john doe WI

=promoted , poster child for billionaire influence singer
eric okeefe dirty tricks and dark koch $ failed retaliationrivkin eric okeefe, wi cfgwalker alecKochalypsewe will never know if this is why walker bailed?gorsuch ends scotus option?massive coordination on indep social welfare groupssee GAB (// mueller witchhunt bs]=<div>=</div><div>john doe</div><div>dirty tricks and dark koch $ failed retaliation</div><div>
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</div><div><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; right: 0px; left: 0px; top: 0px; z-index: 100; transition: top 0.3s ease 0s; width: 1180px; line-height: 1; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242);"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.1;"><a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/2016/04/29/scott-walker-backers-go-after-john-chisholm/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Scott Walker backers set on ousting DA John Chisholm</a></h1><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/2016/04/29/scott-walker-backers-go-after-john-chisholm/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">April 29, 2016</a> <a class="url fn n" href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/author/wisconsin-gazette/" rel="author" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Wisconsin Gazette</a> </div><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm may soon appeal the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that ended the five-county “John Doe” criminal investigation into whether Gov, Scott Walker illegally coordinated with supposedly “independent” dark money groups during the 2011–2012 recall elections to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As prosecutors ready their case, the secret money advocates at the heart of the investigation are planning their next move.Dark money maestro Eric O’Keefe, who sits on the board of Wisconsin Club for Growth, has declared that Chisholm “is not fit for public office” and “should not be allowed to serve out his term.” He has threatened to get him disbarred, and he has tried to get Walker to fire him.
O’Keefe’s high-powered, D.C. lawyers are suing Chisholm in federal court on behalf of Cindy Archer. She claims to be a victim of a renegade prosecutor. But she was a top Walker aide caught up in Chisolm’s investigation of a sordid bid-rigging scheme detailed by the Center for Media and Democracy.Now O’Keefe and his associates appear to be prepping to go after Chisholm in a low-turnout primary, using the new, relaxed electoral laws they worked so hard to pass in Wisconsin. They’re also expected to unleash a flood of coordinated secret money and phony “issue” ads.
Scott Walker John Doe headed to divided SCOTUS
In July 2015, the Wisconsin Supreme Court not only shut down the investigation of potentially illegal coordination between Walker and dark money groups, they took the extraordinary measures of firing the Republican special prosecutor, who was hired to coordinate efforts at the behest of a bipartisan group of five District Attorneys. They threw up roadblocks to any appeal by, for instance, telling prosecutors they could not use expert, outside counsel to help with the filing.
Those actions were unprecedented and reminded many of the Saturday Night Massacre, when Richard Nixon fired U.S. Attorney General Archibald Cox and his successors during the Watergate investigations.“My career in the military and as a federal prosecutor fighting violent criminals and terrorists did not fully prepare me for the tactics employed by these special interest groups,” said special prosecutor Francis Schmitz.
“To somehow remove the lawyer representing one of the parties after the opinion (has been issued) is extraordinary,” said former state Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske.The GOP-controlled legislature took action in 2015 to retroactively decriminalize the activities at the heart of the investigation. They made significant changes to Wisconsin’s campaign finance law, exempting political corruption from the John Doe statute and dismantling the nonpartisan Wisconsin elections board.
Now the three Democratic prosecutors are slated to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state Supreme Court ruling. At issue is the $10 million spent to elect the conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court by the very same groups — Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce — that were under investigation in the John Doe probe.According to the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Caperton v. Massey, outsized spending in a judicial election could be significant enough to demand that judges recuse themselves. Schmitz asked both Justice David Prosser and Justice Michael Gableman to recuse themselves from the John Doe, but they refused. Furthermore, they offered no explanation for their refusal.It’s unknown whether prosecutors will also appeal on the merits of the case. It is notable that coordination between independent groups and candidates is prohibited in most states and at the federal level. In 2016, a state legislator in Montana was convicted of breaking state law after engaging in similar coordination and, in 2015, a political operative working on a federal campaign was sentenced to 24 months in prison after being prosecuted under federal law.
Common Cause’s Jay Heck tells CMD that it makes sense that O’Keefe would go after Chisholm this election cycle. “The dark money groups want to protect the gains they have made in Wisconsin, changing the law to allow coordination between candidates and issue-ad groups. They want to stop an appeal before it goes any further.”The prosecutors’ appeal is sure to have Wisconsin’s far-right yelling “partisan witch hunt” again. Yet, the reality is that Milwaukee DA John Chisholm has a long record of prosecuting Democrats for political corruption.
In 2010, Chisholm used the John Doe process to prosecute Democratic Milwaukee County Supervisor Toni Clark on felony charges related to the use of just $6,300 in campaign funds. Scott Walker didn’t call that a witch hunt; instead he said the case was “a reminder to all others in office that we must maintain the highest ethical standards.”
Dark money advocates take aim at John Chisholm in re-election race
Chisholm announced on April 18 that he would run for re-election. The primary is Aug. 9.John Chisholm’s Democratic primary challenger is Verona Swanigan, an attorney and Milwaukee native who is new to electoral politics. Swanigan holds a law degree from Northern Illinois University (2005), and has practiced law independently with her own firm, Swanigan Legal Services, for about a decade. She registered her campaign in August 2015, and released a video announcing her candidacy in November that focused on reducing crime and addressing domestic violence.
Swanigan is an African American who has participated in community rallies calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate police brutality. She calls herself a “conservative Democrat,” but her campaign is backed by the well-known GOP political operative Craig Peterson, who has worked closely with Wisconsin Club for Growth’s Eric O’Keefe on efforts to reshape Milwaukee politics in recent years.According to news reports, Peterson has long been associated with Zigman Joseph Stephenson, a public relations firm, but has had financial troubles in recent years. Peterson has ties to former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, who was caught up in the “caucus scandal,” an earlier John Doe prosecution of campaign finance abuses, and who now works for big money groups trying to privatize public schools.Peterson had reported $250 in monetary contributions and $1,681 worth of in-kind contributions to Swanigan’s campaign as of Dec. 31, 2015, a substantial part of the campaign’s $5,476 total take for the year. (Reports covering the first part of 2016 are not yet available.)
Earlier this spring, Peterson spearheaded an effort to reshape Milwaukee’s city government through a secretive group called “Milwaukeeans for Self-Governance,” which spent at least $200,000 on radio ads to influence mayoral and aldermanic races. The group, whose name strongly echoes that of the O’Keefe group “Citizens for Self-Governance,” has not been formally registered, and its funders have not been disclosed, but their impact is being felt.
“It really feels like we’re running against him, and not his so-called candidates,” Ald. Bob Bauman, a veteran Common Council member told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Bauman’s opponent, who lost her race, was Peterson associate Monique Kelly, formerly known as Monique Taylor.
Using racial justice issues to advance a tea party candidate
In the 2014 Milwaukee County Sheriff’s race, a liberal dark money group spent big trying to unseat incumbent Sheriff David Clarke Jr. Clarke is a right-winger, a darling of Fox News and a Democrat in name only. The National Rifle Association rushed to his aid, and influential right-wing radio hosts urged Republicans in the county to turn out in the open Democratic primary.Another unregistered Peterson group calling itself “Citizens for Urban Justice” also came to his aid, running radio ads attacking his opponent. In the ads, Monique Taylor presented herself as a community activist and listed the names of African-American men killed by Milwaukee police. “Now a lieutenant in that same police department wants to be our sheriff,” she said.The ads had a big impact in the city’s predominantly African-American wards.
But Clarke, who is African-American, is famous for attacking the Black Lives Matter movement, which he has called “black slime.” He has never addressed police violence.While he has been vague about the funding behind Milwaukeeans for Self-Governance and the city council takeover, Peterson has previously credited O’Keefe with arranging the funds to support Clarke. “Eric raised money for that campaign,” Peterson told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “And I spent the money. That’s another benefit to our relationship: He’s good at raising it. I’m good at spending it.”
Peterson also worked with the Wisconsin chapter of David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity and Citizens for Responsible Government in an attempt to rally support against a modern streetcar project under development in Milwaukee. Instead of telling folks the truth — that the Kochs object to any type of clean energy transportation, including trolleys and electric cars — the Peterson crew slammed the trolleys for furthering segregation. Peterson paid for radio ads featuring the brother of police shooting victim Dontre Hamilton urging listeners to send Mayor Barrett and John Chisholm a message by writing letters opposing the streetcar.
While the ads stated they were “Paid for the Black Lives Matter Coalition,” Peterson paid for them himself, according to Urban Milwaukee.
With big money friends like O’Keefe and the Kochs, who are trying to turn secret election spending by wealthy special-interest groups into a principled fight for “constitutionally protected free speech,” Peterson is well positioned to unleash a tidal wave of phony “issue ads” at the last minute to sway a low-turnout election. In the August 2014 Milwaukee Democratic primary, less than 114,000 people voted. That compares with the 332,000 who voted in the November general election.Stay tuned.
Jessica Mason contributed to this report. Learn more about Eric O’Keefe in the Progressive “Dark Money’s Front Man” and in Sourcewatch.</div><footer class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242);"><a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/tag/campaign-finance/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">campaign finance</a> <a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/tag/caucus-scandal/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">caucus scandal</a> <a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/tag/cindy-archer/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Cindy Archer</a> <a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/tag/craig-peterson/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Craig Peterson</a> <a href="https://www.wisconsingazette.com/tag/dark-money/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce</a></footer></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div>=https://townhall.com/watchdog/wisconsin/2015/09/30/gab-john-doe-left-n8403BS see lucinda l dark $ docm d kittleADISON, Wisconsin — Conservative targets of Wisconsin’s political<a href="http://watchdog.org/series/wisconsins-secret-war/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;"> John Doe investigation</a> were still waiting Wednesday for a judge’s decision on whether the state <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Government_Accountability_Board" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Government Accountability Board</a> must turn over communications it had with liberal political groups.Waukesha County Judge <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Lee_Dreyfus" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Lee Dreyfus Jr.</a> was expected to rule two weeks ago, but the court doesn’t have Microsoft Outlook software, and the judge was unable to view the correspondence in question.Attorneys for the GAB have since sent the documents in PDF.Eddie Greim, attorney for conservative activist<a href="http://www.eric-okeefe.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;"> Eric O’Keefe</a> and the <a href="http://wicfg.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Wisconsin Club for Growth</a>, both plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging the GAB overstepped its authority in the unconstitutional John Doe probe, tells Wisconsin Watchdog the judge has yet to issue his decision.<div id="attachment_240478" class="wp-caption alignright" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 35.5px; padding: 0px 185px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[foto]</div><div id="attachment_240478" class="wp-caption alignright" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 35.5px; padding: 0px 185px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://watchdog.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09/GAB2.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">
</a>WHAT DID THEY SAY? Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board are waiting for a judge to rule on whether the GAB must release communications it sent to left-leaning election groups.</div>On Sept. 15, the plaintiffs asked the judge to compel the accountability board to turn over communications it had with the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Brennan Center for Justice </a>and the <a href="http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Campaign Legal Center</a>.Attorney <a href="http://www.gravesgarrett.com/attorneys/lucinda-luetkemeyer/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Lucinda Luetkemeyer </a>argued the communications could clarify whether the GAB helped the outside groups in writing amicus, or friend-of-the court, briefs in John Doe-related litigation, or whether the groups helped the accountability board.The GAB should “show what the law is, not what the law should be,” Luetkemeyer told <a href="https://www.waukeshacounty.gov/Courts.aspx?id=22920" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;"> Dreyfus.</a> “This goes to our theory, that they had an agenda about what the campaign finance law should look like,” not what the law is.Luetkemeyer said the firm discovered some of the emails in previous depositions.“These communications could be potentially embarrassing to this agency,” the attorney said.The GAB helped drive the political investigation based on a widely rejected theory of illegal coordination between Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and dozens of conservative organizations. In July, the state Supreme Court in a <a href="http://watchdog.org/229533/supreme-court-john-doe/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">4-2 ruling </a>declared the investigation unconstitutional and ordered it shut down.The Brennan Center is a public policy and law institute that focuses on the fundamental issues of democracy and justice, according to its website. Like the GAB, the center claims it’s nonpartisan but is widely viewed as a left-leaning organization whose supporters include the ultra-left <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2015/04/12/dem" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Democracy Alliance </a>and the <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Open Society Foundations</a> funded by liberal billionaire <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">George Soros</a>. The Brennan Center received $7.4 million of Soros money from 2000 to 2010, according to <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-coleman/2012/06/15/ezra-klein-describes-" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Newsbusters.</a>CLC claims to represent the public interest in strong enforcement of campaign finance laws. The group has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Soros-funded organizations. In 2010, the Campaign Legal Center joined other liberal groups asking the IRS to investigate the tax-exempt status of Republican-allied groups. Former IRS official <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/09/14/irs-gets-sued-over-bonuses-to-lois-lerner/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Lois Lerner</a> is accused of leading a campaign to target conservative groups filing as tax-exempt.In July, the <a href="http://watchdog.org/228423/irs-lois-lerner-kevin-kennedy/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Wall Street Journal reported </a>that GAB director Kevin Kennedy and Lerner were in contact between 2011 and 2013 — when the GAB assisted partisan prosecutors in investigating scores of conservatives and in raiding several of their homes.“Emails we’ve seen show that between 2011 and 2013 the two were in contact on multiple occasions, sharing articles on topics including greater donor disclosure and Wisconsin’s recall elections,” the editorial board wrote.John Doe investigators asked the IRS to look into a conservative group that was a primary target of the probe, sources told the Journal.In another development involving the GAB lawsuit, the plaintiffs’ attorneys have sent new requests to subpoena Milwaukee County assistant district attorneys David Robles and Bruce Landgraf, as well as Milwaukee County DA investigator Robert Stelter.The office, led by Democrat District Attorney John Chisholm, launched the secret John Doe probe in August 2012. Multiple emails show Milwaukee County prosecutors and investigators working with the GAB, which, under law, is prohibited from conducting criminal investigations.At the same hearing earlier this month, Dreyfus ruled Landgraf, Robles and Stelter would not have to be deposed.<a href="http://watchdog.org/238391/john-doe-legal-subpoenas/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">RELATED: John Doe prosecutors get a win, practice legal gymnastics again</a>The reason, according to the judge, is prosecutorial immunity that effectively protects the prosecutors.While Dreyfus acknowledged Wisconsin is a “wide-open discovery state,” the attorneys for O’Keefe and his Wisconsin Club for Growth cannot “depose people who are not part of” the lawsuit.In short, the district attorney’s files on the John Doe probe are “not discoverable,” at least in this lawsuit, Dreyfus said.Greim argued the plaintiffs are only seeking to answer questions on “division of duties” in the probe, among other matters that do not directly relate to John Doe evidence. Those process questions, the attorney said, are important in determining GAB’s ultimate involvement.He said the latest requests for depositions are “more narrow.”Also, the plaintiffs’ are seeking the release of 180 pages of documents now protected under a secrecy order.The GAB wants to keep many of those exhibits under seal, claiming they are supposed to be shielded under the accountability board’s confidentiality clause and the secrecy order in the John Doe.It appears the GAB would rather not have embarrassing emails out in the public domain, much like the conservative targets of their investigation. Although some of those individuals, who haven’t been charged with wrongdoing, had their personal lives placed on public display through <a href="http://watchdog.org/234887/john-doe-tapes-raids/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">document dumps by a judge who worked closely with the prosecutors.