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: The Leak-Proof Investigation

For months, Scott Walker's apologists and other employees of the Koch Brothers/Bradley Foundation/Sam Adams Alliance have done their darnedest in an effort to impugn the good name of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and to smear the fine men and women in his office who work diligently to see that justice is served. They have accused them of all sorts of tawdry, and utterly false, transgressions ranging from having a bias to questioning their professionalism to committing the illegal act of violating secrecy orders by "leaking" information.

They have even gone so far as trying to smear the Honorable Neal P. Nettesheim, the judge who is presiding over the Walkergate investigation.

Things had gotten so far out of hand that some of the most prestigious names in Wisconsin legal circles - including, but not limited to, Retired Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, retired Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann and former Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Jambois - penned a letter condemning these false attacks and smear jobs.

But the attacks continued, not because the slanderers had valid points, but because they were - and still are - afraid that their shooting star, Scott Walker, is truly a corrupt bastard and will face the consequences of all of his illegal activities.

Every time a new piece of information came out, radio squawkers like Charlie Sykes, Jeff Wagner and Vicki McKenna would squawk about the "leaks" and saying that the investigation was "leaking like a sieve."  They never offered any proof to support their allegations of illegal conduct.  Instead, they relied on the axiom that if you tell a lie big enough and often enough, people will believe it.

After I wrote about the Russell Revelations, another round of accusations of leaks sprung up.

Let's take a look at these "leaks", shall we?

First of all, most of the information that has been reported comes from public records, like the number or criminal charges and other documents filed with the courts during the indictment and legal proceedings for the six people already charged and/or convicted.

But these are, by far, not the only sources of information.

From Marie Rohde's article on WisPolitics.com, we see that a lot of information came from Darlene Wink's attorney:

In response to Russell’s claim about the John Doe investigation being "not-so-secret," Landgraf also notes that while his office has been accused of leaking secret information, it was actually lawyers for defendants who contacted members of the media, at least once with Russell’s approval.

The motion also cites an email sent by John Hiller, Walker’s former campaign treasurer who headed up the guv's transition team in late 2010.

The motion reprints an email Hiller sent Walker on Sept. 26, 2010. In it he outlined a story that would appear the following Monday regarding the investigation. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter Dan Bice, according to the email, said the story would focus on a railroad owner’s illegal campaign donations and was not a “blockbuster.”

Hiller said Bice also indicated that he got much of his information from Chris Weismueller, a lawyer representing Darlene Wink, a former county employee of Walker's who has pleaded guilty to doing campaign work on county time.

Bice said there was "nothing nefarious" in the sourcing for the story and that all of Weismueller's comments were on the record.

As for Hiller, Bice said Hiller contacted him after he called Walker for comment.

It's not surprising that Wesimueller would be talking.  He was between a rock and a hard place in trying to defend his client.  He took the approach of "Yeah, but look at what those guys did," in an effort to make his client appear innocence, or at least not as guilty as the other defendants.

We also see that Tim Russell's lawyers have been giving away information..  As I posted in the article about Russell's Revelations, one of his attorney's Michael Maistelman sent an email to squawk radio personality Charlie Sykes:

Rick Esenberg dismissed this email because Maistelman "heard" about some "gossip" that this was going to go down. (By the way, Mr. Esenberg, that bit of "gossip," as you quaintly put it, could have been a very educated guess based on my first article about Kelly Rindfleisch, which I wrote the day before the email and five days before Rindlfeisch and Wink were arrested.)

Again, that Maistelman would tweak Sykes about this should not be a surprise.  While Maistelman is a very competent attorney and represents clients from all over the political spectrum, he is also a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.  If he learned of something, say from a very popular liberal blog, he is going to naturally try to share that information with as many sources as possible.

John Chisholm
image courtesy of
Labor Press

We also need to keep in mind that, while there is a secrecy order associated with John Doe investigations, such as Walkergate, this only applies to the person's testimony, per se.  Since Maistelman never represented Wink or Rindfleisch, nor was present during their participation in the investigation, he is not bound by the secrecy order regarding them.

The real outrage with that aspect of the story is that Sykes continued to tell his fabricated and conflated complaints of there being so many "leaks."

