And You Thought Your Job Was Bad...

Last Friday, Scott Walker's campaign spokeswoman, Nicole Tieman, issued a brief statement that she was not going to be with the campaign anymore, effective immediately.  However, her departure was drowned out by the news of Graeme Zielinksi leaving the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Nicole Tieman
Image courtesy of
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On Thursday, we learned why Tieman left the campaign so suddenly.  Like so many of Walker's other aides, she ran afoul of the law.  Only this time, it wasn't related to the campaign, or at least not directly:

Nicole Tieman who resigned without explanation Friday as Gov. Scott Walker's campaign spokeswoman has begun serving a 20-day sentence behind bars in Milwaukee County on a drunken-driving conviction.

Tieman, 25, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to her second OWI offense, reversing her plea from a week earlier. Judge John Siefert sentenced Tieman to 20 days confinement starting no later than June 3, took away her driving privileges for a year and imposed a $950 fine.

She was granted work-release privileges to seek a job and to get alcohol or drug treatment.

Records show Tieman, who lives in Waukesha, was booked into the House of Correction in Franklin, formerly the County Correctional Facility-South, on Wednesday.

The article goes on to say that she was being groomed by the Republicans after having her education sponsored by the Bradley Foundation, which is of course, headed by Michael Grebe, Walker's campaign chairman.

Tieman's fate got me to thinking about Walker's other spokespeople.

Before Tieman, Walker's spokeswoman was Ciara Matthews.  Before Walker's campaign, Matthews' claim to fame was being a Hooter's girl.  After leaving Walker's campaign, she went to work for Mitt Romney, and promptly helped drive it into the ground.

And before Matthews was Jill Bader.  Bader was best know for her racist tweets and other inane stunts.  After doing a stint with the Girl Scouts, Bader is back into politics, being the mouthpiece for Right Women, Right Now - the Republican's second attempt at trying to match the success of Emerge America.

(This group is sure to enjoy the same lack of success as its predecessor.  After all, what hope do they have when our own homophobic lieutenant governor, Blinky Kleefisch, is not just one of their advisors, but is their featured leader?)

As the gentle reader already knows, Walker's official governmental spokespeople fared only slightly better.

Fran McLaughlin was Walker's spokeswoman for when he was Milwaukee County Executive.  She was given immunity in Walkergate after it was discovered that she was writing and tweaking his campaign press releases.  Now she is stuck trying to make sense of the words and actions of Sheriff David Clarke.

Walker's gubernatorial spokesman, Cullen Werwie, was also given immunity in the Walkergate investigations, due to his role and knowledge of the illegal politicking done by Walker's campaign.  Despite, or maybe because of, Werwie's role in the illegal activities, Walker has kept him on board as his spokesman.

So, gentle reader, you might think your job is bad, but it could always be worse.  Your job could come with a curse like Scott Walker and involve all sorts of legal problems.

PS: Has anyone else noticed that until now, all of Walker's campaign spokeswomen have been younger, attractive, blonde women?  Methinks it's much akin to Faux News' sexist approach  to their anchorwomen.  After all, as they say, sex sells.

Walkergate: The Question Still Remains - What Is Walker Still Cooperating With?

Last week, after Scott Walker's long time aide and very special friend Tim Russell was sentenced, Walker's campaign spokeswoman, Nicole Tieman, pulled a major gaffe:

Walker campaign spokeswoman Nicole Tieman last week said Walker authorized the switch to ensure money for Operation Freedom was not commingled with other funds. She did not respond to a question Tuesday about who asked Walker to switch oversight of the event.

Instead, Tieman repeated the governor's statement that he had clearly told county employees they were barred from using "county time or resources for political activity of any kind." She said Walker continued to "fully cooperate" with the investigation.

I went on to point out that all of the first wave of Walkergate cases had been resolved - except for Brian Pierick's, who has since taken a plea deal - and questioned exactly what Walker was supposed to be cooperating with.