</a>“We want to amend the protective order so that everything could be released, subject to the identification of the targets. The GAB has opposed that. We have until Friday to reply,” Greim said.Many of the current questions before the court are expected to be argued at a scheduled hearing Oct. 7.Greim said the plaintiffs plan to take the lawsuit to trial “as soon as the court can get us in.”He said it’s likely much of the information being suppressed now will eventually come out in a trial.“The public has a right to know. That’s why we have open court proceedings, why we have open records,” Greim said.<a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/09/28/koch-connection-scott-walker-john-doe-documents/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/09/28/koch-connection-scott-walker-john-doe-documents/</a>A cache of documents recently released by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/sep/14/john-doe-files-scott-walker-corporate-cash-american-politics" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">The Guardian</a> shed new light on how Governor Scott Walker, his top advisors, and allies evaded the state’s campaign finance system in an unprecedented effort to win 15 elections and maintain control of the Wisconsin Senate and Supreme Court as well as the Executive Mansion in the tumultuous recall period of 2011 and 2012.The Guardian documents also illuminate the activities of <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a> (AFP), the shadowy “grassroots” arm of the Koch political machine.In February 2012, David Koch told the Palm Beach Post “we’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We are going to spend a lot more.”In June 2012, Tim Phillips, the national head of AFP, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/03/politics/wisconsin-recall-bus-tour/index.html" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">told CNN</a> that the group had pumped some $10 million in Wisconsin, but the independent watchdog group, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, could only account for a few million, which AFP spent on “It’s Working!” ads developed with the McIver Institute that year.The newly released documents help to explain the discrepancy. They paint a picture of AFP as a key partner along with the Republican Governors Association in maintaining GOP electoral control of the state in 2011-2012. In doing so, Walker and the groups engaged in unprecedented activities that so stretched the bounds of legality that a bipartisan group of state District Attorney’s launched a criminal investigation known as a “John Doe” investigation under Wisconsin law.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SUPPORT FOR WALKER’S UNION-BUSTING ACT 10 BILL</h2>The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has taken a closer look at the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105981-Ad-Coordination.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Koch related emails</a> in the Guardian cache.Emails in February-March 2011 show that Scott Walker’s campaign guru R.J. Johnson and AFP Wisconsin State Director Matt Seaholm coordinated over the message, content, and placement of radio and TV ads after Walker’s Act 10 bill, ending the state’s 50-year tradition of collective bargaining, was introduced quickly sparking mass protest.“Do you think this is the right message and delivery? We don’t want something to go up that might hurt walker [sic] by missing the mark,” Seaholm wrote to Johnson March 7, 2011.Seaholm was in contact with national Koch operatives Tim Phillips, the head of AFP nationally, and Sean Noble, the head of the shadowy national organization called the Center to Protect Patient Rights, as well as AFP’s Lorri Pickens and John Connors, who had intermittently worked for AFP and other right-wing groups in the state.Emails also show R.J. Johnson, his business associate Deborah Jordahl, Stephan Thomson the executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and Seaholm, Pickens, and Connors working together to bus people into Madison for the hearing on Walker’s collective bargaining bill and for a rally in Madison.Johnson and Jordahl were unhappy about AFP ads supporting moderate Republican Senator Dale Schultz, who opposed the collective bargaining bill. “WTF?” asked Johnson. Pickens explained the screw-up by saying that AFP’s national director, Tim Phillips, “wanted to do ads to help and show AFP presence and apparently talked to someone in Walker’s office.”When such groups coordinate over budget ads and a pending vote on the budget bill, they are engaged in “issue advocacy” permissible under the tax code and Wisconsin campaign finance law, but when they run phony issue ads and engage in electioneering in advance of an election, such actions raise reasonable concerns about potentially illegal campaign coordination circumventing state campaign limits and disclosure laws and IRS rules about the appropriate activities of tax-exempt “charitable organizations.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">HOLDING THE SUPREME COURT TO ENSURE THE SUCCESS OF THE WALKER AGENDA</h2>On March 2, 2011, AFP’s Seaholm sent a memo and budget to AFP national leader, Phillips. The highly partisan analysis runs down the races from the upcoming recall elections and state Supreme Court race, to Congressional elections (Paul Ryan, Herb Kohl), to the presidential, and strategizes on how they can all be kept in the Republican column.“1) Supreme Court – Right now there is 4-3 conservative majority on the Court. Justice David Prosser is up for reelection on April 5th. While he did very well in the primary (55%), there will now be a renewed fight for the spot because unions know that if they take their fight to the current court, they will lose. If they take it to a court with Joanne Kloppenberg, a liberal, on it, they will win. This could stop everything that Walker is trying to accomplish and they know it. Goes without saying, that would be a bad thing,” wrote Seaholm.He listed races he thought AFP could influence. “A typical targeted Assembly seat will have a budget of $100,000-125,000. Again, outside influence can go a very long way. This seat is in the La Crosse media market, which has per point cost of roughly $25-30.”“Despite all of the attention that is currently on Madison, we have one of the brightest and strongest conservative minds in America in Paul Ryan. A poll just released today shows him with an approval rating at 38 percent in his district. While he is doing the heavy lifting for our cause in Washington, we can’t let him slip back home.”“And one more thing … Wisconsin’s 8 electoral votes could actually go for a Republican. While Obama won handily, Gore and Kerry won by roughly 1%. Now you have a Republican Gov, a Republican Senator, Republican Legislature … this state is at worst, a purple state and at best, slightly red. The Republican candidate for president will have to make inroads in the midwest to win. With all of the focus on Wisconsin, why not put the resources into this state and kill two birds with one stone,” Seaholm stated.[trump wins by 22k .8%]On March 14, another email shows Sean Noble, from the Center to Protect Patient Rights in Arizona, prepping a “WI Budget” for AFP’s involvement in the state Supreme Court race. The budget would include: polling to test messaging, voter ID by volunteers, and two pieces of mail to “AFP activities/modeled activists.” In addition “Non_AFP activities” are listed and budgeted including “Voter ID to 2010 GOTV pool $20,000, Voter ID to remaining AFP modeled activists $50,000, Voter ID to swing universe $22,000, $22,000 Express.”“Total for State Supreme Court plan $350,000” is the bottom line, Noble writes to Phillips, the head of AFP. This email seems to put Noble in the drivers seat when it comes to AFP spending.Seaholm forwarded this budget to R.J. Johnson saying: “this is what Sean pitched to the powers that be.”The same day Seaholm asked Johnson: “OK does anyone have oppo on kloppenburg?,” and R.J. Johnson replied, “Yes. I know what we need to do there. Can we collaborate on message? Really important.”Later emails from March 25 have Johnson urging Seaholm to move on his court radio ad buys, and Seaholm responding “we’ll be moving on the buys this morning.”On March 29, Seaholm told Johnson that he ran into problems over the ad buy with legal counsel and an angry Johnson responding “Jesus Matt I never got a call from you or an email.” “This is a pretty big development to leave an office line if that is where you called. I left talk open for you with an assurance the job was done.”The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-backed-political-network-built-to-shield-donors-raised-400-million-in-2012-elections/2014/01/05/9e7cfd9a-719b-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post </a>describes CPPR as part of a “political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.” <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sean_Noble" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Sean Noble</a> was described by ProPublica as Kochs’ <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-dark-money-man-how-sean-noble-moved-the-kochs-cash-into-politics-and-ma" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">“dark money man.”</a> In Wisconsin, this money was very dark indeed.All this activity in a very close Wisconsin Supreme Court race, that was eventually won only after a costly recount, yet the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which closely tracks money in politics, <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pro11-100823.php" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">does not even have AFP listed</a> as a group spending money in the race.If $350,000 were spent, that would be a substantial sum given that Prosser himself raised only about $59,000 for that race along with public financing.Marcus S. Owens, the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division spoke to CMD about the emails: “This is pretty specific information about individuals coordinating a campaign intervention. You would not expect to see a 501(c)(3) charity engaging in this. If it was acting as a 501(c)(4), it goes into the column of inappropriate (c)(4) activity, and if it rises to the primary activity of the organization it jeopardizes that organization’s tax exempt status.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">WINNING THE WALKER RECALL</h2><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html/#document/p28" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">An early email</a> from Republican Governors Association’s Nick Ayers laid out the coordinated strategy for the recall races to Scott Walker in March 25, 2011.“Spoke to Gillespie this morning. My sense is that everyone’s heart (AFP, WIGOP, RSLC, RGA, CFG) is in the right place but no one is clear on the entire battle plan, and that is leaving very vulnerable gaps in both the planning and execution of a winning strategy.”Here Ayers names key groups involved in the campaign coordination prosecutors were investigating; Ed Gillespie from the Republican State Leadership Conference, Americans for Prosperity, the Wisconsin Republican Party, and Club for Growth. The groups would go on to spend some $30 million in the recall races ($20 million funneled through Wisconsin Club for Growth, $10 million via the RGA) an enormous sum in a small state. RGA registered as an “independent expenditure” group (Right Direction Wisconsin) and swore an oath not to coordinate with candidates or their agents.Multiple emails suggest that RGA, a partisan political organization, and AFP worked closely on recalls. One email from Walker fundraiser Kate Doner in August 2011, puts the AFP spending to that point at $1 million. On September 7, 2011, Doner will list AFP/Koch as a key partner and urge Governor Walker to “lock them down and make them work for you.”After the April Wisconsin Supreme Court race on May 11, 2011, Seaholm wrote to R.J. Johnson, subject: “Conf Call later this afternoon,” asking if Johnson is available to have a call “to see what Sean Noble’s guys are thinking?” Johnson replied, “Depending on time, yes.”At the time, Noble’s <a href="http://https//www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_to_Protect_Patients%27_Rights#cite_note-5" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Center to Protect Patient Rights</a> and the related Coalition to Protect Patient Rights were focused on battling President Obama’s 2010 health care reform bill funneling money to a host of groups, all pretending to be genuine grassroots voices on the issue.The email doesn’t reveal what “Noble’s guys” were thinking but, in the final two weeks of the gubernatorial recall election in June of 2012, a brand new group with the name <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_for_American_Values" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">“Coalition for American Values”</a> suddenly appeared out of nowhere to run $400,080 on a pounding rotation of express advocacy ads (the “vote for” “vote against” kind) appealing to “Wisconsin nice” by saying the recall wasn’t “the Wisconsin way.”“I didn’t vote for Governor Walker, but I am definitely against this recall…Recall isn’t the Wisconsin way… Vote for Scott Walker, June 5.”Years later, sleuthing by CMD through public records revealed that these powerful ads with pretty B-roll of farms and fishermen didn’t come from Wisconsin at all, but an out-of-state group tied to two of the most powerful billionaires on the planet, David and Charles Koch.CMD <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/cmd_jan_8_cav_complaint_0.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">filed a complaint with the state elections board in 2014</a>, after it discovered that Coalition for American Values was funded entirely by Noble’s multi-million dollar CPPR operation, which itself was funded by other Koch-connected entities.In California during the same time period, CPPR was investigated by the state’s Attorney General Kamila Harris for campaign money laundering. In 2013, <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kamala-d-harris-announces-1-million-civil-settlement-campaign" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">it and related groups paid stiff fines</a> and were ordered to disgorge $15 million as part of a settlement with the state. Though CPPR was given the largest fine in California electoral history, both Noble and the Kochs denied any wrongdoing for engaging in the complex shell game that prevented voters from knowing who was really behind the big ad buys in that state.In Wisconsin, CPPR’s phony front group (Coalition for American Values) was registered as an independent expenditure committee running express advocacy ads. Even under Wisconsin’s 2015 Supreme Court decision shutting down the John Doe, coordination between CPPR and Wisconsin candidates or their agents would be barred.In addition, Coalition for American Values like Wisconsin Club for Growth told the IRS that it had not engaged in “direct or indirect” political campaign activities–even though both groups appear to have spent almost the entirety of their funds on electioneering in 2012 in violation of IRS policy.It is notable that the suspect ads were later pulled down <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/01/12354/exclusive-koch-network-funded-ads-telling-voters-recall-not-wisconsin-way" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">leaving blank spaces</a> in CMD’s article about the complaint. But one ad survived the purge on the invaluable website <a href="http://elections.wispolitics.com/2012/05/coalition-for-american-values-starts-tv.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Wispolitics</a> and is reproduced here.CMD noted that the Coalition for American Values Action Fund, <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00506113" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">registered at the federal level,</a> paid Wisconsin political operative John Connors’ firm Campaign Now a total of $44,724 in January, July, and August 2012, according to April/October 2012FEC filings.Connors’ biography includes interning for Scott Walker, working for AFP Wisconsin, and working for the “Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity”/Wisconsin Watchdog, which appeared to have great inside sources on the John Doe investigation as it <a href="http://watchdog.org/series/wisconsins-secret-war/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">relentlessly attacked prosecutors</a> with more than 350 articles.But most importantly, Wisconsin Club for Growth’s R.J. Johnson had used John Connors as the titular head of the shell organizations he set up in the state to engage in electioneering, Citizens for Strong America and United Sportsmen. New documents indicate that Johnson was paying Connors for his services in 2011.AFP’s efforts in Wisconsin were lauded in 2014 by Republican Governors Association Executive Director Phil Cox, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/09/12584/leaked-audio-suggests-afp-violated-law-wisconsin" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">in audio obtained by Lauren Windsor of the Undercurrent</a>. Cox told a gathering of right-wing donors that Americans for Prosperity was a “tremendous partner” and “heavily involved” in the recall elections.Together, two of the key organizations under investigation, Wisconsin Club for Growth and RGA would spend an estimated $30 million in the recall period of 2011-2012.For almost 40 years, Wisconsin campaign finance statutes <a href="http://law.justia.com/codes/wisconsin/2010/11/11.001.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">read</a>:“When the true source of support or the extent of support is not fully disclosed, or when a candidate becomes overly dependent upon large private contributors, the democratic process is subjected to a potential corrupting influence. The legislature therefore finds that the state has a compelling interest in designing a system for fully disclosing contributions and disbursements made on behalf of every candidate for public office and in placing reasonable limitation on such activities. Such a system must make readily available to the voters complete information as to who is supporting or opposing which candidate or cause and to what extent, whether directly or indirectly.”One wonders what the results would have been in Wisconsin had the true sources of the campaign cash been revealed at the bottom of every ad.See CMD’s complaint against the Koch backed <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/cmd_jan_8_cav_complaint_0.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Coalition for American Values here</a>. See <a href="http://prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">CMD’s analysis of many of the ads</a> run in the recall period. Follow CMD’s reporting and analysis of the Guardian documents @PRwatch.org.vote to kill <table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="width" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" pt="pt" border-collapse="border-collapse" collapse="collapse"><tbody><tr style="break-inside: avoid; height: 84.15pt;"><td width="543" valign="top" style="width: 406.9pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 84.15pt;">PROSSER, J., ROGGENSACK, C.J. (joining Sections IV and V), ZIEGLER, J. (joining Section IV) and GABLEMAN, J. (joining Section IV) concur (Opinion filed).ZIEGLER, J. concurs (Opinion filed).