And then there is Maistelman's colleague, Dennis Krueger. Krueger was the one that released the information, with Russell's permission, which showed that Walker was stonewalling the Walkergate investigation from the outset, refusing to release information to the DA's Office.

Krueger has a history of being overzealous in his cases, as evidenced in his participation in the criminal case against former Green Bay Packer tight end Mark Chmura:

Earlier in the day, Boyle tried to raise questions of misconduct when he questioned an assistant prosecutor.

Waukesha County Assistant District Attorney Dennis Krueger, who was removed from Chmura's case last month so he could testify as a witness, said that he moved parts of a defense exhibit and he has watched parts of other testimony on television in alleged violation of a court order.

"I am offended," Boyle told the judge, after a heated cross-examination. "I think it goes to his motive, his bias and his involvement."

Bucher told the judge that Krueger had done nothing wrong.

"Mr. Boyle feels he has the right to trash anyone's reputation in the defense of his client. He's playing for the cameras," Bucher said.

"Let's bring it down a notch, both of you," Gempeler said.

Krueger was a prosecutor assigned to Chmura's case, but Gempeler removed him from the team so that he could testify about a meeting with key defense witness Michael Kleber.

Krueger testified that he and Bucher never coerced Kleber, a high school football star who attended the post-prom party, to change his original statement.

However, one can hardly accuse Krueger of playing partisan politics with his release of information. After all, when Krueger made an unsuccessful run for Waukesha County District Attorney, his release announcing his filing of papers included an endorsement by - wait for it - Scott Walker.

As the gentle reader can clearly see, there have been no "leaks" from this investigation.  A lot of the information has been gathered from public documents such as the criminal charges, subsequent motions and the grants of immunity, which by law has to be made public. Much of the information also comes from the lawyers themselves, with the expressed permission of their clients, in an effort to try to manipulate the outcomes for their clients.  Finally, the rest of the information comes from common knowledge and good old-fashion investigative reporting.

The only leaks involved with theWalkergate investigation involves the ones in the arguments that there are any leaks in the first place.

Another Feather In Maistelman's Hat

Michael Maistelman had been having a very good year in Fitzwalkerstan.

He's been lauded as a Leader in the Law.  He has had his name all over the place thanks to the ongoing recalls, Walkergate and his expertise in election laws, such as Scott Walker's Legal Cooperation Fund and the Voter Suppression Law.  And that's not to mention his greatest honor, which is being the resident elections expert for Cognitive Dissidence.

Now he has another acknowledgement of his expertise.  Maistelman has been named special counsel for the City Of Muskego (pdf, page 38), while they look at the possibility of undergoing their own recalls of the mayor and two councilmen.

Now you understand why I consult with him and take his word on the issues facing Fitzwalkerstan before any beneficiary of the Bradley Foundation.  If you want sound advice, go with the ones that know what they're talking about.

Walkergate: The Russell Gambit

There has been yet another new twist in the tale of Tim Russell and his role in Walkergate.

Russell, a long time close personal friend of Scott Walker and a GOP operative, was among the first arrested and charged in the ongoing John Doe investigation commonly referred to as Walkergate.  He was arrested and charged for embezzling funds from the program Operation Freedom.  Operation Freedom was the political stunt thrown by Walker on the pretense of honoring veterans and their families by having supporters contribute to a free day at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

As Russell's trial has progressed, we have learned that he had retained, not just one, but two, high-priced attorneys to defend him.  Russell had originally retained Michael Maistelman and Andrew Franklin.  Franklin recently withdrew from the case and was replaced by Attorney John A. Birdsall.

But Birdsall, after being on the case for only 16 days, has put in a motion to withdraw from the case.

Per WisPolitics, the issue appears to be Russell being unsure how to proceed:

Birdsall said he appeared in court March 28 to confirm that he was the lead counsel. He said he met privately that day with Maistelman and Dennis Krueger, a criminal defense lawyer who recently joined Masitelman’s firm. 

“I reaffirmed, and I understood it to be agreed, that I would be the sole lead counsel and spokesperson for Mr. Russell,” Birdsall wrote in the brief, adding that he later got the discovery information from Franklin. 