I also pointed out that there were still many aspects of Walkergate that has yet to be addressed, including the Dane County version of Walkergate. And, of course, I had to point out again that with all things Walkergate, there is more. There is always more. And there is still even more.

Well, lo and behold, as if to confirm what I was saying all along, Walker transferred another $40,000 from his campaign to his legal defense fund, as reported by WisPolitics.com:

Gov. Scott Walker transferred $40,000 from his campaign account to his legal defense fund on the last day of 2012, according to his latest finance report.

[...]

Walker had previously transferred $160,000 from his campaign account to the defense fund, meaning he has now put at least $200,000 into the Scott Walker Trust.

Well, they are technically correct, but they are also way off on their numbers.

Walker has indeed transferred $200,000 from his campaign to his legal defense cooperation fund.

But before he created his legal defense cooperation fund last March, he spent up to $100,000 of his own money to pay his high-priced attorneys:

But the first-term Republican governor must have retained the pair long before he made it public. 

As of Dec. 31, Walker owed more than $50,000 to Sidley Austin, a large Chicago-based firm that employs Gallo. Walker also disclosed that he owed between $5,000 and $50,000 to Terschan, Steinle & Ness, the Milwaukee firm where Steinle is a partner.

The state requires public officials and political candidates to disclose in the annual statement any creditor to which they owe more than $5,000. Wisconsin officials and candidates then must say whether the debt is greater than or up to $50,000.

So now he's up to $300,000.  But wait, there's more!

As of last July, his campaign had also paid out another $200,000 to the law firm of Michael Best and Friedrich for the services of former US Attorney Steven Biskupic. Biskupic's job was allegedly to make sure that the "i"s were dotted and the "t"s were crossed. It turns out later that Walker admitted it was for more cooperating. And I have no doubt that number has gone up considerably since July.

But even using the old numbers, Walker's is up to half a million dollars spent on legal defense cooperation. That much money just has to buy a helluva lot of cooperation, I tell you!

I would be remiss if I didn't also point out that he dropped another $10,000 on a public relations firm:

Gov. Scott Walker used almost $10,000 of his controversial legal defense fund to pay a public relations bill, according to a quarterly report filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

According to the report, the Scott Walker Trust paid $9,988 for "public relations" on May 15 to Chicago-based APCO Worldwide Inc.

"This doesn't seem to square with what the governor said he needed that money for," said Mike McCabe, executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the election watchdog organization that first reported the filing. "He said over and over, he just needed to pay lawyers to help him with the investigation."

Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Board, said the agency cannot comment on specific expenditures and referred to state law, which says political candidates or officials "investigated for, charged with or convicted of a criminal violation" can create a defense fund "for expenditures supporting or defending the candidate."

Note that like one of his high-priced attorneys, the PR firm came out of Illinois. Apparently all the PR firms in Wisconsin were either already involved in Walkergate or wouldn't touch Walker's toxicity for any amount of money.

Tieman gave a comment for the story in which she is obviously trying to make up for her gaffe last week:

The transfer to the Scott Walker Trust raises new questions about the status of the long-running John Doe investigation in Milwaukee that has ensnared former aides from the guv’s days as county exec.

"The transfer covers work done to cooperate with authorities over the past year," said Walker spokeswoman Nicole Tieman.

Walker has steadfastly insisted he is not a target of the probe. But he announced in March the creation of the legal defense fund to pay two criminal defense attorneys help him review documents and assist in cooperating with the secret probe.

[...]

"While Governor Walker is not the subject of investigation, he continues to fully cooperate with authorities as the process comes to conclusion," Tieman said.

Those are some pretty bold - and pretty false - statements to make.

As I have explained before, there is no reason to believe that Walker is not the subject of the Walkergate investigation:

Then there is the claim that Walker is making in denying that he is a subject of the Walkergate investigations.

State law clearly states that the DA is under no obligation to tell a person if they are the target. However, if the person is not a target of the investigation, the DA may publicly state that the person is not the target, like Chisholm did with Andrew Jensen and Michael Maistelman.