ABRAHAMSON, J. concurs and dissents (Opinion filed).CROOKS, J. concurs and dissents (Opinion filed).ccccc</td></tr><tr style="break-inside: avoid; height: 0.1in;"><td width="15" valign="top" style="width: 11.1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 0.1in;"> </td><td width="117" valign="top" style="width: 87.65pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 0.1in;">Not Participating:<o:p xmlns:o="o" /></td><td width="543" valign="top" style="width: 406.9pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 0.1in;"><o:p xmlns:o="o"> </o:p>BRADLEY, J., did not participate.</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/03/02/secret-scott-walker-john-doe-leak-inquiry-underway/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/03/02/secret-scott-walker-john-doe-leak-inquiry-underway/</a>mary bAccording to the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/17/john-doe-leak-investigators-remove-documents-wisconsin-supreme-court/98047646/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a>, Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) investigators are reviewing documents from state court and government offices for information about the Guardian story on the now-closed Wisconsin John Doe investigation into whether or not Scott Walker’s campaign committee illegally coordinated his recall campaign efforts with outside groups. Outside groups raised and spent an estimated $20 million in Walker’s June 2012 recall election.Until Justice Michael Gableman and the “conservative” majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court rewrote whole swaths of the state’s campaign finance law in <a href="http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&seqNo=144527" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">their July 2015 4-2 decision</a> ending the Walker John Doe investigation, outside groups were required to work independently of candidates on elections. Two justices, including Gableman, were asked to recuse themselves from the case, because they were elected after major expenditures by some of the groups under investigation raising serious conflict of interest issues, but the justices refused.The Supreme Court took up three challenges to the investigation even though lower courts did not have time to develop a fact-record on the issues. The Court prepared to hear oral arguments behind closed doors and sealed many of the court filings. In its 2015 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court terminated the John Doe II, writing: “To be clear, this conclusion ends the John Doe investigation…” and “the investigation is closed.”The Court legalized coordination between candidates and outside groups running what the Court called “issue ads,” fired the Republican special prosecutor, told the bi-partisan group of district attorneys who initiated the probe to stand down, and ordered the special prosecutor to “permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation.” After blowback, they modified that order directing the special prosecutor to collect up and return all documents and evidence to the Court.But the Guardian published <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/sep/14/john-doe-files-scott-walker-corporate-cash-american-politics" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">some of the secret documents</a> in September 2016.Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel first asked the Supreme Court to appoint a “special master” to investigate the leak, but the Court brusquely declined. A special master is an administrative role usually reserved for complex civil litigation cases. Next, he recommended a grand jury. But costly grand juries are extremely rare in the state, usually reserved for serious felony crimes such as the 1970 Sterling Hall bombing on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus or homicides.Now it appears Schimel is taking another route, pursuing an investigation with the assistance of the John Doe II judge, David Wambach. Based on news accounts, it appears that Wambach is ordering <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/17/john-doe-leak-investigators-remove-documents-wisconsin-supreme-court/98047646/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">courthouse clerks</a> and other <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/24/wisconsin-ethics-commission-records-taken-john-doe-leak-probe/98323570/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">government agencies</a> to turn over documents in their possession, but what information they are seeking is not known as the unusual orders are under seal.The move has many legal observers scratching their heads.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LEGAL QUESTIONS RAISED</h3>The attorney general’s conduct in the leak investigation has already been questioned by Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who considered a recent letter and court order the Department of Justice sent to the Supreme Court requesting documents from the court to be an improper “ex parte” communication.She wrote a <a href="http://graphics.jsonline.com/jsi_news/documents/201702181223.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">letter</a> to a list of prosecutors and attorneys representing parties in the John Doe II as well as a long list of other courthouse personnel across the state to inform them of her views on the matter.Her letter was then given to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but not by Abrahamson, said the reporters. Abrahamson also questioned how Schimel can investigate on behalf of the John Doe judge when he also represented him in court. Abrahamson’s letter suggests that she believes the attorney general is operating under the auspices of the John Doe II, as she copied participants in that investigation. Abrahamson <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/images/f/f7/2013AP2504-and-2014AP296-and-2014AP417-addl-redaction1-20-17.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">has also consistently argued</a> that the Court’s slipshod application of secrecy in the John Doe II “raised significant First Amendment, state constitutional, statutory and common law issues.”CMD spoke to half a dozen attorneys who raised numerous questions about the probe.Was Schimel formally asked to investigate the issue by Governor Walker or the state legislature?Can Schimel use a closed John Doe operating without a district attorney for a new investigation? Statutorily, a John Doe proceeding is to be initiated by a district attorney, not by the Department of Justice.Has the attorney general opened up a new John Doe? The <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/acts/64" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">new John Doe statute</a> exempts public officials from prosecution under a Doe and limits new investigations to serious crimes like homicide.Are investigators authorized to inspect documents under Supreme Court seal?<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SELECTIVE PROSECUTION QUESTIONS RAISED</h3>Schimel is apparently on the hunt for the Guardian leaker even though he has publicly said he will not investigate the fact that Eric O’Keefe, a director for Wisconsin Club for Growth — the dark money group at the center of the John Doe II, admitted leaking information to the media.O’Keefe boasted about defying the John Doe secrecy order in multiple interviews with supportive press.FOX’s Megyn Kelly quizzed O’Keefe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOaOhz-Zt_w%20Kelly" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">live on air</a>: “Eric do you, are you under a secrecy order right now? Because everybody’s been told not to speak.” O’Keefe: “Yes, an unconstitutional secrecy order and I’m defying the secrecy order.” Kelly: “Right now?” O’Keefe: “Yes.” He <a href="http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/eric-o-keefe-compares-%20john-doe-subpoena-targets-to-rape/article_1184498c-5e46-5eae-b3c2-033d74d900ca.html" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> WISN’s Vicki McKenna “I have persistently ignored (the gag order) because I can read the Constitution and it’s an outrageous clamp down on my speech.”Editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal described “copies of two subpoenas we have seen” publicly providing for the first time a list of some of the groups under investigation. They cited O’Keefe in the one-sided article and spun the campaign finance investigation, which was under the control of a Republican special prosecutor, as a “<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/images/0/0f/Review%26_Outlook_Wisconsin_Political_Speec%20h_Raid-WSJ.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">political speech raid</a>.”O’Keefe told the Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel for her book “Intimidation Game” that he violated the secrecy order “in some form every day.” He also told her that Walker’s top campaign advisor, R.J. Johnson, had also violated the Court’s secrecy order.Republican special prosecutor Francis Schmitz attempted to sanction O’Keefe for violating the secrecy order, but in 2015, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin legislature terminated all prior John Doe secrecy <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/acts/64" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">orders</a>, except for a narrow list of prosecutors and judges, as part of their self-serving revamp of the statute. The statute also exempted corrupt politicians from prosecution under a John Doe.According to documents later unsealed by a few of the judges on the state Supreme Court, O’Keefe’s lawyers argued to the Court that by the terms of the statute the new law was intended to be retroactive and therefore was effectively a “get-out-of-jail-free” card for O’Keefe for leaking John Doe II documents. The Court seemed to have bought this argument as O’Keefe apparently was not subjected to sanctions for repeatedly violating the secrecy rules that applied to him.This has implications for any leak prosecution.“While I feel that the investigation of the various Court clerks is misguided and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, any prosecution instituted as a result of the investigation would be subject to challenge as selective prosecution and a violation of the due process clause. One only need ask — why does Mr. O’Keefe have a First Amendment right to disclose, but no one else?” said Stephen J. Meyer, a Wisconsin criminal defense attorney who has represented clients in John Doe proceedings.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SELECTIVE PROSECUTION II</h3>Schimel and the John Doe judge appear to be ignoring a number of other legal issues as well.The Guardian documents revealed for the first time a new set of potential legal violations that were not addressed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision that summarily ended the John Doe II investigation. These include:<ol style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 30px;">Governor Scott Walker’s solicitation of corporate checks to fund the campaign being run by his top advisor, R.J. Johnson acting on behalf of Wisconsin Club for Growth. <a href="http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0929taylor.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">As Democratic lawmakers explained</a>, Wisconsin statute 11.38 (1)(a)(1) has banned corporations from making contributions to candidates “directly or indirectly” from their corporate treasuries since 1905. There are stiff penalties on both sides of the transaction, including huge fines for firms and forfeiture of office for politicians. The documents indicate that Walker secretly solicited large corporate checks for Wisconsin Club for Growth, including two $1 million <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-%20PT1.html#document/p53/a317694" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">checks from Menards Inc</a>. “I got a million dollars from John Menard today,” boasted Walker in one 2011 email. Menard sent another corporate check in 2012 when the Walker recall loomed.</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 30px;">Evidence that Keith Gilkes, Scott Walker’s campaign manager, held weekly meetings with the Republican Governor’s Association, registered in the state as “independent expenditure” group, which had sworn an oath not to coordinate with Walker. On October 14, 2011 an RGA staffer wrote to Gilkes “Josh mentioned he would like to make this a recurring call on Fridays at 2:30 pm (EST). Does that work for you?” Gilkes replies: “This works on my end for a weekly call… Shoot me the phone number and dial-in when you have it.” Josh is likely Josh Robinson, RGA’s political director who later boasted of “overseeing the largest IE [Independent Expenditure] campaign defending Scott Walker during the 2012 recalls” in his bio. RGA spent $9.5 million in the recall election pounding Walker’s opponent and lauding Walker. Many contend these ads were not “issue ads” but were the functional equivalent of express advocacy and <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">prohibited even under the 2015 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling</a> shutting down the John Doe. (Moreover, <a href="http://marquette%20law%20professor%20ed%20fallone/" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Marquette Law Professor Ed Fallone points out</a> that U.S. Supreme Court decision this week upholding a lower court ruling also makes clear that the Wisconsin Supreme Court plainly got it wrong when it ruled that so-called “issue ads” are exempt from regulation.)</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 30px;">Potential pay-to-play criminal and ethics violations related to Texas billionaire Harold Simmons’ $750,000 contribution in personal and <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105164-Corporate-Checks-Sanitized.html#document/p5" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">corporate checks</a> (from his holding company CONTRAN Corporation) to Wisconsin Club for Growth and the coordinated campaign. These checks were followed by specific <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3036374-EP-Memo.html#document/p5/a316185" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">changes</a> to Wisconsin law proposed by Simmons’ lobbyist, Eric Peterson, that were intended to retroactively nullify lawsuits brought by Wisconsin children poisoned by lead who were suing Simmons’ lead company called NL Industries, (formerly National Lead). Peterson’s verbatim language nullifying the lawsuits was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Walker. The new law was quickly <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105164-Corporate-Checks-%20Sanitized.html#document/p5" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">struck down</a> as plainly unconstitutional by both state and federal courts.</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 30px;">Evidence that money Walker raised for Wisconsin Club for Growth was funneled to Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and used for ads praising Walker and attacking his opponent during his 2012 recall race. The Guardian documents reveal prosecutor allegations that WMC paid its media firm Ten Capitol some $3.7 million and “coinciding with the wire transfers to Ten Capitol, WMC-IMC received payments from WCFG.” These ads were also the functional equivalent of express advocacy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">prohibited even under the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision</a>. Prosecutors alleged that Walker’s top campaign advisor on the recall, R.J. Johnson, may have been paid for orchestrating the WMC ads. “Consistent with a commission for ad placement, R.J. Johnson and Associates received $50,000 from Ten Capitol on June 22, 2012,” wrote prosecutors.</li></ol>In an email to Karl Rove, Scott Walker credited R.J. Johnson with winning Justice Gableman’s 2008 race against Louis Butler. Now, Gableman and Wisconsin Club for Growth’s Eric O’Keefe will be <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr022817.php" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">appearing together</a> at a Republican fundraiser as Gableman gets ready to run again in 2018.“What happened was unprecedented in Wisconsin — wholesale violations of the laws that had governed campaigns for decades,” said Bill Christofferson, a veteran Wisconsin campaign consultant. Christofferson has run many state-wide campaigns including for former U.S. Senator Herb Kohl.“Everyone in Wisconsin politics understood a campaign couldn’t coordinate with an outside group, couldn’t take corporate money, and couldn’t engage in pay to play. While everyone else took great pains to avoid violations, Walker and company ignored the law and coordinated millions of dollars in spending, while the other side played by the rules. If I had done what they did, I have little doubt I would be in prison,” he told CMD.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PRESS REQUESTS THAT THE SUPREME COURT OPEN THE JOHN DOE FILES</h3>Exposing the misdeeds of the powerful is the fundamental purpose of a free press and that press relies on whistleblowers to get the job done.Each year, Wisconsin’s Freedom of Information Council gives special recognition to whistleblowers.So it is not surprising that newspapers have called for all the John Doe documents to be made public.News outlets like the Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have repeatedly called upon the Court to unseal court filings. The Journal Sentinel<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/10/08/editorial-disclose-donors/91798834/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">has said</a>, “The courts could perform a public service by making all the documents open to public inspection,” and the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council has called for case <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/2016/12/05/hall-release-john-doe-ii-case-records-now/95000506/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">records to be released</a> to the public. But for unknown reasons the Wisconsin Supreme Court continues to keep the vast number of documents secret.“It is disappointing to see so much effort going into trying to find and punish who leaked these records to the press,” said Bill Lueders, President of Wisconsin’s Freedom of Information Council.“The public is best served having access to a full range of information. People can decide for themselves whether or not they are comfortable with the conduct these records describe but I believe it is better to know than not to know. That’s why many states, including Wisconsin, have statutory protections in place for whistleblowers—because we acknowledge a public interest in learning about things some people would like to keep hidden,” said Lueders.<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-collapse: collapse; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); clear: both; margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />See CMD’s analysis of the corporate checks issue <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13141/fundraising-corporate-treasury-fund-express-advocacy" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>. See CMD’s analysis of the ads run in the 2011-2012 recall period <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">here.</a>from RGA page: subpoena's in John Doe Wisc (eric o'keefe?)