it look even worse.

As Schultze was forced to correct his report, Maistelman is NOT a target. Got it?

And he is not a leak. There are no leaks in this investigation.

The email to Sykes was to tweak his nose. And the information in it, such as the fact the Kelly Rindfleisch was up to her armpits in the corruption, had already been reported by yours truly - five days before her arrest and the day before Maistelman's email.

And what information came from Maistelman or Krueger where done with Russell's blessings. Most likely, it was in an effort to get the heat off of him as well as to stick it to Scott Walker, who left Russell to twist in the wind.

So why would Maistelman be labelled a "person of interest?"

Well, gentle reader, I'm glad you asked.

As District Attorney Chisholm pointed out, Maistelman is not a target. The only remaining reason for him to be a person of interest is that the DA believes that Maistelman might have some information to an ongoing aspect of the investigation.

And we already have a few clues on what that area of the investigation is.

Throughout Russell's trial, there have been a few mentions that Maistelman might have an unwaiverable conflict of interest.  I hadn't written about this before now because I couldn't imagine what it might have been about.  I think I do now have an idea on why the court kept saying this.

Two months ago, we learned of a most curious immunity which was given to Attorney David Halbrooks. At the time, I wrote this:

That said, because of his vast experience and storied past, he was/is a bit of a mover and shaker. He was appointed to the Milwaukee 7, a group consisting of civic leaders, business people and politicians whose mission is to draw businesses to Southeastern Wisconsin. And some of the board members that Halbrooks worked with include Michael Grebe, Walker's campaign chair; Republican money man Jim Kreuser; and someone named Scott Walker.

A more tangential connection is that he apparently had the support of realtors. We all know that the realtors were in deep with Walker and a shady deal regarding the renting of a section of the Reuss Federal Building has been reported as being part of the Walkergate investigation.

Without further information, it is impossible to know with any certainty how Halbrooks is involved with Walkergate. It could be the land deal. It could be another part of it. It could be something altogether new.

I also noted that Halbrooks was "Of Counsel" to Maistelman's law firm, which means that while he was not working for Maistelman, he would, at times, collaborate with Maistelman on a case.

I have also learned since that article two months ago that one of Halbrooks' clients was John Hiller, who is a realtor and was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years. In fact, Halbrooks and the realtors guild were apparently very close since they would hold fundraisers for him when he was a judge.  Hiller is also a name which has surfaced in the Walkergate investigation for his role in the reported pay for play bid-rigging regarding the housing for the Milwaukee County Department of Aging

Seeing how the DA gave Halbrooks immunity, it would not be a jump of faith to believe that he had information regarding this sordid affair which might have incriminated him in some fashion.  The most logical presumption is that Halbrooks has some knowledge, having worked for Hiller, of some of Hiller's possible illegal dealings.  And since Halbrooks has worked with Maistelman, there is a strong chance that Halbrooks gave the DA a reason to believe that Maistelman might have further information regarding all of this.

In other words, as opposed to what Steve Schultze or that Voices blog might want you to believe, Maistelman is not in cahoots with Walker or his gang of thugs.  If anything, he might now play a role in taking them down.

What all of this also tells us is that the Walkergate investigation is far from over and that the stuff that we have seen so far is nothing more than just the tip of the iceberg.  

Whenever they do get around to indicting Scott Walker, it looks like they'll have him trussed up like a Christmas goose.

Walkergate: Trouble In Paradise

As I've been chronicling the ongoing and ever-expanding saga known as Walkergate, or the John Doe investigation into the illegal campaign activities of Scott Walker and his county and/or campaign staff members (they are often interchangeable), one thing stood out.  It appeared, at least until the first arrests, that this was one happy little family of GOP operatives working cheerfully together on their one objective - getting Scott Walker elected at all costs.

However, as is often the case, it is growing increasingly apparent that the phrase "There is no honor among thieves" still holds true.  Instead of one big happy family, there appears to have been some infighting going on among the ranks, which may be about to spill over in a big way.

