Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's campaign office and about 30 conservative groups have been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor, and the homes of at least three people connected to the campaign have been raided, according to The Wall Street Journal. Among the groups subpoenaed were the Wisconsin Club for Growth; Karl Rove’s American Crossroads; the Republican Governors Association; and the state’s largest business lobbying group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. The subpoenas came out of a secret John Doe investigation of Walker’s campaign and allies.
"Unmentioned in the editorial is that R.J. Johnson is an adviser to both Walker's campaign and the Wisconsin Club for Growth.
The newspaper said the subpoenas sought records and fundraising information and were related to the 2011 and 2012 recall efforts against the Republican governor and state senators.
The subpoenas come out of a second, secret John Doe investigation of Walker aides or allies. The first investigation was closed in February, but the second one is ongoing. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported on both investigations.
John Doe probes give prosecutors the power to compel people to testify and bar them from speaking about their involvement in the investigations. The Wall Street Journal editorial page reported O'Keefe was willing to discuss his subpoena, saying he "realizes the personal risk but wants the public to know what is going on."
While the WSJ falls all over itself trying to pass this off as a partisan political vendetta, what they don't say is that the John Doe prosecutor, Francis Schmitz, is no partisan Democrat:
"In choosing Schmitz, officials may be hoping to avoid the charges of partisanship that were leveled against Chisholm, a Democrat, for his office's lengthy probe of the Republican governor's former associates. It does not appear that Schmitz or Kluka signed the recall petitions.
"Fran makes all the sense in the world," said one veteran Milwaukee attorney.
Schmitz is a highly regarded career prosecutor who was one of three finalists recommended to then-President George W. Bush for the U.S. attorney's post in 2001."
The WSJ then actually spells out exactly what they might be afraid of:
"The subpoenas don't spell out a specific allegation, but the demands suggest the government may be pursuing a theory of illegal campaign coordination by independent groups during the recall elections. If prosecutors are pursuing a theory that independent conservative groups coordinated with candidate campaigns during the recall, their goal may be to transform the independent expenditures into candidate committees after the fact, requiring revision of campaign-finance disclosures and possible criminal charges."
"Conservative groups" and "criminal charges" are quite possibly my two favorite phrases to read lumped together in one paragraph.