--http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/09/12584/leaked-audio-suggests-afp-violated-law-wisconsinLeaked audio from an invite-only Koch donor summit highlighted the role of the billionaire brothers in boosting Scott Walker in Wisconsin -- and suggests that David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation may have violated its charitable status during the state's 2012 recall elections.Phil Cox, Executive Director of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), told a gathering of right-wing donors this summer that Americans for Prosperity (AFP) was a "tremendous partner" and "heavily involved" during Wisconsin's 2012 recall elections. He also thanked David Koch for "his very strong support of the RGA," according to a recording <a href="http://ladylibertine.net/2014/08/27/republican-governors-association-head-says-non-partisan-group-his-strongest-partner/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">obtained by The Undercurrent</a>.AFP spent <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/03/politics/wisconsin-recall-bus-tour/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">at least $10 million</a> touting Walker's policies during the 2012 Wisconsin recalls, much of it from the group's "charitable" arm, which is organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code and barred from any political intervention. AFP's television ads, bus tour, phone banks, door hangers, and door-to-door canvassing during the recall certainly looked like electioneering, but AFP's leaders claimed that its activities had nothing to do with "any candidates, political parties or ongoing races."Yet, if AFP's charitable arm coordinated during the recalls with the RGA, a 527 Political Action Committee that <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/rga-congratulates-governor-scott-walker/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">spent $9 million</a> expressly calling for Walker's reelection, the Koch-backed charity may have run afoul of federal tax law.An "IRC 501(c)(3) organization should not coordinate its activities with a non-IRC 501(c)(3) organization for partisan political purposes," <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">according to IRS guidance</a>, "including any coordination with a candidate or IRC 527 organization.""In Wisconsin, it was a really tough battle in 2012," Cox said at the Koch gathering. At the time, the RGA was led by former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who is currently on trial on public corruption charges.[convicted]"AFP was a tremendous partner" to RGA during the recall effort, he added.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AFP "Not Dealing With Any Candidates, Political Parties or Ongoing Races"</h2>AFP consists of two legal entities.One is a "social welfare" organization incorporated under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, a group legally permitted to engage in some political activity and which serves as the conduit for most of AFP's ad spending on the national level.The other is the AFP Foundation, a "charity" organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Much of AFP's $10 million in spending during the Wisconsin recalls <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11289/americans-prosperity-nonprofit-spreading-pro-walker-message" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">came</a> from its 501(c)(3) charitable arm, despite facing an absolute bar on political intervention. (The $900,000 AFP has spent on Walker ads so far in 2014 has <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12490/americans-prosperity-charity-pours-900k-walker-race" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">also come from its charitable wing</a>.)AFP did not report its expenditures in 2011 and 2012, so the precise breakdown of spending between the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) is not known, but AFP's Wisconsin leaders went out of their way to claim the group's activities had nothing to do with elections."We're not dealing with any candidates, political parties or ongoing races," AFP's Wisconsin director, Luke Hilgemann, <a href="http://patch.com/wisconsin/hudson-wi/americans-for-prosperity-bus-tour-to-stop-in-hudson-on-june-1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">told</a> a Hudson, Wisconsin online news site in late May of 2012. It was apparently a coincidence that the AFP Foundation had launched a ten-city bus tour, shipped 80 paid staffers into the state, and sent hundreds of AFP canvassers door-to-door in the weeks before the June 5 recall election. "We're just educating folks on the importance of reforms."As activists began circulating petitions for Walker's recall in late 2011, the AFP Foundation <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11289/americans-prosperity-nonprofit-spreading-pro-walker-message" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">launched a huge television ad buy</a> that carefully avoided naming Walker, yet promoted his signature anti-union legislation and budget cuts with the slogan "It's Working!" The "Its Working" ads pushed a message consistent with that of the Walker campaign, ran through the spring of 2012, and cost the AFP Foundation an estimated<a href="http://www.wisdc.org/afp2012.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$3.7 million</a>. (This campaign came on the heels of AFP's "Stand With Walker" ads in Spring of 2011, as protests were at their peak; however, that spending appears to have come from AFP's 501(c)(4) arm.)As the June 5 election day pulled closer, AFP brought in staff and volunteers from around the country. AFP's ten city bus tour included mobile phone banking, where volunteers read from a script that included lines like, "did you know that Governor Walker's reforms have saved taxpayers more than $1 billion?" Businessweek <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/kochs-take-tip-from-soros-investing-in-voter-registration.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reported that</a> "AFP ground troops knocked on 6,500 doors in the three days before Walker prevailed," carrying Samsung tablets loaded with voter information, maps, and scripts. Just before election day, AFP volunteers distributed door hangers that pictured Walker and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, under the message "Policies That Work for Wisconsin."At an AFP national convention held in Washington DC a few months after Walker survived the recall, Hilgemann boasted of his group's role in Walker's reelection -- describing how they "beat back the liberal hordes that had taken over" the state with ads, rallies, bus tours and canvassing -- but again emphasized that "we don't advocate for politicians."<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AFP Foundation May Violate Tax Law if It "Improperly Coordinates or Colludes" With 527 Group Like the RGA</h2>Taken alone, the AFP Foundation's activities pushed the envelope on impermissible political intervention by charities. The Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11289/americans-prosperity-nonprofit-spreading-pro-walker-message" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">noted</a> this <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11533/kochs-americans-prosperity-not-supporting-walker-wi-recall" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">at the time</a>, and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr031312.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">filed an IRS complaint</a> in 2011 asking the agency to investigate.Yet if the AFP Foundation coordinated with the Republican Governors Association -- organized under Section 527 of the tax code, a provision designated for political groups -- it almost certainly would have violated rules barring political intervention by charities.<div id="block-inject-1" class="block-inject block-inject-1" style="line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="block-block-40" class="block block-block first odd" style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><div class="adv">A<a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ccording to the IRS</a>, a charity like the AFP Foundation "might indirectly intervene in a campaign or operate for a substantial nonexempt purpose if it improperly coordinates or colludes with" a 527 group such as the RGA.</div></div></div>Improper collusion <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">can include</a> "coordinating the content, timing, or distribution of information materials," or distributing one another's materials."While coordination may often be difficult to prove, any public statements or private memoranda . . . indicating coordination between the officials or agents of the two organizations would be damaging," <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the IRS has stated</a>.Cox calling AFP a "tremendous partner" at the secret Koch summit was not the first time an RGA official made such a reference. Four months after the recall election, then-RGA Chair Bob McDonnell <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/virginia-gov-bob-mcdonnell-stumps-for-romney-in-state-q675t4u-173378091.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">said</a>:"We spent $9 million in Wisconsin . . . the combination of the Walker team, Americans for Prosperity, the NRA (National Rifle Association), formed a formidable grass-roots coalition."<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Separate Investigation under State Law into Campaign Coordination</h2>Cox's possible admission of coordination between the RGA and the AFP Foundation comes amidst a separate criminal coordination investigation in Wisconsin.<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12473/reporters-guide-john-doe-investigation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">For more than a year</a>, a bipartisan group of Wisconsin prosecutors have been examining whether Walker and his campaign violated state campaign finance law by coordinating with independent groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12475/scottwalker-john-doe-darkmoney-sixthings" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Under Wisconsin law</a>, expenditures coordinated with a candidate are <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/gov-scott-walker-allies-knew-prevailing-interpretation-of-state-law-b99307863z1-267404011.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">counted as campaign donations</a>, and must comply with disclosure laws and contribution limits.The alleged coordination between the Walker campaign and outside groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth could be a violation of Wisconsin campaign finance law. In contrast, if the RGA and AFP-Foundation improperly coordinated with one another, it would mean that AFP violated federal tax law.Wisconsin prosecutors may not looking at federal tax law violations. Yet, both the RGA and AFP have reportedly received subpoenas in the state criminal probe, and the RGA's name has recently been mentioned in connection with the investigation. Taken together, the allegations indicate how closely many Republican groups worked together during the recalls.According to newly-unsealed court documents, <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/secret-probe-targets-try-to-head-off-more-court-disclosures-b99337497z1-272569051.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">prosecutors allege</a> that the Walker campaign -- in addition to coordinating with Wisconsin Club for Growth -- worked with the RGA-run Right Direction Political Action Committee in 2012, which ran at least eight ads attacking Walker's opponent Tom Barrett.Prosecutor Francis Schmitz, a former federal prosecutor with Republican credentials who voted for Walker, alleged in court filings that agents of the Walker's campaign "were regularly conducting meetings and conference calls with the RGA to discuss campaign strategy, including polling.” Schmitz also alleges that the campaign worked closely with the Republican State Leadership Committee which, like the RGA, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_contribs.php?ein=050532524&cycle=2014" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">receives Koch funding</a>.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Koch Is Top Funder to Both AFP and RGA</h2>David Koch and the privately-held Koch Industries have been major funders of both AFP and the RGA.AFP does not disclose its donors, but <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/07/12541/koch-political-spending" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy</a> show that David Koch -- who founded the group -- has been its top single donor in some years, giving as much as $1 million annually during the early 2000s. Koch Industries has also been a top AFP donor, giving nearly $1 million in 2000 and 2001. It is not known how much Koch Industries or David Koch may have provided to AFP in more recent years, as the group has played an increasing role in elections and its budget has grown exponentially. David Koch, as well as top Koch Industries executives, are on the AFP Foundation's board of directors.David Koch is also one of the RGA's top donors. In 2010, David Koch wrote a $1 million check to the RGA, as the Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/02/9964/cmd-special-report-scott-walker-runs-koch-money" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">noted at the time</a>, and in 2012 he gave $2 million. (The RGA reported <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/rga-congratulates-governor-elect-scott-walker/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">spending $5 million</a> getting Walker elected in 2010, and <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/rga-congratulates-governor-scott-walker/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">another $9 million</a> during the 2012 recall.) In the first half of 2014 Koch has donated $3.75 million, and Koch Industries has chipped-in another $525,000.Cox acknowledged this financial backing when addressing the Koch summit in June."I want to thank David specifically for his very strong support of the RGA and AFP’s great partnership over the last four years," he said.DEATH/END:
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/01/188520/dark-money%E2%80%99s-front-man</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In November 2013, a little-known conservative activist named Eric O’Keefe brazenly disobeyed a court order and leaked information to The Wall Street Journal editorial page about a secret “John Doe” investigation involving campaign finance violations by political operatives surrounding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. O’Keefe’s group, the conservative Wisconsin Club for Growth, was among the parties being investigated.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was the beginning of an extraordinary scorched-earth campaign by O’Keefe to harass and undermine the John Doe investigators, who had targeted alleged illegal coordination between Walker and conservative groups including Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. But O’Keefe had a bigger goal in mind: overturning decades of established law in America saying that independent advocacy groups could not coordinate with political campaigns.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">O’Keefe launched a series of suits against the prosecutors leading the investigation, continued to leak information about the probe, and publicly denounced it as a “partisan” attack on free speech. He went on conservative talk radio to accuse prosecutors of imposing “a traumatic, unconstitutional abuse on people” and compared those being investigated to “a rape victim”—adding, “I am saying this deliberately.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Together with his lawyer, David Rivkin, O’Keefe pushed the idea that the John Doe investigators conducted early morning “paramilitary raids” violating the constitutional rights of those being investigated, and which resulted in stories in conservative publications like National Review.  Stories of these abuses were discredited by an audiotape in which investigators treated their alleged victim politely. Yet a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July released an extraordinary ruling that shut down the John Doe probe, with three of the four-member majority citing unproven violations of constitutional rights.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce had together provided more than $8 million supporting these four justices in their last elections, accounting for anywhere from 48 percent to 76 percent of the total spent on each justice’s behalf. The justices returned the favor, writing a decision that seemed to ignore Wisconsin law and decades of U.S. Supreme Court decisions holding that independent advocacy groups cannot coordinate with political campaigns, since that would make them no longer independent.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was a huge victory for O’Keefe and for Walker, one that has legalized the unlimited use of dark money in campaigns in Wisconsin and could influence how such cases are handled in other jurisdictions. Long after the end of Walker’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, O’Keefe’s national aspirations still have legs. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Wisconsin has sort of become ground zero for the testing of how far outside groups could coordinate with candidates,” says Tara Malloy, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit advocacy group that has closely followed the Wisconsin fight. But she notes that what is happening here is part of a much larger conservative agenda. Across the country, Malloy says, “The envelope is being pushed on coordination in all areas.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All of which has made O’Keefe a public figure, despite a long history of quietly effective conservative advocacy. He has been dubbed the “third Koch brother” for his efforts to lead and recruit donors to numerous advocacy groups connected to billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch. </div>=<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise</a>Remember 2015? It was just last year that the conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court embraced dark money and turned its back on the state's longstanding bedrock support for transparency in campaigns and elections.In a controversial ruling that July, the Court voted 4-2 to shut down the John Doe investigation into Scott Walker's secret political fundraising scheme, arguing that coordination between Walker, his campaign consultants, and corporate lobby groups didn't matter because it was all just "issue advocacy."When the special prosecutor moved for reconsideration later that year, presenting evidence of express political advocacy, the court's conservative majority, led by Justice Gableman, promptly fired him.It was Wisconsin's version of the Saturday Night Massacre, when Richard Nixon had Archibald Cox canned (by Robert Bork) as the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal.The legislative majority beholden to Walker's dark money machine for the recalls moved quickly to rewrite Wisconsin's campaign finance laws to enshrine the Court's radical ruling, dismantled the state's nonpartisan ethics board, and stripped district attorneys of the power to use the John Doe process to prosecute future campaign finance violations, erasing decades of anti-corruption reforms in the process.Never mind that the Wisconsin Supreme Court's novel legal theory about coordination is without precedent and flies in the face of multiple U.S. Supreme Court decisions. That is the subject of an appeal that the nation's highest court will consider when it reconvenes after its summer break on September 26.The big story is that the Wisconsin highest court's ruling is based on a false premise—a lie that could only survive under the court's draconian secrecy orders.CMD's analysis of the John Doe documents published by The Guardian and political ads aired in 2011 and 2012 reveal that Governor Walker and his campaign staff coordinated on more than $30 million in express advocacy expenditures—from soliciting huge corporate and personal checks down to where and when political ads would be placed—something that's illegal even under the Wisconsin court's 2015 ruling."The Wisconsin court was wrong to say that coordination between a candidate and outside groups only matters if there's express advocacy," said Donald Simon, a prominent national expert on campaign finance law and former general counsel of Common Cause. "But even so, it's clear that many of the ads run by the groups involved in the John Doe investigation qualified as express advocacy under U.S. Supreme Court precedent."Walker's secret operation to bankroll and coordinate those ads circumvented Wisconsin's contribution limits, the state's longstanding ban on corporate campaign contributions, and its disclosure requirements.They broke the law.