Maistelman, Krueger and Russell were supposed to meet at Birdsall’s office on March 30. The three didn't show up, but Birdsall said he got a call from Krueger who relayed Russell’s “doubts” on how to go forward. Three days later, Birdsall said he talked to Krueger, who said he was taking the lead in representing Russell. 

In his request to withdraw from the case, Birdsall said he wouldn't be able to provide effective representation. 

“I have not had any contact whatsoever with my client since that date and, based on representation by another attorney (not currently attorney of record) it appears unlikely that I will have such contact,” Birdsall wrote in his motion.

Birdsall said he doesn't know what happened, but asked to be relieved of his responsibility to represent Russell

Some observers see this as a stall tactic on Russell's part, trying to buy time for his buddy Walker as the recall election looms just two months away.  There is a certain logic to this and would be an easy conclusion to reach.

However, I would propose a different theory.  

While it is true that Russell was more than just a friend to Walker, being one of Walker's top lieutenants and entrusted with many important aspects of the campaign (albeit almost all illegal), there has been word that Walker and Russell are on the outs.  Word is that Russell feels betrayed by Walker, and probably rightfully so.  Apparently, Russell has been reaching out to Walker and other Republicans, asking for financial assistance but only getting rebuffed.

Also, keep in mind that Russell has only been charged with embezzlement for now.  However, he is implicated, if not out right named, in almost every other criminal complaint issued in relation to Walkergate.  He is implicated as being the partner of Brian Pierick, his domestic partner, in child enticement charges.  He is repeatedly mentioned in the criminal charges against Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch.  

Russell could be charged with so much more than just embezzlement.  And the District Attorney's Office has enough on him that they could probably put him away for life, or darn near close to it.  This has to be weighing heavily on Russell's mind. While I have no way of knowing if prosecutors have been using these facts on Russell, I am sure he's thought about it, time and time again, on his own.

In conclusion, while it might very well be just a stall tactic for his good friend, I think what we're seeing happening in Russell's case is a manifestation of Russell's internal struggle between his willingness to "take one for the team" versus his instinct of self-preservation finally kicking in and his slowly dawning realization that Walker would be willing to throw even him under the bus if it became convenient, if not necessary, to do so.  It could be very well that Russell is positioning himself for a  plea bargain, much akin to the one given to Darlene Wink.

If that were to happen, not only would it blow Walkergate wide open, it would effectively end Walker's political career.  Or at least one would hope.

Voter Suppression Injunction Upheld For Good Cause

It was recently reported that Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Flanagan upheld his injunction against the Republicans' voter suppression law. While right wingers ran around screaming about political activist judges and did their own version of McCarthyism, Flanagan made his decision based on the constitution.

Attorney Michael Maistelman, a leading expert on election laws, did an interview with WTMJ-TV and explained why the voter suppression law is unconstitutional:



For a case specific example, MAL Contends provides the story and this video:



Sadly, given how corrupt some members of the State Supreme Court - like David "Chokehold" Prosser, Michael "Loophole" Gableman and Annette "Show me the money" Ziegler - are, I'm not getting my hopes up that they'll actually follow the law and uphold Flanagan's ruling.

Walkergate: What's In His Wallet?

There's been something nagging at me for a while now, and really piqued my curiosity with the post I wrote last night: Just how are some of the Walkergate defendants paying for things?

Kelly Rindfleisch has retained the services of Franklyn Gimbel, who is a high profile attorney who assuredly doesn't come cheap. Yet in 2010, Rindfleisch had only made $47,873 from Milwaukee County and few thousand from the campaign work. Unless her consulting business really took off with exceptional success, Gimbel must be pretty hard to afford.

Even more curious is Tim Russell's case.

Russell was fired from Milwaukee County at the end of 2010, and as far as anyone has reported, he was not working since then. He does have his realty business, but one would have to wonder how successful a year he had with sales bouncing all over and when a sale did happen, it was usually at a much lower cost. As a sign of what looked like he might be having financial difficulties, he allowed his Milwaukee home to be foreclosed on:

But what is a bit odd about this article is that, towards the bottom as they give an abbreviated recounting of recent events, they include this non sequitur:

Authorities took Wink's work computer and executed a search warrant on her home. They also took a work computer from Tim Russell, a longtime Walker ally who was county housing director.

Russell recently lost his west side house to foreclosure.