In an article that is well worth taking the hit on the JSOnline paywall, Steve Schultze reports on some newly-released transcripts that prosecutors filed with the courts on Wednesday, when Kelly Rindfleisch appeared in court.  At the court hearing, Rindfleisch entered a plea of not guilty and her attorney submitted two motions.  One was to have the case dismissed outright on the basis of universal immunity and the other was to have the case transferred to Columbia County.

The change of venue in itself is interesting in that while her permanent address is in Columbia County, and she voted in Columbia County, her Milwaukee County employment papers and the criminal complaint shows that she was living in a home in West Allis, which was owned by Jim Villa, another one of Walker's top county/campaign aides and apparent good friend of Rindfleisch.

The transcript is a history of online chats between Rindfleisch and Villa.  According to Schultze's report, some of the chats were exchanges of adolescent "what do you want to be when you grow up" kind of fantasizing, discussing various positions they would hold in Walker's administration.

Even then, Walker's cronyism was so well-known that the banter between these two wasn't so much wishful thinking as it was a list of expectations.

But that's not the juicy part.

The good stuff comes in when they start talking about their teammate, Tim Russell, behind his back:

The Rindfleisch-Villa chats include some catty commentary on other Walker county staffers.
Russell has just lost his privileges to the county executive's suite, according to a March 30 exchange. 

"Get this, Tom revoked Tim's access to the office," Rindfleisch says, possibly referring to Tom Nardelli, then Walker's chief of staff. Russell had been Walker's deputy chief of staff, a job that was given to Rindfleisch. 

Russell set up a secret email network in Rindfleisch's office earlier in 2010, according to her criminal complaint. 

In a chat with Villa two weeks earlier, Rindfleisch says she'd avoided telling Russell she had been promoted by Walker from policy aide to deputy chief of staff - Russell's job. 

"I've kept quiet because I don't think Tim knew I knew (about her promotion) and I didn't want to offend him," she says. "It's not like I earned it. No one else in the office is capable," Rindfleisch tells Villa. 

Villa reassures her she has the "political chops" to handle the job. "YOU are the political operation in that office now; Tom is an IDIOT," Villa writes. He doesn't identify who Tom is, but the only Tom working in Walker's county office at the time was Nardelli. 

[...] 

Villa opines in the online chat that "Keith will work better with you than with Tim" Russell. The transcripts don't spell out who Keith is, but hint at a direct connection between Walker's campaign staff and his county staff. Walker's campaign manager was Keith Gilkes. 

Raising cash for Davis was "tough going," according to Rindfleisch. 

"Nobody cares about Lt. Gov.," she says.

Well, that pretty much cooks Rindfleisch's goose.  It verifies that she was campaigning for both Walker and his choice of potential lieutenant governors, Brett Davis, while she was on the taxpayers' dime.

This little exchange also implicates that Walker's campaign manager, Keith Gilkes, who was in Walker's administration, was in the middle of the illegal campaigning.  I bet he really loved working with Cullen Werwie, who was given immunity, presumably for ratting on all of them.

Even better than that, this exchange goes farther than anything else to this point at implicating Tom Nardelli.  Nardelli was Walker's Chief of Staff at Milwaukee County and ended up in some cushy state jobs until he suddenly quit. Well, this would explain why people who know Nardelli have told me he's been looking a bit haggard since retiring.  It might be that he is afraid of losing all of his pensions (he has three or four of them).

Not too long ago, Mike Nichols, a right wing hack who appears in various publications, including the Bradley Foundation-supported WPRI, recently defended Nardelli for being the apparent stand-up kind of guy in Walker's administration.  I wonder if he'll be retracting that soon.

If Nardelli was in on all this corruption, which seems more than likely now, the person who would be loving this the most is my late grandfather, who knew Nardelli and said he was a "no good bum."

But even though the Nardelli stuff is juicy, it's still not the juiciest part.  Even juicier is the stuff about Tim Russell.