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Legal Standard at Play</h2>The law of the land at the federal level and in most, if not all, other states is that coordination between candidates and outside political spenders converts otherwise "independent" expenditures into campaign contributions subject to limits and disclosure.In legalizing independent expenditures by corporations in Citizens United v. FEC, Justice Kennedy reasoned that, "By definition, an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate." Kennedy quoted the Court's 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo to back up his conclusion:The absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate.Ruling after ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court over the past 40 years has embraced this logic about coordination. In McConnell v. FEC, for example, the Court concluded that coordinated expenditures "made after a 'wink or a nod' will be 'as useful to the candidate as cash'" and can therefore be regulated just like direct contributions.The conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, however, ducked this line of cases and instead relied on Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC to reach its decision that coordination doesn't count unless the expenditure at issue contains express advocacy or its "functional equivalent." But WRTL did not deal with coordination.Unless and until that legal sleight of hand is overturned, the law in Wisconsin is that an expenditure will not be considered for "political purposes"—and therefore subject to limits and disclosure—unless it involves "express advocacy and its functional equivalent, as those terms are defined in Buckley and WRTL II [Wisconsin Right to Life]," even if it is coordinated with a candidate.Under the WRTL decision the Wisconsin majority relied on, an ad is considered the "functional equivalent" of express advocacy "if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." The ads considered in that case were held to be "genuine issue ad[s]" because "their content lacks indicia of express advocacy:...=<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13145/Leaked-Documents-Court-Dismissal-John-Doe-Investigation-False-Premise" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Leaked Documents Show Court's Dismissal of the John Doe Was Based on a False Premise</a></h2><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 22, 2016 -- Remember 2015? It was just last year that the conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court embraced dark money and turned its back on the state's longstanding bedrock support for transparency in campaigns and elections.</div><h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13142/gableman-wi-supreme-court" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Supreme Cover-Up: How the Wisconsin Justice System Failed in the Walker John Doe</a></h2><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 18, 2016 -- Recent elections have turned the Wisconsin Supreme Court from "one of the nation's most respected state tribunals into a disgraceful mess," wrote noted author on the courts Lincoln Caplan in 2015.</div><h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13144/top-ten-emails-john-doe-document-leak" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Walker John Doe Document Leak: 10 Illuminating Emails</a></h2><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 16, 2016 -- On September 14, the Guardian newspaper which published the Snowden revelation, published a massive set of documents from the Scott Walker dark money probe know as the "John Doe" investigation.</div><h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13140/secret-donors-secret-agendas-guardian-pulls-back-curtain-walker-john-doe" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Secret Donors, Secret Agendas: Guardian Pulls Back the Curtain on Walker Corruption Probe</a></h2><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 14, 2016 -- A cache of documents released by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/sep/14/john-doe-files-scott-walker-corporate-cash-american-politics" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Guardian</a> shed new light on how Governor Scott Walker, his top advisors and allies evaded Wisconsin's campaign finance system to win his recall election, and to maintain Republican control of the Wisconsin State Senate during the tumultuous recall period of 2011 and 2012.</div><h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13140/secret-donors-secret-agendas-guardian-pulls-back-curtain-walker-john-doe" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Secret Donors, Secret Agendas: Guardian Pulls Back the Curtain on Walker Corruption Probe</a></h2><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 14, 2016 -- A cache of documents released by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/sep/14/john-doe-files-scott-walker-corporate-cash-american-politics" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Guardian</a> shed new light on how Governor Scott Walker, his top advisors and allies evaded Wisconsin's campaign finance system to win his recall election, and to maintain Republican control of the Wisconsin State Senate during the tumultuous recall period of 2011 and 2012.</div><h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/06/13119/cmd-urges-us-supreme-court-hear-prosecutors-appeal-john-doe-corruption-case" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CMD Urges U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Prosecutors' Appeal in John Doe II Corruption Case</a></h2><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 23, 2016 -- The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the Brennan Center for Justice, and Common Cause filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to grant a hearing and overturn a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that shut down a criminal investigation into potentially illegal campaign coordination between Governor Scott Walker's campaign and groups that spent millions during the 2011-2012 recall elections.</div><a href="http://prwatch.org/news/2015/08/12897/Walker-JohnDoe-tape">http://prwatch.org/news/2015/08/12897/Walker-JohnDoe-tape</a>Scott Walker's former top aide Cindy Archer has become the poster child for allegations that state prosecutors investigating corruption around Walker ran amok and engaged in aggressive, unconstitutional "raids" on people's homes.Newly-released audio contradicts many of those claims.In April, Archer was the star of a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">National Review article</a> called "Wisconsin's Shame" that spoke of "armed pre-dawn raids" and screaming police with battering rams ransacking her home. The article sparked a firestorm across right-wing media (<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/04/24/scott-walker-supporters-claim-police-raided-homes-over-politics/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">including Fox News</a>) and was <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12887/five-things-know-about-scott-walker-john-doe-ruling" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">even cited</a> by the Wisconsin Supreme Court as "proof" that prosecutors used "paramilitary style raids" in conducting their investigations of Walker, even though the searches were not being challenged and hadn't been addressed before the court.In June, Archer announced in a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-filing-a-civil-rights-lawsuit-1435694608" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street Journal opinion piece</a> that she was filing a civil rights lawsuit against state prosecutors. She alleged prosecutors had a "personal vendetta" against her for helping to craft Walker's 2011 anti-union Act 10 legislation. Her lawsuit describes a September 2011 search of her home where she claims officers threw a search warrant at her without letting her read it, screamed at her, ransacked her house, blocked her from going outside to smoke, and didn't inform her of her constitutional rights or tell her she could speak with a lawyer.Yet Archer's allegations about overzealous prosecutorial tactics fall apart in a recording of the 2011 search, filed by prosecutors in response to her lawsuit and made public yesterday.The search, which was led by experienced FBI agents, was taped by Aaron Weiss, an investigator with the Milwaukee District Attorney's office. Although the first few minutes of the tape are muffled, the three-hour long recording shows that the interaction between Archer and the agents was quiet and cordial. The tape reveals Archer, her partner, and the agents joking, chatting about dogs and aquariums, and discussing home repairs and coffee-making techniques.(Listen to the recording below.)<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Questioned about Bid Rigging and Corruption, Not Act 10</h2>Many of the claims in Archer's lawsuit are directly contradicted by the tape. For starters, none of the named Defendants were even present during the search....
<div>=</div><div>Newly revealed documents from the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation show that the foundation gave significant grants to a diverse array of media institutions, including media sites that pursued a highly partisan agenda.The Bradley Foundation provided crucial funding to “Wisconsin Watchdog” as the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Franklin_Center_for_Government_and_Public_Integrity" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity</a>, a right-wing media organization focused on building news bureaus in state capitals across the nation, slowly sank.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MYSTERY FUNDER</h2>The Franklin Center was founded in 2009 with help from the Sam Adams Alliance, a now-defunct new media group founded in 2006 by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Eric_O%27Keefe" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Wisconsinite Eric O’Keefe</a>. O’Keefe had long-standing ties to billionaire dark money activist David Koch and late Terry Kohler, a secret donor to <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12293/kohler-heir-walker-supporter-plunges-dark-money-depths" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">O’Keefe’s various dark money groups</a>. Franklin center staff were hired from both the Sam Adams Alliance and the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity group.Franklin Center flourished with a huge influx of funds from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Donors Trust</a> and Donors Capital, the preferred funding vehicles of the Koch Network of donors that masks the true identity of givers. The Franklin Center reported annual revenue between $7 and $12 million between 2011 and 2015.In 2011, CMD <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/10/10971/franklin-center-right-wing-funds-state-news-source" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that the Franklin Center claimed to have 43 state news websites with reporters in 40 state capitols. Some outlets, like Wisconsin Watchdog, had received official reporting credentials. In some states, the reporters and news sites were attached to State Policy Network “<a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">think tanks</a>,” important institutions in the “infrastructure” Bradley was building nationwide.Newly obtained documents from the Bradley Foundation show that in recent years the Franklin Center has foundered. The number of state offices dwindled to five in 2016 and employees fled the sinking ship when a single, mystery funder withdrew support.It is a “text book case of imprudent funding,” wrote Bradley staff. “Unable to resist the offer of $10M annually from one source, the organization grew beyond its capacity to manage itself, and became too dependent on one funder, making it able to shrug off criticism from elsewhere (including Bradley). Last year, when that funder shifted priorities and the fecklessness of the administration became evident, the organization began to collapse” (Grant Proposal Record, August 16, 2016). The Bradley documents do not say who the mystery funder was, but they do indicate that the group was also funded by the right-wing Searle Foundation with smaller “matching grants” of $35,000.The decline of the Franklin Center is a blow to efforts by right-wing funders to develop state capitol media sites to compliment right-wing news sites covering politics in Washington, D.C., such as Breitbart News.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A RELIABLE PARTISAN ATTACK DOG</h2>One of last remaining Franklin state news was Wisconsin Watchdog, a site that Bradley deemed “so effective, and such a valuable partner in the state’s conservative infrastructure, staff believes it is worthwhile to support the local office…” Between 2010 and 2015, Bradley gave $545,500 to the Franklin Center to support this “valuable partner” as Governor Scott Walker launched an extreme right-wing agenda (Grant Proposal Record, August 16, 2016). (An additional $250,000 went through the Franklin Center to fund a fellowship at the National Review.)At the time, the Bradley Foundation was run by Michael Grebe, the former general counsel to the Republican National Committee and the chair of Scott Walker’s campaign for governor 2010, 2012, and 2014 and for president in 2015.Wisconsin Watchdog’s “editor,” “bureau chief,” and reporter was Matt Kittle. Under Kittle, Watchdog was a reliable attack dog of Democratic candidates and campaigns and a reliable booster of right-wing policies and politicians. When Bradley staff were unsure if Franklin CEO Nicolle Niely was “up to the job,” they still funded Wisconsin Watchdog because it was “so effective and such a valuable partner in the state’s conservative infrastructure.”According to the Watchdog website, Kittle wrote over 385 articles on Wisconsin’s “John Doe” investigation into coordination between dark money groups like Eric O’Keefe’s <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/09/13142/gableman-wi-supreme-court" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Wisconsin Club for Growth and the Walker campaign</a> during 2011-2012 Wisconsin recall races. Kittle portrayed a investigation, launched by a bipartisan group of district attorney’s and run by a Republican Special Prosecutor, as an untethered partisan witch hunt.That spin pleased Bradley.“Wisconsin Watchdog became the state’s leading reporter of the John Doe investigation, bringing to light a story of political persecution that is still ongoing,” say the Bradley documents. Bradley especially appreciated the fact that Watchdog had “close ties” to “insiders in the Doe” (Grant Proposal Record, November 10, 2015, August 19, 2014).But for all the ink spilled by Kittle on the John Doe, those “close ties” were rarely discussed. Kittle neglected to discuss:<ul style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">that a key source of information on the John Doe, Wisconsin Club for Growth’s <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Eric_O%27Keefe" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Eric O’Keefe</a>, was a founder and early funder of the Franklin Center</li></ul><ul style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">that Watchdog’s “Director of Special Operations,” <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12344/why-franklin-center-wisconsin-reporter-attacking-john-doe" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">John Connors,</a> was helping Wisconsin Club for Growth funnel money to sham organizations like Citizens for a Strong America and United Sportsmen, the very subject of the John Doe</li></ul>By financially supporting Wisconsin Watchdog, Scott Walker’s campaign chairman effectively secured a one-sided, 24-7 propaganda arm for the Walker campaign and the dark money groups under investigation. This agitprop was so successful, Kittle’s articles were cited as fact by the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12887/five-things-know-about-scott-walker-john-doe-ruling" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">right-wing majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court</a> when they shut down the investigation in July of 2015 after failing to develop any fact record in the case.This the type of “communications” infrastructure Bradley is interested in exporting to other states as CMD detailed in its report “<a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/05/documents-detail-bradley-foundation-efforts-build-right-wing-infrastructure-nationwide/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Weaponized Philanthropy</a>” on the Bradley Foundation’s infrastructure investments.Although Wisconsin Watchdog reporter James Wigderson tweeted on April 14, 2017 that “The Franklin Center is shutting down,” it appears that Franklin fans are keeping it on life support. In a <a href="http://franklincenterhq.org/15282/chris-krug-lead-franklin-center-watchdog-org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">press release</a> on April 17, Franklin announced that Chris Krug, former editor and manager of the Illinois News Network will be the new President. The Illinois News Network is a project of the Bradley-funded Illinois Policy Institute, a State Policy Network “think tank.”Matt Kittle has landed at the Bradley-funded <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/MacIver_Institute" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">MacIver Institute</a>, another State Policy Network “think tank” and he is already hard at work writing <a href="http://www.maciverinstitute.com/2017/05/whatever-happened-to-the-probe-into-john-doe-leaks-to-the-guardian/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">more articles</a> about the John Doe.In Bradley world, titles might be interchangeable, but the hard work of spinning disinformation on behalf of Republican politicians and policies must go on.<a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Click here</a> for our full series on the Bradley Files.</div><div></div>gXardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/sep/14/john-doe-files-scott-walker-corporate-cash-american-politics