He had taken out a mortgage for $184,000 with a 9.7% interest rate in 2003 for his house on N. 49th St. He was sued by his bank in July 2010 for defaulting on the loan.

At first, Russell mounted an aggressive defense. But he reversed course earlier this year, agreeing to give up the house. Last month, a Milwaukee County judge entered a judgment against Russell. The house is expected to be sold at a sheriff's sale soon.
I'm not sure what that has to do with the rest of the article, unless they are trying to infer he lost the home because of legal costs. But even that wouldn't make much sense, since Russell was already living in Sun Prairie long before any of that happened.

What would be interesting to know is why a person with an apparently successful business in Milwaukee would move to a place more than an hour away from said business. This is especially true when one considers gas prices and that he apparently was having money problems from legal costs and/or losing his job with the county after Walker left him high and dry.

It sure looks like he might be having money problems, doesn't it?

Yet Russell has retained the services of not just one, but two, attorneys. One of course is the award winning Michael Maistelman, one of the best lawyers in the state, who doesn't come cheap either. But besides Maistelman, Russell also has retained attorney Andrew Franklin. I can't say I know anything about Attorney Franklin, but it would not be a large leap of logic to say that Russell is spending up to $500 an hour for these to gentlemen to defend him.

So where is he getting that kind of cash?

Mazel Tov, Michael Maistelman

A couple of months ago, I brought up the fact that Michael Maistelman, among other notables such as the Honorable Maryann Sumi, were being named as the 2012 Leaders in the Law.

A couple of weeks ago, they held an event to honor these leaders.  In recognition of that honor, Maistelman issued the following press release:

Leaders in the Law[2]

He also included this video, with one thing that surprised me:



I knew that Maistelman was representing Tim Russell. But who is the second Walker staffer that he is defending?

The Pro-Walker Rally Was Illegally Held After All - Or Was It?

About ten days ago, there was a "Scott Walker Appreciation" rally in Wauwatosa's Hart Park.  The event was attended by thousands hundreds dozens of people.  As near as I can tell, the number of people that were there were pretty evenly divided by politicians, event organizers, police, moles and actual attendees.

Perhaps their attendance would have been higher if they picked the right day.  But even if you give the event organizers the benefit of the doubt and agree that they had "thousands" of people there, it's still a pale comparison to any given anti-Walker rally.  I wouldn't be surprised to find out they had as high or even higher turnout at the recall signing petition they had in that same neighborhood weeks before.

At the time, I did a satirical piece saying the recall organizers broke the law by defacing a recall sign (it was just an example of the right wing's lack of originality).

As it turns out, the rally might have been illegal after all.

The City of Wauwatosa has a pretty messed up and convoluted policy towards political events in Hart Park.  Organizers can have a political event in one part of the park, but not in other parts, unless they get special permission to do so.

In the case of this rally, it was both in the legal part of the park as well as the illegal part.  But they did have that special permission to go into that other part.  However, in the article, the city attorney said that he wasn't consulted on this, but would have advised the authorities to deny the special permission.  Another city official described the granting of the special permission as a mistake.

See? Like I said, it's a mess.

So I thought I'd try to see what I could come up with.

I contacted another city official who said that the Patch article hit it pretty much on the head.  The official said that once they became aware of what was going on, they had more questions than there were answers.

The same official said that this mess was a leftover from the overly partisan former mayor, Jill Didier, who had resigned from her position to become economic development director for Milwaukee County.*

But another interesting fact was brought to my attention.

One of the main organizers, Paris Procopis, was a failed candidate for the State Assembly.  He had run against incumbent David Cullen, but failed to make it on the ballot when he didn't collect enough valid signatures.  (Procopis got bounced off the ticket by Attorney Michael Maistelman who went through and challenged the signatures.  He worked at Cullen's expense.  This is something Scott Walker couldn't and/or wouldn't do and has now saddled the tax payers for his political expenses.)

It would not be a very dangerous leap of logic that Procopis was seeking an appointment of sorts, or maybe and endorsement for Cullen's old seat, by Walker in return to putting this rally on.  And there's enough evidence that Walker does that sort of thing, whether the appointee is qualified or not.

In summary, the rally was technically legal, although it shouldn't have been allowed according to city ordinances.