According to Rindfleisch and Villa, Russell did something to get in Walker's bad graces.  That would explain why he was banished from the courthouse and put in the Housing Division in a different building altogether.  It would also explain why in the spring, while Russell was travelling and illegally campaigning with Walker on his Harley Davidson tour of the state, he was acting like a good sycophant, almost to the point of debasing himself, as depicted in the different videos taken during that trip.

The thing that struck me most about this is what must be going through Russell's mind right about now.  I have already questioned what his financial situation is like.  I have also been told that Russell is feeling a bit salty because Walker and the others have thrown him to the wolves, so to speak. Sources have told me that he's been trying to raise money for his defense, including trying to sell some of those domains he owns, but his former friends have turned their backs on him.

Now he sees that the people he considered his colleagues, his friends and his brothers and sisters in arms, were trash talking him behind his back.

He must be thinking about those embezzlement charges he is currently facing, as well as being fully aware that he could easily have more charges added at any minute.  The child enticement charges filed against his partner, Brian Pierick, refer to a partner and co-owner of the phones they were using.  Rindfleisch's complaint points out how he set up the secret rotor that they were using to campaign with and avoid open record requests. It's been pointed out that he was supervising Darlene Wink's campaigning while they were both supposed to be working in the county executive's office.

In other words, he's facing a world of hurt, legally speaking, and now finds that his friends not only abandoned him, they were using him and treating him like garbage all the while.  He's got to be wondering why he should show any of them any loyalty anymore.

But even Russell isn't the juiciest part.

The juiciest part is the one that's hardly mentioned in the article - Scott Walker.

Look at what Walker is facing:

• Kelly Rindfleisch, a political opportunist, is facing up to 14 years in jail and a huge fine.  Walker is the only person that hired her and promoted her to his office, so that she could do his campaigning as well as for his favored running mate, Brett Davis.
• The screws just got tightened on Jim Villa, a long time friend, staffer and campaign worker, and who appears to be deeply involved with the shenanigans.
• The screws just got added to Keith Gilkes, his campaign manager and former gubernatorial aide.
• The screws also just got added to Tom Nardelli, who does not want to lose all of that pension money.
• Darlene Wink already struck a plea bargain and has promised to cooperate with investigation and prosecution of the other cases.
• Tim Russell, long time friend, who was a faithful operative and staffer, who is already facing a lot of legal problems, the strong potential for even more, and who is probably feeling very betrayed, very hurt, very bitter and very angry.

And that's just the things we know of.  There's no telling how many other people there could be facing their own share of trouble, including John Hiller, his former campaign treasurer and Andrew Jensen, commercial real estate mogul.

What do you think the odds are that one or more of these people will decide to cut a deal for themselves, like Wink did, and be willing to spill their guts regarding Walker's involvement in all of the illegal activities?  After all, what kind of loyalty or support has Walker shown them as he's been flying back and forth across the country to raise money to defend against the approaching recall and to pay for his legal cooperation fund?

What do you  think the odds are that Walker is drinking Maalox by the gallon by now?

What do you thing the odds are that we'll be seeing an image much like this one?

I don't know what the odds are, but I'm going to go fix me up some popcorn for this one.

Scott Walker: Tax Delinquent

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel broke the news that Scott Walker's campaign was pinged for not paying taxes.

But not just any taxes, but their unemployment compensation taxes.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued an quick press release on Walker's scofflaw nature:

"Scott Walker touts himself as an able CEO, and yet we have seen his campaigns run in a shabby, undisciplined and even criminal way," Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Wednesday. "It is significant for the rest of the citizens of Wisconsin who play by the rules. Still, being a tax delinquent may be the least of Scott Walker's problems with authorities."

But there are some things that neither Bice nor Tate covered that I feel is pertinent.

First of all, Walker has collected millions of dollars in his extended unlimited money grab (with a big part of it coming from out of state). With all that money, he couldn't afford to pay his taxes?