extensivehttp://watchdog.org/category/wisconsin/<a href="http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/01/188520/dark-money%E2%80%99s-front-man">http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/01/188520/dark-money%E2%80%99s-front-man</a>In November 2013, a little-known conservative activist named Eric O’Keefe brazenly disobeyed a court order and leaked information to The Wall Street Journal editorial page about a secret “John Doe” investigation involving campaign finance violations by political operatives surrounding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. O’Keefe’s group, the conservative Wisconsin Club for Growth, was among the parties being investigated.It was the beginning of an extraordinary scorched-earth campaign by O’Keefe to harass and undermine the John Doe investigators, who had targeted alleged illegal coordination between Walker and conservative groups including Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. But O’Keefe had a bigger goal in mind: overturning decades of established law in America saying that independent advocacy groups could not coordinate with political campaigns.O’Keefe launched a series of suits against the prosecutors leading the investigation, continued to leak information about the probe, and publicly denounced it as a “partisan” attack on free speech. He went on conservative talk radio to <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/eric-o-keefe-compares-john-doe-subpoena-targets-to-rape/article_1184498c-5e46-5eae-b3c2-033d74d900ca.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">accuse</a> prosecutors of imposing “a traumatic, unconstitutional abuse on people” and compared those being investigated to “a rape victim”—adding, “I am saying this deliberately.”Together with his lawyer, David Rivkin, O’Keefe pushed the idea that the John Doe investigators conducted early morning “paramilitary raids” violating the constitutional rights of those being investigated, and which resulted in <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">stories</a> in conservative publications like National Review.  Stories of these abuses were <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/08/10/data-wonk-about-those-john-doe-paramilitary-raids/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">discredited</a> by an audiotape in which investigators treated their alleged victim politely. Yet a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July released an extraordinary <a href="http://wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&seqNo=144527" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">ruling</a> that shut down the John Doe probe, with three of the four-member majority citing unproven violations of constitutional rights.The Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce had together provided more than $8 million supporting these four justices in their last elections, accounting for anywhere from 48 percent to 76 percent of the total spent on each justice’s behalf. The justices returned the favor, writing a decision that seemed to ignore Wisconsin law and decades of U.S. Supreme Court decisions holding that independent advocacy groups cannot coordinate with political campaigns, since that would make them no longer independent.It was a huge victory for O’Keefe and for Walker, one that has legalized the unlimited use of dark money in campaigns in Wisconsin and could influence how such cases are handled in other jurisdictions. Long after the end of Walker’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, O’Keefe’s national aspirations still have legs. “Wisconsin has sort of become ground zero for the testing of how far outside groups could coordinate with candidates,” says Tara Malloy, senior counsel for the <a href="http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Campaign Legal Center</a>, a nonprofit advocacy group that has closely followed the Wisconsin fight. But she notes that what is happening here is part of a much larger conservative agenda. Across the country, Malloy says, “The envelope is being pushed on coordination in all areas.”All of which has made O’Keefe a public figure, despite a long history of quietly effective conservative advocacy. He has been <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/walkers-dark-money-allies_b_7096498.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">dubbed</a> the “third Koch brother” for his efforts to lead and recruit donors to numerous advocacy groups connected to billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch. O’Keefe founded the Sam Adams Alliance, which has trained Tea Party activists. He helped establish a network of rightwing journalistic publications, hired lawyers who are gradually chipping away at legal restrictions on independent advocacy groups, and created groups to challenge Obamacare. Though poorer than the Kochs, he is arguably just as indispensable to the rightwing agenda.   O’Keefe, sixty-one, was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit known as a wealthy community for auto executives. His father was an investor and Eric did well in the stock market, telling friends he was independently wealthy by age twenty-five. When David Koch ran as a Libertarian for vice president in 1980, O’Keefe served as the party’s national field coordinator. As The Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-scott-walkers-recall-sharpens-fight-over-money-in-politics/2012/03/22/gIQAbUHDaS_story_1.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1.6;">reported</a>, he “became friendly with the Koch brothers, with whom he has joined in many battles.”O’Keefe has been at the center of a series of national rightwing policy efforts, including the fight for term limits and a so-called taxpayer bill of rights. Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits, has <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/2013/11/24/who-is-eric-okeefe-n1752221/page/full" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">written</a> that O’Keefe “should be known, but isn’t, as the man who came up with the plan to blitz the country with statewide ballot initiatives aimed at limiting the terms of politicians.”O’Keefe <a href="http://www.eric-okeefe.com/past-experience/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">was</a> a founding board member of U.S. Term Limits, and also served as president of Americans for Limited Terms, which during the 1994, 1996, and 1998 congressional election cycles ran ads bashing candidates who opposed term limits. The movement also pushed  twenty-three states to put congressional term limit initiatives in front of voters. The Koch brothers were “the main financial backers” of the effort, The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/31/us/campaign-on-term-limits-taps-a-gusher-of-money.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">reported</a>. Some $300,000 went into a series of attack ads targeting House Speaker Tom Foley, Democrat of Washington, for attempting to overturn the term limits law voters in his state had approved in 1992. The TV ads, relates O’Keefe on his <a href="http://www.eric-okeefe.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">website</a>, “showed a tear rolling down the cheek of the George Washington face” on Mount Rushmore.<a href="http://www.eric-okeefe.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> </a>Foley became the first Speaker to lose re-election since the Civil War.O’Keefe also served on the board of Americans for Limited Government, founded in 1996 and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/inside-koch-world-077453" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">funded</a> by the Koch brothers.<a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77453.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> </a>The group has backed “taxpayer bill of rights” ballot initiatives in Colorado and other states, with a goal of slashing state government spending. The group systematically <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/us/politics/26activist.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">savaged</a> President Obama, calling him “‘the biggest liar of all” and comparing his vision of a national volunteer service agency to the Hitler Youth.A fierce opponent of the McCain-Feingold law’s campaign finance restrictions, O’Keefe helped create the<a href="http://www.campaignfreedom.org/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> Center for Competitive Politics</a> in 2005. The group filed briefs in Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court case that allows unlimited campaign donations by corporations and unions to the kind of independent advocacy groups O’Keefe has used to target incumbents for defeat. This greatly expanded the political might of these groups, many of which do not disclose their donors. OpenSecrets.org <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2014&chrt=V&disp=O&type=U" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">found</a> that 72 percent of all such spending in 2014 was by conservative groups.O’Keefe also launched the Health Care Compact Alliance to combat Obamacare and undermine Medicare and Medicaid by letting states use the funding as they wished. The group’s approach reinforced the anti-Obamacare ads by Americans for Prosperity.The Sam Adams Alliance, which O’Keefe created in 2006, helped train citizen activists and bloggers and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-brantzawadzki/anatomy-of-the-tea-party_b_380662.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">provided</a> key support to the Tea Party, as did the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity. In 2009, the group provided the seed money to create the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which has bankrolled a huge new network of conservative news publications. By 2012, Media Matters <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/11/how-a-right-wing-group-is-infiltrating-state-ne/187059" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">reported</a>,<a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/11/how-a-right-wing-group-is-infiltrating-state-ne/187059" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> </a>there were “fifty-five news sites covering state government in thirty-nine states that have ties to the Franklin Center.”The total amount of spending by the vast network of rightwing advocacy groups O’Keefe has helped create is unknown but formidable indeed. While much of the money came from the Kochs, O’Keefe has also “created a network of uber donors and of fundraisers,” says an O’Keefe sympathist who declined to speak on the record.But when asked about concerns over wealthy donors spending fortunes to influence elections and government policy, O’Keefe <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-scott-walkers-recall-sharpens-fight-over-money-in-politics/2012/03/22/gIQAbUHDaS_story.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">told</a> The Washington Post that voters don’t care. “That’s inside baseball,” he said. R. J. Johnson, a longtime Republican operative, was likely the person who connected O’Keefe to Scott Walker, first elected governor in 2010. Walker’s campaign <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Club_for_Growth#RJ_Johnson" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1.6;">paid</a> Johnson’s consulting firm more than $130,000 between July 2009 and January 2012. Johnson also worked as a top adviser to Wisconsin Club for Growth.Just three days after Walker introduced his bill gutting collective bargaining for public employees in February 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy reported, “Wisconsin Club for Growth began running slick ads accusing state workers of not having to sacrifice, and urging support for the legislation to make state workers ‘pay their fair share.’ ”When the bill passed, and opponents tried to recall a group of state senators and Walker himself, Club for Growth spent an estimated $9 million on the recalls, <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">according</a> to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Johnson served as a key consultant to both Club for Growth and Walker’s campaign in his 2012 recall election.That would seem to make it impossible for coordination not to have occurred between the two groups, and such coordination was then considered illegal in Wisconsin. Emails later <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/walker-wanted-funds-sent-to-wisconsin-club-for-growth-b99336519z1-272364371.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">showed</a> that Walker secretly fundraised for the Club for Growth; his staff <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/wisconsins-walker-confronted-damaging-new-details" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">advised</a> the governor to “stress that donations to [Club for Growth] are not disclosed.” Walker met with donors who soon contributed to Club for Growth.There was every reason to believe the John Doe might succeed. It was actually the second probe involving Walker launched by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a reputed straight arrow who had previously <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2014/03/06/murphys-law-why-didnt-chisholm-go-after-democrats/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">angered</a> Democrats by prosecuting several Democratic politicians. The first probe, which concerned Walker’s tenure as the Milwaukee County executive, led to the <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/prosecutor-closes-john-doe-investigation-into-former-scott-walker-aides/article_5952999e-8283-11e2-b977-001a4bcf887a.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">convictions</a> of six people, including three members of his staff, for campaigning on government time. While Chisholm was a Democrat, the special prosecutor he chose was Francis Schmitz, a longtime Republican who <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/255433971.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">revealed</a> that he voted for Walker in the recall election. Two Republican district attorneys and three chief judges of circuit courts with Republican credentials also took part in the multicounty, bipartisan investigation.Yet Walker supporters condemned the probe as a “partisan witch hunt,” and this became a conservative mantra on talk radio and at <a href="http://watchdog.org/category/wisconsin/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">WisconsinWatchdog.org</a>, one of the rightwing news sites funded by the Franklin Center. To date, it has published more than 300 stories condemning the probe and repeating O’Keefe’s criticisms of it. Those criticisms have been echoed by The Wall Street Journal and National Review.O’Keefe went on the offensive right away. He hired Rivkin, a top attorney in Washington, D.C., to sue Chisholm and all the prosecutors involved in the John Doe probe, accusing them of violating the civil rights of those under investigation and demanding personal damages from the prosecutors. A WisconsinWatchdog story <a href="http://watchdog.org/116566/conservative-john-doe-democrats/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">cheered</a> this, warning that Chisholm and company are “in for a very unpleasant time. He’s got a tiger by the tail, and he’s not up to it.”<a href="http://watchdog.org/116566/conservative-john-doe-democrats/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> </a>O’Keefe and Rivkin launched a barrage of suits, tied the investigation in legal knots, and eventually brought it to a halt. Frank Gimbel, a top Milwaukee defense attorney for more than five decades who represented one of the Walker aides convicted in the first John Doe probe, marvels at what O’Keefe has done.“I have not ever seen an individual being investigated who has gone on the offensive like this,” Gimbel says in an interview. “Most of the time it’s an uneven battle with the police and prosecutors. But he has gone on the offensive with very high quality lawyering.”Malloy of the Campaign Legal Center agrees. “It’s definitely become a bit of an ugly personal fight,” she says of O’Keefe’s effort “to hold the prosecutors personally liable.” A federal appeals court <a href="http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/14-2006/14-2006-2014-09-24.pdf?ts=1411664907" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">rejected</a> this line of contention, and the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/okeefe-v-chisholm/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">denied</a> a petition for review.To further frighten Chisholm, O’Keefe and other conservatives threatened to bankroll a recall effort against him. It never materialized, but the threat hung over his head for a year or so.O’Keefe also put a scare into Walker. In June 2014, as news surfaced that the governor was seeking an out-of-court settlement to the Doe probe, The Wall Street Journal editorial page <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/scott-walkers-friends-1401233872" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">excoriated</a> Walker, charging that while O’Keefe’s group “fights for its First Amendment rights to speak out on the issue, the Walker campaign apparently seeks to negotiate a settlement with the prosecutors that will keep the issue out of the spotlight.” It concluded: “Mr. Walker has to decide whose side he’s on—his own, or the larger principles he claims to represent.” For O’Keefe and other conservative activists, Walker’s re-election was small potatoes compared to pushing the courts to kill restrictions on independent advocacy groups. Walker got the message, quickly backing off from talk of a settlement.Walker’s collapse as a presidential candidate does not mean much to O’Keefe and company either. They have a loftier goal: doing away with campaign finance limits and other regulations that keep the wealthy from swaying elections. Rivkin is probably the foremost proponent of the view that the First Amendment prohibits coordination between political campaigns and independent advocacy groups only when the groups expressly advocate for someone’s election, rather than simply running ads condemning or praising a candidate.The U.S. Supreme Court, since the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/424/1" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Buckley v. Valeo</a> case of 1976, has repeatedly ruled that once groups have coordinated with campaigns the money they spend becomes subject to campaign finance disclosure laws. Yet the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision bought Rivkin’s argument and ignored both Buckley v. Valeo and a recent Seventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruling on the John Doe which found that “no opinion issued by the [U.S.] Supreme Court, or by any court of appeals, establishes. . . that the First Amendment forbids regulation of coordination between campaign committees and issue-advocacy groups—let alone that the First Amendment forbids even an inquiry into that topic.”Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks, who died suddenly in September, <a href="http://wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&seqNo=144527" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">dissented in part</a> from the court’s decision, calling it “erroneous” and “unprecedented.” As for O’Keefe’s complaint that the John Doe infringed on his First Amendment rights, Crooks wrote, “There is a simple solution to that problem: stop coordinating. In the absence of coordination, the contributor is free to discuss candidates and issues.” Crooks said the John Doe probe “should not be terminated.” The ruling was a tremendous victory for O’Keefe, but there were more to come. In the fall of 2015, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law ending the use of John Doe probes into political corruption, a measure The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/opinion/the-revenge-of-scott-walker.html?r=0" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">dubbed</a> “The Revenge of Scott Walker.” Another law dismantled the Government Accountability Board, a nationally praised nonpartisan watchdog of ethics and elections,which had been involved in the John Doe probe, replacing it with two toothless boards whose funding to pursue cases must be approved by the Republican-controlled legislature. A third law lets independent advocacy groups coordinate with candidates they favor, clearly violating past U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and even opens the door to express advocacy groups (which openly tell people how to vote) to coordinate with candidates, so long as the candidate doesn’t specifically ask that the groups spend campaign money in a certain way. “This is a loophole large enough to drive a Koch Industries truck through,” <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/11/10/murphys-law-how-dark-money-will-rule-wisconsin/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">declared</a> Matt Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Another longtime observer of state politics, Jay Heck of the group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said the new laws, all of which Walker signed, were products of “the Eric O’Keefe session of the Wisconsin legislature.”Malloy thinks the U.S. Supreme Court might consider a review of the case, seeing it as an opportunity to rethink its past positions and open the floodgates to new kinds of campaign activity. And, she says, “Walker’s departure from the presidential race can only improve slightly the case’s chance of being heard, because the issues are at least somewhat less politically ‘hot.’ ” O’Keefe’s many legal and legislative victories will allow the nation’s wealthiest people and corporations to secretly bankroll the candidates and political outcomes they favor in Wisconsin. But his long-term goal is to achieve a similar victory in other jurisdictions and, ultimately, turn the entire country into a land where dark money rules all politics. ωbs blog<div class="entry-body" style="clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nancy Thorner - In its continuing series of free Wednesday night events, The Heartland Institute on July 27 served as host to Eric O’Keefe on his topic, “The Use of State Power to Silence Patriots.”For much of the past 35 years O’Keefe, a Libertarian, has encouraged the establishment of independent political organizations to hold politicians accountable. One such organization was the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which played a large role in supporting Gov. Scott Walker’s reform of union regulations in 2011 and 2012. That support led to O’Keefe becoming a target of Milwaukee County prosecutor John Chisholm’s so-called “John Doe” investigations of conservative groups and individuals in the Badger State.In turn, O’Keefe made himself the lead plaintiff in federal and state lawsuits to halt the sweeping government abuses which were part of the John Doe investigations – which were conducted in secret and without the targets being able to solicit help from family, friends, and even lawyers.</div><a id="more" style="text-decoration: underline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></a><div class="entry-more" style="clear: both;">O’Keefe likewise serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Citizens for Self-Governance, a national organization supporting a Convention of States to invoke Article V to amend the U.S. Constitution (ConCon). There is, however, an organized push-back against the movement and what it hopes to achieve. [Full disclosure: I had <a href="http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2016/07/thorner-keep-concon-out-of-the-gop-platform.html" style="">this article published</a> at Illinois Review on why ConCon is a bad idea.] What Is a ‘John Doe’ Investigation?See <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/why-is-john-doe-chasing-scott-walker-in-wisconsin-" style="">this link</a> for background information regarding the so-called John Doe investigations in Wisconsin. From that link:<ul class="ul1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: none;"><li class="li1" style="margin: 5px 10px;">In Wisconsin, a John Doe investigation is the equivalent of a grand jury probe, only without jurors.</li></ul><ul class="ul1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: none;"><li class="li1" style="margin: 5px 10px;">The first John Doe probe in 2011 looked at whether Gov. Walker’s staff, while he was a Milwaukee County executive, did campaign work during their county work shifts. </li></ul><ul class="ul1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: none;"><li class="li1" style="margin: 5px 10px;">A second John Doe probe was launched by prosecutors in August 2012 to look into potential unlawful Walker campaign activity. The investigation, now stalled by legal wrangling, is trying to determine whether his 2012 recall campaign illegally collaborated with independent groups. So far no charges have been filed against Walker.</li></ul>George Will Called John Doe the Nastiest Political Tactic of 2014The media went all out in covering the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin that violated the civil liberties of conservatives. Conservatives who were engaged in Wisconsin political debates were subject to pre-dawn home raids, dozens of subpoenas, and a smear campaign. All were conducted by Chisholm and his political allies. As noted above and explained in his talk at Heartland, O’Keefe led the effort to terminate the assault by defying a secrecy order and taking the story to the Wall Street Journal. He then organized several lawsuits against the prosecution team to put an end to the egregious, unconstitutional investigations.The following is what George Will called <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-in-wisconsin-done-in-by-john-doe/2014/10/24/b30ee2ec-5ad8-11e4-b812-38518ae74c67_story.html" style="">the nastiest political tactic this year</a>, in an Oct. 24, 2014 Washington Post column:     “The early-morning paramilitary-style raids on citizens’ homes were conducted by law enforcement officers, sometimes wearing bulletproof vests and lugging battering rams, pounding on doors and issuing threats. Spouses were separated as the police seized computers, including those of children still in pajamas. Clothes drawers, including the children’s, were ransacked, cellphones were confiscated and the citizens were told that it would be a crime to tell anyone of the raids.”George Will – who felt the need to leave the Republican Party when Trump became the GOP’s presidential nominee – described how Chisholm targeted dozens of conservative activists in his John Doe investigations, which began when Walker defeated a national union effort to oust him. The probe had to do with whether there was illegal coordination between the governor and the conservatives targeted in the raid over supposed violations of campaign finance law.The Probes Themselves Were CorruptIn his Heartland talk, O’Keefe explained how Chisholm abused Wisconsin’s John Doe investigation process to launch utterly corrupt, sweeping, and virtually unsupervised investigations of conservatives. Gag orders were imposed and subpoenas issued to prevent Chisholm’s targets from defending themselves or rebutting politically motivated leaks. Chisholm’s aim was achieved: It had a chilling effect on conservative speech. But O’Keefe did noted that it wasn’t just the force of law (the gag order) that kept the targets silent. They had to also think about their families and their jobs. Just the intimidation – and public humiliation of the raids – could destroy their lives. Nevertheless, it was shocking to hear that such tactics were happening here in America. Other states have similar John Doe investigatory powers, but they have not been abused at the scale seen in Wisconsin.In September 2014, O’Keefe asked for a special prosecutor to look into Chisholm’s secret probe of alleged campaign finance allegations during the 2011 and 2012 recall campaigns. In the complaint, and a separate civil litigation, O’Keefe alleged Chisholm, a Democrat, had committed misconduct in office by conducting a political vendetta against conservatives. O’Keefe told the Heartland audience what he really thinks was behind the John Doe investigations: Chisholm’s wife is a teacher and union member, and the district attorney was angry about Walker’s repeal of most collective bargaining for public employees. Chisholm: Too Powerful to be Investigated?O’Keefe said he didn’t expect Chisholm to accept an outside investigation into his conduct and conflict of interest, and he found nearly 50 elected district attorneys from around Wisconsin also declined a request to investigate him. The United States Supreme Court wouldn’t intervene, either, ruling in May 2015 that it is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/why-is-john-doe-chasing-scott-walker-in-wisconsin-" style="">up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court</a>, which put the investigations on temporary hold, if they should be struck down altogether.What are the broader implications? The goal has always been about damaging Walker and removing him from office. And worse still, it’s part of a broader national <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/5/jacobson-a-campaign-to-silence-conservative-speech/?page=all" style="">campaign to silence conservative speech</a>.Controversy in the Heartland Q&A Session It was during the Q&A session when O’Keefe’s answer to a question from an audience member created a stir among some in the room, including me. O’Keefe’s admitted that he had put together “Delegates Unbound” at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland – a failed attempt to have all bound delegates vote their conscience (presumably against Donald Trump) on the first ballot. O’Keefe said if his effort succeeded, Sen. Ted Cruz would have been nominated over Trump. O’Keefe didn’t mince words in railing against the Republican Party and Reince Priebus for preventing the Delegates Unbound vote, thereby “ignoring the will of the people.” View the YouTube video of the live-stream of the event <a href="https://youtu.be/bDpbjfPNGaY" style="">here</a>, and visit <a href="https://www.heartland.org/events/events" style="">Heartland’s events page</a> for future free talks.Coming Events at The Heartland InstituteJim Lakely, Communication Director at The Heartland Institute, introduced Eric O'Keefe and later fielded questions directed to O’Keefe by those watching the live-stream. Prior to introducing O’Keefe, Lakely had four "housecleaning" items to celebrate and share:1.  The Heartland Institute has a redesigned website. Please <a href="https://www.heartland.org/" style="">check it out</a>!2.  The <a href="http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2016/05/thorner-library-devoted-to-liberty-opens-at-heartland-institute.html" style="">Michael Parry Mazur Memorial Library</a> was touted as the newest addition to The Heartland Institute. It has the best collection of books on free markets, economics, and liberty anywhere in the Midwest. 3.   If you are a young conservative or libertarian considering a career in the free-market movement, spend 10 weeks working side-by-side with others who share your interests in <a href="https://www.heartland.org/about-us/internships/index.html" style="">Heartland’s internship program</a>. 4.  Heartland’s <a href="http://benefit.heartland.org/" style="">32nd Anniversary Benefit Dinner</a> featuring P.J. O’Rourke will be held on Thursday, September 15, 2016, at The Cotillion, Palatine, Illinois.</div><a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/09/22/leaked-documents-court-dismissal-john-doe-false-premise/">http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/09/22/leaked-documents-court-dismissal-john-doe-false-premise/</a>=<a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/09/28/koch-connection-scott-walker-john-doe-documents/">http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/09/28/koch-connection-scott-walker-john-doe-documents/</a>
cache doc G UK shed new light on how Governor Scott Walker, his top advisors, and allies evaded the state’s campaign finance system in an unprecedented effort to win 15 elections and maintain control of the Wisconsin Senate and Supreme Court as well as the Executive Mansion in the tumultuous recall period of 2011 and 2012.The Guardian documents also illuminate the activities of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a> (AFP), the shadowy “grassroots” arm of the Koch political machine.In February 2012, David Koch told the Palm Beach Post “we’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We are going to spend a lot more.”In June 2012, Tim Phillips, the national head of AFP, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/03/politics/wisconsin-recall-bus-tour/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">told CNN</a> that the group had pumped some $10 million in Wisconsin, but the independent watchdog group, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, could only account for a few million, which AFP spent on “It’s Working!” ads developed with the McIver Institute that year.The newly released documents help to explain the discrepancy. They paint a picture of AFP as a key partner along with the Republican Governors Association in maintaining GOP electoral control of the state in 2011-2012. In doing so, Walker and the groups engaged in unprecedented activities that so stretched the bounds of legality that a bipartisan group of state District Attorney’s launched a criminal investigation known as a “John Doe” investigation under Wisconsin law.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: " futura="Futura" lt="LT" w01="W01" medium="Medium" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">SUPPORT FOR WALKER’S UNION-BUSTING ACT 10 BILL</h2>The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has taken a closer look at the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105981-Ad-Coordination.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Koch related emails</a> in the Guardian cache.Emails in February-March 2011 show that Scott Walker’s campaign guru R.J. Johnson and AFP Wisconsin State Director Matt Seaholm coordinated over the message, content, and placement of radio and TV ads after Walker’s Act 10 bill, ending the state’s 50-year tradition of collective bargaining, was introduced quickly sparking mass protest.“Do you think this is the right message and delivery? We don’t want something to go up that might hurt walker [sic] by missing the mark,” Seaholm wrote to Johnson March 7, 2011.Seaholm was in contact with national Koch operatives Tim Phillips, the head of AFP nationally, and Sean Noble, the head of the shadowy national organization called the Center to Protect Patient Rights, as well as AFP’s Lorri Pickens and John Connors, who had intermittently worked for AFP and other right-wing groups in the state.Emails also show R.J. Johnson, his business associate Deborah Jordahl, Stephan Thomson the executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and Seaholm, Pickens, and Connors working together to bus people into Madison for the hearing on Walker’s collective bargaining bill and for a rally in Madison.Johnson and Jordahl were unhappy about AFP ads supporting moderate Republican Senator Dale Schultz, who opposed the collective bargaining bill. “WTF?” asked Johnson. Pickens explained the screw-up by saying that AFP’s national director, Tim Phillips, “wanted to do ads to help and show AFP presence and apparently talked to someone in Walker’s office.”When such groups coordinate over budget ads and a pending vote on the budget bill, they are engaged in “issue advocacy” permissible under the tax code and Wisconsin campaign finance law, but when they run phony issue ads and engage in electioneering in advance of an election, such actions raise reasonable concerns about potentially illegal campaign coordination circumventing state campaign limits and disclosure laws and IRS rules about the appropriate activities of tax-exempt “charitable organizations.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: " futura="Futura" lt="LT" w01="W01" medium="Medium" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">HOLDING THE SUPREME COURT TO ENSURE THE SUCCESS OF THE WALKER AGENDA</h2>On March 2, 2011, AFP’s Seaholm sent a memo and budget to AFP national leader, Phillips. The highly partisan analysis runs down the races from the upcoming recall elections and state Supreme Court race, to Congressional elections (Paul Ryan, Herb Kohl), to the presidential, and strategizes on how they can all be kept in the Republican column.“1) Supreme Court – Right now there is 4-3 conservative majority on the Court. Justice David Prosser is up for reelection on April 5th. While he did very well in the primary (55%), there will now be a renewed fight for the spot because unions know that if they take their fight to the current court, they will lose. If they take it to a court with Joanne Kloppenberg, a liberal, on it, they will win. This could stop everything that Walker is trying to accomplish and they know it. Goes without saying, that would be a bad thing,” wrote Seaholm.He listed races he thought AFP could influence. “A typical targeted Assembly seat will have a budget of $100,000-125,000. Again, outside influence can go a very long way. This seat is in the La Crosse media market, which has per point cost of roughly $25-30.”“Despite all of the attention that is currently on Madison, we have one of the brightest and strongest conservative minds in America in Paul Ryan. A poll just released today shows him with an approval rating at 38 percent in his district. While he is doing the heavy lifting for our cause in Washington, we can’t let him slip back home.”“And one more thing … Wisconsin’s 8 electoral votes could actually go for a Republican. While Obama won handily, Gore and Kerry won by roughly 1%. Now you have a Republican Gov, a Republican Senator, Republican Legislature … this state is at worst, a purple state and at best, slightly red. The Republican candidate for president will have to make inroads in the midwest to win. With all of the focus on Wisconsin, why not put the resources into this state and kill two birds with one stone,” Seaholm stated.On March 14, another email shows Sean Noble, from the Center to Protect Patient Rights in Arizona, prepping a “WI Budget” for AFP’s involvement in the state Supreme Court race. The budget would include: polling to test messaging, voter ID by volunteers, and two pieces of mail to “AFP activities/modeled activists.” In addition “Non_AFP activities” are listed and budgeted including “Voter ID to 2010 GOTV pool $20,000, Voter ID to remaining AFP modeled activists $50,000, Voter ID to swing universe $22,000, $22,000 Express.”“Total for State Supreme Court plan $350,000” is the bottom line, Noble writes to Phillips, the head of AFP. This email seems to put Noble in the drivers seat when it comes to AFP spending.Seaholm forwarded this budget to R.J. Johnson saying: “this is what Sean pitched to the powers that be.”The same day Seaholm asked Johnson: “OK does anyone have oppo on kloppenburg?,” and R.J. Johnson replied, “Yes. I know what we need to do there. Can we collaborate on message? Really important.”Later emails from March 25 have Johnson urging Seaholm to move on his court radio ad buys, and Seaholm responding “we’ll be moving on the buys this morning.”On March 29, Seaholm told Johnson that he ran into problems over the ad buy with legal counsel and an angry Johnson responding “Jesus Matt I never got a call from you or an email.” “This is a pretty big development to leave an office line if that is where you called. I left talk open for you with an assurance the job was done.”The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-backed-political-network-built-to-shield-donors-raised-400-million-in-2012-elections/2014/01/05/9e7cfd9a-719b-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Washington Post </a>describes CPPR as part of a “political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.” <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sean_Noble" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Sean Noble</a>was described by ProPublica as Kochs’ <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-dark-money-man-how-sean-noble-moved-the-kochs-cash-into-politics-and-ma" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">“dark money man.”</a> In Wisconsin, this money was very dark indeed.All this activity in a very close Wisconsin Supreme Court race, that was eventually won only after a costly recount, yet the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which closely tracks money in politics, <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pro11-100823.php" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">does not even have AFP listed</a> as a group spending money in the race.If $350,000 were spent, that would be a substantial sum given that Prosser himself raised only about $59,000 for that race along with public financing.Marcus S. Owens, the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division spoke to CMD about the emails: “This is pretty specific information about individuals coordinating a campaign intervention. You would not expect to see a 501(c)(3) charity engaging in this. If it was acting as a 501(c)(4), it goes into the column of inappropriate (c)(4) activity, and if it rises to the primary activity of the organization it jeopardizes that organization’s tax exempt status.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: " futura="Futura" lt="LT" w01="W01" medium="Medium" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">WINNING THE WALKER RECALL</h2><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html/#document/p28" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">An early email</a> from Republican Governors Association’s Nick Ayers laid out the coordinated strategy for the recall races to Scott Walker in March 25, 2011.