Obviously, Walkergate was a factor during the recall. If Walker really wasn't a subject of the investigation, Chisholm would have given him a letter clearing him so that it wouldn't interfere with the election. Yet Walker has produced no such letter.

Another way for a person to know they are not the target is if they are granted immunity, but that is a matter that happens in a public hearing. No such hearing happened and thus we know he wasn't granted immunity.

As for Walkergate coming to a conclusion, don't believe that either unless District Attorney John Chisholm or Judge Neil Nettesheim say it's over. As with the reasoning showing that Walker is still the subject of the ongoing investigation, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't have publicly declared an end to the investigation, except that it's not over. Furthermore, even Walker's former campaign manager, Keith Gilkes, has said he's still cooperating with the investigation, not to mention Cindy Archer and Tom Nardelli, just to name a few of the potential candidates for the next wave.

If nothing else, just the simple fact that Walker even has a legal defense cooperation fund, much less how much money he's pumped into it, belies his claims.

But as I noted several times before, despite all of Walker's protestations of not being the subject of the investigation, neither Walker nor any of his apologists, have ever claimed he is innocent.

Walkergate: Is John Doe Done? Not According To Walker

For months, apologists for Scott Walker have been trying to get people to believe that the John Doe investigation known as Walkergate is dead.  They've been trying to get people to believe that outside of the Walker 6, no one else had been involved with illegal campaigning or any other prohibited behaviors.

And for months, I've been pointing out how ridiculous that is.

When new broke that Tim Russell had taken a plea deal, Walker and his apologists tried again to say that Walkergate was wrapping up.

Again, I provided a rather lengthy list of reasons why Walkergate was not ending anytime soon.

It appears that Walker has given up that line of argument.

In a article written by Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covering Russell's sentencing hearing, he tried to do a follow up with Walker's campaign.  Although I am sure that Schultze got the quote correct, I don't think he recognized what was being said (emphasis mine):

Walker campaign spokeswoman Nicole Tieman last week said Walker authorized the switch to ensure money for Operation Freedom was not commingled with other funds. She did not respond to a question Tuesday about who asked Walker to switch oversight of the event.

Instead, Tieman repeated the governor's statement that he had clearly told county employees they were barred from using "county time or resources for political activity of any kind." She said Walker continued to "fully cooperate" with the investigation.

Think about that for a minute.

At the beginning of 2012, five people were arrested. Four of the five have had their cases resolved already:

• Darlene Wink took a plea deal and was giving probation,
• Kevin Kavanaugh was convicted and sentenced to two years.
• Kelly Rindfleisch took a plea deal and was sentenced to prison, although that sentence was stayed pending an appeal
• Tim Russell took a plea deal and was sentenced to two years in prison.

The only one yet to reach resolution is Brian Pierick, whose trial starts next week. And Pierick's case has little to do with Walker per se.  Pierick was charged with child enticement as a result information found during the investigation into Walkergate.

So what is Walker still cooperating with?  And why would Walker be involved and needing to cooperate if he was not part of it? 

Of course, some might wonder about the level of cooperation Walker is providing, since he is also the one that stonewalled the investigation so much that he forced the DA's Office to open up the John Doe to begin with.

Well, the answer is simple.

Walker was part of it.  But we already knew that because with Walker, there is always more.  Then there's still even more.  

Or perhaps she meant that Walker was cooperating with the Dane County's Walkergate.

We have a good idea of who are some of the likeliest candidates for the next wave of charges.  And that doesn't include Jim Villa and John Hiller, who are also highly likely to see their day in court.  Is Walker's cooperation entailing him getting ready to throw them under the bus?

But there is one thing that struck me long ago, and something I keep returning to in my mind.

Despite Walker's defenders' constant attacks on the reputation of the DA's office, their questioning of the integrity of the investigation, their attempts to mislead or confuse the matter, there is one thing they've never, ever tried to do.

They've never once said that Walker is innocent.