And of course, it had to be unemployment compensation, like his policies haven't already caused enough problems with six consecutive months of losing jobs and then delaying unemployment compensation checks for the poor people victimized by Walker's maleficence.

I also recall that Walker claims that he had to replace his campaign treasurer of 18 years, John Hiller, because he didn't think Hiller was up to the job anymore.  So how's that new treasurer working out for ya, Scott?

Of course, that there would be something untoward and even illegal going on with Walker's campaign, it is nothing we didn't already know.

Walkergate: Intermission

I don't have time to go into depth on the latest installment of Walkergate as being reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning.  I'll try to give you some insights that the paper missed tonight.

But a couple of things for now to digest as you read their report:

• Now we know why Hiller left so suddenly
• They really don't go into how cozy all these people are with each other
• I'm really surprised they didn't go after what, at least to me, was the more sordid land deal regarding the county grounds
• Remember, they save the big stuff for last and this thing isn't done yet

Walkergate: The Web(Site Problem) Draws Tighter

I've  already discussed some of the side issues stemming from the arrest of Tim Russell, especially in regards to various websites.

To recap, we know that Russell had used the money he stole from the veterans fund and used it to buy various domains, including the site for ScottforGov.com and for Scott Walker's official campaign website.

I have since been given information that shows how far Russell was into this and raises several more red flags on who else might have been involved in the whole Walkergate scandal.

My source said that they did a Google search of Russell's email, tim@regentgroup.us and found www.regentgroup.us/. They added this note

The site's only content is an address and phone plus: "The Regent Group provides consulting and ancillary services to select clients. For information or to inquire about becoming a client, contact us by e-mail or phone."

The significance of this address is that Russell's realty company was named Regent.

This site led to www.regentwebhost.com/ which was described as:

 "Regent Web Hosting is a subsidiary of The Regent Group. We provide web-page design and hosting services to select clients. For information on our services or to inquire about becoming a client. Please contact us via e-mail or phone."

Further examination uncovered that www.regentwebhost.com hosted a number of sites, most of which were blank pages or domains parked at GoDaddy.com.  Some of these include the following:

• hiller-realty.com
• walkerrecord.com
• thewalkerrecord.com
• hillerrealty.com
• hiddencreekcondos.com
• regentwi.com (which redirects to blank page regentrealtyonline.com

Hiller Realty is the company owned by John Hiller.  Hiller was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years until he abruptly and quietly left (or was fired) last spring.  He has ties to the Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin*, which we learned about when Andrew Jensen was jailed for a couple of days when he refused to cooperate with the Walkergate investigation.

Russell also had a domain www.believeinwiagain.org which redirects to scottwalker.org, Walker's official campaign site.

Russell also had two other parked sites: www.believeinwi.org (as well as .net and .info) and www.hgps.info.

The latter site is obviously in reference to Heritage Guard Preservation Society, the front group that Russell headed up to act as fiscal manager for the Operation Freedom funds, which he eventually stole from.

Despite Walker's repeated attempts to put as much distance as possible between him and Russell, it's fairly obvious that Russell was deeply entrenched in Walker's campaign.  Another source had already told me that it appears that much of the work that's been done at Walker's campaign site was done by Russell and apparently during work hours.

And all the ties to the various realty brokers - John Hiller, Jim Villa, Andrew Jensen, Brian Pierick and Tim Russell - it appears that this group might be a larger part of the Walkergate investigation than previously thought.  

And as much as the Republicans keep trying to either ignore the Walkergate story or minimize it to just the embezzlement of the veterans funds, it's becoming increasingly obvious that all the threads of this web lead right back to Walker.

*If things keep going the way they appear, the Milwaukee area is going to have a sudden dearth of realty brokers.  Maybe that's the way Walker was planning on creating the 250,000 jobs.