But the bigger problem is the screwed up rules the city has, which they need to change immediately.  They should either allow all political events or none at all.  If they wanted my input, I would side with free speech every time, no matter how pathetic and repulsive one might find it.  The way it is now, it gives the appearance of favoritism and political manipulation.

*Apparently, there is a little known county ordinance that states the county executive cannot hire someone who is actually qualified to be the economic development director.

Other Politicians Can Abide By The Law, Why Can't Walker? -- UPDATED

I pointed out a while ago that Scott Walker was showing his absolute corruption by feeling that he should have the right to have taxpayer dollars be spent on doing his campaign work.  Walker wants the Government Accountability Board, a nonpartisan group formed to enforce election laws, to violate state laws by going through the recall petitions instead of having his campaign do that, as is required by law.

Indeed, at the time, I consulted with Michael Maistelman, one of the state's leading election law attorneys.  Maistelman has recently been awarded the honor of being one Wisconsin's Leaders in the Law, so he obviously knows what he's talking about.  When I consulted with him on this matter, he told me this:

I called Attorney Michael Maistelman, one of the state's leading election attorneys, to confirm my suspicion that this was another bogus complaint.  Attorney Maistelman confirmed that it has always been the responsibility of the candidate and his or her campaign to challenge the signatures of their opponent, whether it is for a recall or even just for nomination papers to get on the ballot.  He also told me that he has bumped a number of Republicans off of ballots by having invalid signatures stricken leaving his client's opponent with not enough to get on the ballot.  He said that the Republicans have done that to a number of Democrats as well. 

Maistelman also confirmed that it was always the campaign that paid for that legal work to be done. He added that Scott Walker's campaign would have much more funding than what would be needed to review and challenge the signatures of the recall.  

Despite this, Walker went running to Waukesha County Judge Mac Davis, a dyed in the wool Republican, who subsequently chose to ignore the law and not only deny the recall petitioners their right to be heard in court, but then ruled that the GAB must violate state law.

Funny thing is, just this weekend, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported about some local races here in Milwaukee.  The gist of the report is that some candidates got bounced off the petition for not having enough valid signatures (emphasis mine:

Sue Edman, the commission's executive director, said nominating petitions submitted by 1st District candidate Virgie Wynn, 4th District candidate William Crowley and 6th District candidate Duffy Holloway were disqualified because they didn't have enough signatures with valid addresses within their respective districts, while 7th District candidate Roosevelt Sanders was disqualified for not filling out his papers properly. Holloway also had been disqualified from the 6th District ballot in 2008.

The disqualified candidates can appeal those decisions to the three-member commission. That panel could meet Tuesday to rule on any appeals and on challenges to candidates' papers. 

Ald. Willie Wade is challenging 7th District candidate Jason Hargis' papers and Ald. Bob Donovan is challenging 8th District candidate Chez Ordonez's papers. Ald. Bob Bauman also filed a challenge to Crowley's papers in case Crowley successfully appeals the disqualification ruling, said Mike Maistelman, attorney for Bauman and Wade.

Mayoral candidate Ieshuh Griffin tried to file two separate challenges to nomination papers filed by rival Edward McDonald, a University of Wisconsin Extension faculty member, but both were rejected because they were filed incorrectly, Edman said. Had Griffin succeeded in disqualifying McDonald, she would have eliminated the mayoral primary and faced Mayor Tom Barrett alone.

Similarly, Wynn tried to challenge Ald. Ashanti Hamilton's papers, but her complaint also was rejected because it was filed incorrectly, Edman said.

So, the aldermen and the candidates either hired an attorney to challenge their opponents forms or they did so themselves.  And these candidates don't pull in anywhere the amount of money raised by Walker over the last two months as he has spent as much time traveling the state to kiss up to special interest groups for their big money donations.

I'm just wondering where all the conservatives that are worried about government waste, government ethics and election integrity have gone too.  Not one of them is standing up for any of those issues in this matter.

That speaks as loudly for them as Walker's corruption of the legal system does.

ADDENDUM:  My friend Jay Bullock has already touched on this subject as well, citing actual law in doing so.