Walkergate: Walker's CARW-tel

On Tuesday, we learned that Andrew P. Jensen, Jr., a leading Milwaukee real estate broker, was arrested and booked into the Milwaukee County Jail for not cooperating with the ongoing John Doe investigation.

Wednesday evening, Jensen was released.  As part of his release, Jensen had to agree to meet with prosecutors at the end of January.

The shortness of his stay would indicate that this was a wake up call to Jensen that his money and influence doesn't extend as far as he would like and that he is not exempt from the law.  It also serves as a warning to other people that are entangled in the growing mess which spawned from the way Walker practices politics.

Oddly, Jensen's attorney, Patrick Schott, said that Jensen was jailed because Jensen "wouldn't adopt their version of events."  But the facts that authorities tried to offer Jensen immunity and that he tried to take it if he could remain anonymous while doing so would indicate that Jensen knows what the score is, but is too afraid of the Republican party machine that he doesn't want it known that he sang.

Now that Jensen's been outed, watch for the right, especially in the form of talk radio, rally around him and try to make him appear as a living martyr in a feeble effort to discredit the investigation.*  This is not so much to congratulate him for keeping his mouth shut - so far - as it is to remind him that they are watching in case he does.

On another note, in Tuesday's piece, I pointed out that there were other cronies of Walker's who were also tied up in the real estate business.  What even I hadn't fully realized is how cozy the relationship is between those people that I had mentioned.

In a copy of the Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin newsletter, from June 2008 (pdf), shows that while Jensen was serving as Chairman of the group's board, Jim Villa was the group's president.  If the reader scrolls down the newsletter to the second page, they can see a giant ad taken out by JM Hiller Consulting, LLC, which is the company owned by John Hiller, who had served for 18 years as Scott Walker's campaign treasurer, until abruptly leaving in the spring of this year.

This edition also includes an article about how they were nice and close to then Speaker of the Assembly Michael Huebsch, who is currently Walker's top henchman and has been leading the attack on Wisconsinite's First Amendment Rights, especially when it comes to the People's House, also known as the Capitol Building.

In the February 2008 (pdf) issue of the same newsletter, there are two articles about the groups PAC and how they're using it to "influence" lawmakers.  And we already know all too well how easily Walker is influenced, especially by big money.

And just as a bow on today's package, we can't leave Tim Russell out of this assorted affair.  Remember that under Walker's term as Milwaukee County Executive, Russell served at times in the economic development department as well as the Director of Housing.  That is significant when one looks at this line from the MJS article (emphasis mine):

Jensen, who primarily represents building owners seeking tenants for vacant space, is considered one of the top agents in the Milwaukee area in this field. He has also brokered deals involving public agencies and buildings.

Anyone familiar with Walker's method of operation in management would know that it includes trying to privatize all the services he could as well as sell all the assets he could, even if it meant ruining something as unique as the Monarch Trail.

That's the problem when a politician weaves such cozy webs. They might seem nice and cozy, but they can quickly turn into a tightening trap on them when they do wrong.

*This seems like a counter-intuitive strategy.  Do they really want prosecutors to level charges during the recall and so close before the election?  Really?

Walkergate: The First Arrest

Right in the middle of the gathering of signatures for the Scott Walker recall, Walkergate raises its ugly head, as if we needed any more incentive to get the bum out of office with all due haste.

Andrew P. Jensen, Jr, coutesty
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who has been covering the ongoing saga of Walkergate, which has been underway for a year and a half and is reportedly growing massive in its range and scale, reports on the latest shoe to fall in the investigation:

On Tuesday, authorities arrested Andrew P. Jensen Jr., a commercial real estate broker with Boerke Co. and a past president of the Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin.

Fran McLaughlin, spokesman for Sheriff David Clarke Jr., confirmed that Jensen was behind bars on Tuesday night. But McLaughlin said no one had filed a criminal complaint against the 50-year-old Milwaukee resident.

The sheriff's website states that charges are pending against Jensen.