This is supported and enhanced by Ed Fallone at the Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog in which he writes:

One merely has to read the statute as a whole. For example, Section 9.10(2)(g) states “[t]he burden of proof for any challenge rests with the individual bringing the challenge.” The grounds for a challenge are listed in Section 9.10(2). Under the statute, a challenge may be brought and the signature removed if the challenger establishes by affidavit or other evidence that the signature is duplicative (Section 9.10(2)(i)) or that the signature is of an ineligible individual (Section 9.10(2)(l)). Under Section 9.10(2)(q), challenges may be brought for grounds other than those specifically listed. That would include challenges based on the assertion that the name on the petition is fictitious or unrecognizable. 

In other words, at the prompting of the Friends of Scott Walker, Judge Davis has interpreted the words “careful examination” in Section 9.10(3)(b) so that they require the GAB to affirmatively seek out duplicative, fictitious and unrecognizable signatures when the language of Section 9.10(2) clearly places the burden of removing signatures that fall into these categories on the challenging party and not on the GAB.

In the comments section of the same blog, Mr. Fallone further points out that the reason Scott Walker is allowed to raise unlimited funds is for the singular purpose of going through and challenging the petitions.

I would simply add that if Scott Walker foolishly spent all of the money he raised on easily refuted commercials instead of challenging the petitions, that is not GAB's fault, nor is it the fault of the taxpayers, and neither are obliged to pay for the myopic way Walker chooses to run his campaign.

2012 Leaders In The Law

The Wisconsin Law Journal has announced their 2012 Leaders in the Law.  Their announcement includes this preface on how the honorees were chosen:

The Wisconsin Law Journal has named its 2012 Leaders in the Law. The attorneys and judges selected have demonstrated their outstanding leadership, vision and legal expertise in Wisconsin’s law community. Honorees were chosen based on a wide variety of achievement criteria, including outstanding leadership, vision and legal expertise.

Scrolling down the list of honorees, two names jump out at me.

One is Attorney Michael Maistelman of Maistelman and Associates. Maistelman has a long history of expertise in Wisconsin election laws. Among his many successes, Maistelman was the legal representation in the charges against former State Senator Dan Kapanke, who had repeatedly willfully failed to follow election laws regarding campaign finances and open records request. It is Maistelman's expertise in election laws that led me to consult with him about the ongoing move by Scott Walker and his cronies to try to force the Government Accountability Board to use tax dollars to do his political work. And in the interest of full disclosure, it was Maistelman who ably represented me when the disreputable and misnamed Citizens for Responsible Government launched their false and libelous attack in a futile effort to discredit me.

The other name is that of the Honorable Maryann Sumi of Dane County Circuit Court who had correctly ruled that the Republicans violated the open meeting law when they tried to ram through the malicious and punitive Act 10 bill.

It should also be pointed out that absent from this list of honorees is Rick Esenberg, infamous for his rather selective and, at times, misleading interpretations of the law.

Also missing his Justice Michael Gableman, who has recently been found out for violating judicial ethics during his hearing regarding other judicial ethics violations.

Reports are that at the time this list was released, Justice David "Rubber Stamp" Prosser was in another fit of rage and was heard to yell, "I'm gonna choke the [redacted] for not putting me in there!"

Right Wing's Complaints Highlight Right Wing's Maleficence

On Tuesday morning, the Koch Brother-funded MacIver Institute and Propaganda Machine issued a press release claiming that there was a "problem" with the recall.  Their problem was actually two complaints:

• People were being told that they could sign a petition more than once, and
• The Government Accountability Board (GAB) wasn't going to do a detailed analysis of the petitions for duplicate or otherwise ineligible signatures.

Charlie Sykes, mouthpiece for the GOP, took this bit of propaganda and conflated it to having people encouraged to sign multiple times and implying that the GAB was complicit with committing voter fraud.

The usual suspects mindlessly parroted this, obviously without even giving it moment's analysis.  

Now, whenever one deals with this lot of miscreants and reprobates, one must consider if they have a point of if it is just another one of their fallacious smear attacks.  If you bet on the latter, you're guaranteed to become rich in short order. 

With that in mind, let's see if their complaints have any merit.

First, for the allegation that one can and even should sign a petition more than once.

One Wisconsin Now did indeed post a list of rules and rights regarding collecting recall signatures.  And sure enough, it does indeed include the statement that one may sign more than one petition.  The did, however, include the caveat that only one signature would count.