Attempts to reach Jensen or his lawyer were unsuccessful. Jensen, who primarily represents building owners seeking tenants for vacant space, is considered one the top agents in Milwaukee in this field.

Jensen was a minor contributor to Walker's gubernatorial campaign, donating $850 to Walker. Boerke Co. employees gave a total of $12,150.

Insiders told No Quarter that he was arrested for refusing to cooperate with the long-running John Doe investigation by Milwaukee County prosecutors.

As Bice goes on to explain, in a John Doe investigation, prosecutors can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify.

While Jensen's arrest will make for great conversation around the water cooler and at the lunch table on Wednesday, it's not the biggest part of Walkergate. Remember, Jensen was only arrested, per the article, for allegedly not cooperating with the investigation. It doesn't indicate that Jensen was necessarily tied up with any other wrong doings.

But what did catch my eye was the fact that Jensen is a real estate broker and past president of the Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin (CARW).

It caught my eye, because Walker seems to like to surround himself with these folks

One such example is Jim Villa.  Villa is a Walker crony going way back.

Villa was Walker's Chief of Staff when he was in the state legislature.  He returned to the Chief of Staff position when Walker was Milwaukee County Executive and was gearing up for his first attempt at running for governor.  At that time, Walker was already taking a lot of heat for the miserable way he was handling the county's affairs and for campaigning on the county dime during his infamous bike rides. Even then, Walker acolytes like Owen Robinson were falling all over themselves making excuses and being apologetic as they defended Walker's already evident corruption.

Besides being a Walker supporter and Walker aide, Villa is also a real estate broker and has been the president of CARW for the past four years.

Another such character is a man named Jim Hiller.  You've probably heard of the name.

He was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years, about as long as Walker has been a career politician.  Hiller also served on Walker's transition team as he became governor.  And yes, he was in real estate for 21 years.

Hiller should be someone to watch as Walkergate continues to unfold.  After all, there has to be a reason why Hiller suddenly quit as Walker's treasurer after 18 years, and I doubt it was because he wanted to be a lobbyist:

"Every time there's a new witness, this thing sprouts a new branch and heads in a completely new direction," said one person familiar with the investigation.

Walker also acknowledged Tuesday that his longtime campaign treasurer, John Hiller, had left that post. Records show Hiller was replaced by Kate Lind on May 13.

The governor said the change had nothing to do with the John Doe investigation

"For us, we put someone on who is a professional comptroller to make sure, with the volume of supporters we have, we had somebody who could handle that," Walker said. Two insiders said Hiller had also broken formal ties with the campaign around the same time he began soliciting clients with business before the state.

After that length of time, Eagle Scout Walker suddenly felt that Hiller wasn't up to the job? Right.

But that line about "soliciting clients with business before the state" sounds awfully suspicious to me, given some of the rumors that have been floating around regarding the investigation.

But there's one more real estate agent who is a long time Walker crony that is most definitely a person of interest in the investigation: Tim Russell. Russell is, of course, one of the first people to be investigated in the early days of Walkergate. He was caught on film campaigning with Walker during his bike ride. He also had his office thoroughly searched, including having his computer and county-issued Blackberry confiscated and locked file cabinets pried open by Sheriff's deputies.

As a possible tie in to the others, Russell also held a couple of real estate related positions under Walker in Milwaukee County, including working in economic development and during his last job, as Director of Housing. Both of these jobs worked intricately in real estate and the funding that goes with those positions.

All of these people, as well as other members of CARW and the real estate brokerage and real estate development were big supporters of Walker's campaigns, whether by working for him and/or contributing to his campaign.

Given Walker's long history of blatant cronyism and of rewarding his supporters lavishly, it does give pause to wonder if this is somehow related to the Walkergate investigation.  I think the gentle reader already knows where I would come down on this, but I will leave it to you to decide for yourself.

Now let us prepare for the onslaught of manipulations and stunts that Walker and his allies will ply in an effort to draw our attention from the things that they don't want us to see or know about.