Hardly what an honest person would call encouraging someone to sign more than once.

To also take the winds out of the sails of these fools, Kevin Kennedy, director of the GAB was interviewed by yet another ersatz journalist, John Mercure, who shills for the GOP in the afternoons on WTMJ 620 AM.  Mr. Kennedy told Mercure that it is the state law that allows more than one signature.

Mr. Kennedy went on to make another valid point that I'm ashamed that I didn't think of it on my own.

Mr. Kennedy pointed out that some people just may want to sign more than once to make sure that their signature is counted once.  

Indeed, there is a group being investigated for threatening to pose as recall volunteers and collect signatures, only to later burn them.  Then there was the student who did rip up a petition and then idiotically tweeted his man love for Walker by boasting how he did it for him.  A 53 year old man in River Falls also shredded a petition.  Another man in Madison is going to face charges for ripping up a recall page that had three signatures on it.

Perhaps before they complain about the ability of people to legally sign more than one petition, the right would do better by policing themselves from giving the people the incentive to sign more than one recall.  But I won't hold my breath for this to happen.  It was their attempts to silence and control the people that led them to the untenable position which they find themselves in now.

Now on to their complaint about the GAB.

When I saw them complaining that the GAB not certifying every signature, I'll admit that I was puzzled.  I remembered writing last year how Maistelman and Associates got Paris Procopis, who was challenging Senator David Cullen, off the ballot by eliminating invalid signatures.  At the same time, the law firm also successfully defended Todd Kolosso from James Sensenbrenner's attempt to have him thrown off that ballot.

I called Attorney Michael Maistelman, one of the state's leading election attorneys, to confirm my suspicion that this was another bogus complaint.  Attorney Maistelman confirmed that it has always been the responsibility of the candidate and his or her campaign to challenge the signatures of their opponent, whether it is for a recall or even just for nomination papers to get on the ballot.  He also told me that he has bumped a number of Republicans off of ballots by having invalid signatures stricken leaving his client's opponent with not enough to get on the ballot.  He said that the Republicans have done that to a number of Democrats as well.

Maistelman also confirmed that it was always the campaign that paid for that legal work to be done. He added that Scott Walker's campaign would have much more funding than what would be needed to review and challenge the signatures of the recall.  

In other words, the propagandist at the MacIver Institute (who didn't even have the courage to put their name to this hit piece), Charlie Sykes, Patrick Dorwin, Fred Dooley and Owen Robinson are complaining about is the fact that the GAB won't spend tax payer dollars to do Walker's campaign's political work.

Think what that really means for a minute.

They are so used to Walker using tax dollars to do his campaigning that they are now actually complaining when that corruption doesn't happen.  They must have completely forgotten about Walkergate or how its already come full cycle.  Now they want it to go for another lap.

Sadly, this does not surprise me.  Not any more that it doesn't surprise me that every three and a half seconds another person who values the tradition of what Wisconsin is really all about stands up and adds their name to the hundreds of thousands of others who have said that they want to take Wisconsin back.

New Allegations Against Kapanke

State Senator Dan Kapanke, who is running for U.S. Congress against Representative Ron Kind, is in more hot water.

The Democrats have filed a complaint against Kapanke accusing him of funneling funds from a charity he operates to pay his personal debts. From the Rhinelander Daily News:

The new complaint alleges Kapanke took $16,930 from the charity and used it to make a payment to the city of La Crosse on June 12, 2009. The complaint says that was a scheduled repayment of a portion of a $225,000 loan made to Kapanke and his wife in March 2009 from the city for installing lights at Copeland Field, where the Loggers play. The complaint cites IRS records showing that the payment came from the foundation.

This isn't the first time Kapanke has gotten himself in legal trouble.

He was originally accused in 2007 of using his baseball team and the stadium to gain free publicity for his political aspirations.

Last year, he was accused of not complying with the open records laws and that he was using his government office and staff for campaign purposes. He was found guilty of violating the open records laws, but then stuck the tax payers with his $38,000 legal bill.

Apparently tired of having Attorney Michael Maistelman, who is again representing the Democrats, kicking his butt in court, has already cried "Mea culpa."

The question is now whether Kapanke is either incompetent, corrupt or both.