“Spoke to Gillespie this morning. My sense is that everyone’s heart (AFP, WIGOP, RSLC, RGA, CFG) is in the right place but no one is clear on the entire battle plan, and that is leaving very vulnerable gaps in both the planning and execution of a winning strategy.”Here Ayers names key groups involved in the campaign coordination prosecutors were investigating; Ed Gillespie from the Republican State Leadership Conference, Americans for Prosperity, the Wisconsin Republican Party, and Club for Growth. The groups would go on to spend some $30 million in the recall races ($20 million funneled through Wisconsin Club for Growth, $10 million via the RGA) an enormous sum in a small state. RGA registered as an “independent expenditure” group (Right Direction Wisconsin) and swore an oath not to coordinate with candidates or their agents.Multiple emails suggest that RGA, a partisan political organization, and AFP worked closely on recalls. One email from Walker fundraiser Kate Doner in August 2011, puts the AFP spending to that point at $1 million. On September 7, 2011, Doner will list AFP/Koch as a key partner and urge Governor Walker to “lock them down and make them work for you.”After the April Wisconsin Supreme Court race on May 11, 2011, Seaholm wrote to R.J. Johnson, subject: “Conf Call later this afternoon,” asking if Johnson is available to have a call “to see what Sean Noble’s guys are thinking?” Johnson replied, “Depending on time, yes.”At the time, Noble’s <a href="http://http//www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_to_Protect_Patients%27_Rights#cite_note-5" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Center to Protect Patient Rights</a> and the related Coalition to Protect Patient Rights were focused on battling President Obama’s 2010 health care reform bill funneling money to a host of groups, all pretending to be genuine grassroots voices on the issue.The email doesn’t reveal what “Noble’s guys” were thinking but, in the final two weeks of the gubernatorial recall election in June of 2012, a brand new group with the name <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_for_American_Values" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">“Coalition for American Values”</a> suddenly appeared out of nowhere to run $400,080 on a pounding rotation of express advocacy ads (the “vote for” “vote against” kind) appealing to “Wisconsin nice” by saying the recall wasn’t “the Wisconsin way.”“I didn’t vote for Governor Walker, but I am definitely against this recall…Recall isn’t the Wisconsin way… Vote for Scott Walker, June 5...https://movetoamend.org/scott-walker-john-doe-files-and-how-corporate-cash-influences-american-politicsguard uk<h3 style="margin: 0.8em 0px 0.8em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Because Scott Walker asked</h3>Scott Walker was under pressure. It was September 2011, and earlier that year the first-term governor had turned himself into the poster boy of hardline Republican politics by passing the notorious anti-union measure Act 10, stripping public sector unions of collective bargaining rights.Now he was under attack himself, pursued by progressive groups who planned revenge by forcing him into a recall election. His job was on the line.He asked his main fundraiser, Kate Doner, to write him a <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p58/a317774" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">briefing </a><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p58/a317774" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">note</a> on how they could raise enough money to win the election. At 6.39am on a Wednesday, she fired off an email to Walker and his top advisers flagged “red”.“Gentlemen,” she began. “Here are my quick thoughts on raising money for Walker’s possible recall efforts.”Her advice was bold and to the point. “Corporations,” she said. “Go heavy after them to give.” She continued: “Take Koch’s money. Get on a plane to Vegas and sit down with Sheldon Adelson. Ask for $1m now.”Her advice must have hit a sweet spot, because money was soon pouring in from big corporations and mega-wealthy individuals from across the nation. A few months after the memo, Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate who <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/gallery/sheldon-adelson" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Forbes estimates</a> has a personal fortune of $26bn, was to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p132/a317501" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">wire a donation of $200,000 for the cause.</a>Adelson’s generosity, like that of most of the other major donors solicited by Walker and crew, was made out not to the governor’s own personal campaign committee but to a third-party group that did not have to disclose its donors. In the world of campaign finance, the group was known as a “dark money” organisation, as it was the recipient of a secret flow of funds that the public knew nothing about.One of the checks made out to the group, for $10,000, came from a financier called G Frederick Kasten Jr. In the subject line of the check, Kasten had written in his own hand: <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p52/a317493" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">“Because Scott Walker asked”</a>.Because Scott Walker asked. That could stand as an elegant catchphrase for the state of democracy in the US today, where elections are lost or won as much according to candidates’ ability to attract corporate cash as by the strength of their leadership or ideas.The phrase is to be found within a batch of 1,500 pages of leaked documents obtained by the Guardian that are being published in their entirety for the first time. The cache consists of a stack of evidence gathered by official prosecutors in Wisconsin who were conducting what was called a “John Doe investigation” into suspected campaign finance violations by Walker's campaign and its network.<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/public/search/projectid:%2029102-the-john-doe-files" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">The John Doe files</a> published today open a door onto how modern US elections operate in the wake of Citizens United, the 2010 US supreme court ruling that unleashed a flood of corporate money into the political process. They speak to the mounting sense of public unease about the cosy relationship between politicians and big business, and to the frustration of millions of Americans who feel disenfranchised by an electoral system that put the needs of corporate donors before ordinary voters....The theme has become a rallying cry in the US presidential election. Bernie Sanders accused politicians – not least his Democratic rival<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/6/bernie-sanders-slams-hillary-clintons-wall-street-/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Hillary</a><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/6/bernie-sanders-slams-hillary-clintons-wall-street-/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> Clinton</a> – of selling themselves to Wall Street and special interests.Donald Trump went further, brazenly using himself as an example of a billionaire who has put politicians in his pocket. “When you give to them,” <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/8/6/9114565/donald-trump-debate-money" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">he said</a> in a confessional tone during a televised Republican debate in the run-up to the primaries, “they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”According to the independent monitoring group, the Center for Responsive Politics, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">$2bn of corporate cash</a> has been lavished on the presidential race so far. It’s a bewildering figure, but it only tells us so much about how the new American democracy works in practice, because so much of that largesse is shrouded in secrecy.Donors are often undisclosed, campaign finance laws are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/05/17/the-impossibly-complex-world-of-campaign-finance-in-1-chart/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">notoriously</a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/05/17/the-impossibly-complex-world-of-campaign-finance-in-1-chart/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> complicated</a>, and scrutiny by electoral authorities is rare, prosecutions even rarer. When official investigations are launched, they often flounder before reaching a conclusion and virtually never have the chance to reveal their findings to the public.It is into that dark and obscure post-Citizens United world that the John Doe files leaked to the Guardian land. These are the documents that some of the most powerful judges in the country tried to stop the public from ever seeing.In July 2015 the state's highest court, the supreme court of Wisconsin, terminated the John Doe investigation before any charges were brought. The <a href="https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=144525" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">conservative majority of the court ruled</a> that the prosecutors had made a basic misreading of campaign finance law and targeted individuals who were “wholly innocent of any wrongdoing”.In a contentious twist to the ruling, the justices ordered the prosecutors to “permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation”.This latter-day equivalent of a book burning could have condemned the John Doe investigation into permanent oblivion, leaving voters none the wiser. But at least one copy of the evidence gathered by the prosecutors survived the bonfire, and have now been leaked to the Guardian....doc cloud...At the heart of the John Doe files is Scott Walker, the governor who shot to national prominence – a hero for conservatives, pariah for liberals – soon after taking office in February 2011 when he introduced the hyper-partisan<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/02/wisconsin_assemblys_sneaky_mov.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Act</a><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/02/wisconsin_assemblys_sneaky_mov.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> 10</a>. The legislation instantly made Wisconsin the battleground state in the fight between boardroom might and union muscle.The state capital Madison erupted in weeks of protests in which the legislative building was overrun with <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42047717/ns/politics-more_politics/t/tens-thousands-pro-labor-rally-wisconsin/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">thousands of protesters</a>. Democratic lawmakers <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116381289.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">fled the state</a> and took up residence in neighboring Illinois in a failed attempt to foil Walker's plans.In the fallout of Act 10, progressive groups retaliated by dragging Walker and several other Republicans through a series of bitter recall elections. Six GOP senators were forced to defend their seats in 2011, and Walker himself was put through the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-recall-idUSBRE82T1FV20120330" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">recall furnace</a> in 2012.Those recall elections, and the question of whether Walker flouted campaign finance regulations in order that he and other Republican politicians could stay in office and preserve their anti-union legislation, were the focus of the investigation that generated the files now leaked to the Guardian. It was run by five Wisconsin prosecutors, led by Francis Schmitz, a former federal counter-terrorism expert.It was known as a John Doe investigation because, much like a grand jury, its subjects were kept anonymous while officials weighed whether or not to press charges. In this case, prosecutors alleged that there was evidence to indicate that Walker and his team of advisers and associates had set up a coordinated effort with lobbyists and major donors to swing elections by secretly pouring huge amounts of corporate cash into the races.The money was channeled through a third-party group, the DAs alleged, in order to circumvent state and federal rules that set limits on political contributions and require them to be publicly revealed.The documents show the governor and his fundraising team going after, and receiving cash from, many of the most prominent rightwing donors in the country. In addition to <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p74/a317508" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Adelson</a>, there was business magnate Carl Icahn who was<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p4/a317509" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">approached</a><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p4/a317509" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> for $100,000</a> though nothing in the files indicates that he donated; the hedge-fund billionaire Stephen Cohen, who <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p98/a317510" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">arranged</a><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p98/a317510" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> a wire transfer of $1m</a>; and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone who <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p13/a317512" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">gave $25,000</a>....At the heart of the John Doe files is Scott Walker, the governor who shot to national prominence – a hero for conservatives, pariah for liberals – soon after taking office in February 2011 when he introduced the hyper-partisan<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/02/wisconsin_assemblys_sneaky_mov.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Act</a><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/02/wisconsin_assemblys_sneaky_mov.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> 10</a>. The legislation instantly made Wisconsin the battleground state in the fight between boardroom might and union muscle.The state capital Madison erupted in weeks of protests in which the legislative building was overrun with <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42047717/ns/politics-more_politics/t/tens-thousands-pro-labor-rally-wisconsin/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">thousands of protesters</a>. Democratic lawmakers <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116381289.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">fled the state</a> and took up residence in neighboring Illinois in a failed attempt to foil Walker's plans.In the fallout of Act 10, progressive groups retaliated by dragging Walker and several other Republicans through a series of bitter recall elections. Six GOP senators were forced to defend their seats in 2011, and Walker himself was put through the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-recall-idUSBRE82T1FV20120330" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">recall furnace</a> in 2012.Those recall elections, and the question of whether Walker flouted campaign finance regulations in order that he and other Republican politicians could stay in office and preserve their anti-union legislation, were the focus of the investigation that generated the files now leaked to the Guardian. It was run by five Wisconsin prosecutors, led by Francis Schmitz, a former federal counter-terrorism expert.It was known as a John Doe investigation because, much like a grand jury, its subjects were kept anonymous while officials weighed whether or not to press charges. In this case, prosecutors alleged that there was evidence to indicate that Walker and his team of advisers and associates had set up a coordinated effort with lobbyists and major donors to swing elections by secretly pouring huge amounts of corporate cash into the races.The money was channeled through a third-party group, the DAs alleged, in order to circumvent state and federal rules that set limits on political contributions and require them to be publicly revealed.The documents show the governor and his fundraising team going after, and receiving cash from, many of the most prominent rightwing donors in the country. In addition to<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p74/a317508" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Adelson</a>, there was business magnate Carl Icahn who was<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p4/a317509" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">approached</a><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p4/a317509" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> for $100,000</a> though nothing in the files indicates that he donated; the hedge-fund billionaire Stephen Cohen, who<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p98/a317510" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">arranged</a><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p98/a317510" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> a wire transfer of $1m</a>; and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone who <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p13/a317512" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">gave $25,000</a>.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;"><div style="margin-left: auto;"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p4" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/2012-08-14-exhibits-01-100-pt2-p4-normal.gif" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 387px; width: 614px;" /></a><div><div style="margin-left: 5px;"> </div></div></div><div><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p4" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/screen_shot_2016-09-15_at_11.36.55_am.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 262px; width: 614px;" /></a><div> </div></div></div>Paul Singer, hedge-fund manager and chairman of the Manhattan Institute, also crops up in the documents. Three months before Walker's recall election, Singer attended a forum of business leaders held by the American Enterprise Institute in a luxury resort off the coast of Georgia.Walker was also there, arriving at the resort armed with a to-do list from his chief fundraiser Kate Doner. It bore the pithy command: <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p93/a317513" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">“Paul Singer: Grab him”.</a><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;"><div style="margin-left: auto;"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p93/a317513" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/screen_shot_2016-09-15_at_11.44.02_am.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 90px; width: 614px;" /></a><div><div style="margin-left: 5px;"> </div></div></div><div><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p93/a317513" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/2012-08-14-exhibits-01-100-pt1-p93-normal.gif" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 78px; width: 614px;" /></a><div> </div></div></div>The governor presumably did as he was told. Two months later a check from Singer was <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p133/a317515" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">banked for $250,000</a>.What particularly caught the attention of the prosecutors was that when the money came in it did not go directly to Walker's personal campaign committee, Friends of Scott Walker. To do so would have been problematic, as any campaign committee directly linked to a candidate is limited in Wisconsin to accepting contributions of up to $43,000 that have to be fully disclosed.The prosecutors alleged in <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105201-2014-02-21-Schmitz-Memo.html#document/p14/a317779" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">court filings</a> published here for the first time that Walker's campaign found a way around these restrictions by banking the corporate cash through the third-party group, Wisconsin Club for Growth. <a href="http://wicfg.com/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">WCfG</a> describes itself as a “pro-liberty, pro-fiscal restraint” organisation, sharing the same small government and anti-union ideology as Walker. It is a tax-exempt group, or 501 (c) (4), that is supposed to be primarily concerned with “social welfare” rather than partisan politics and as such is not obliged to reveal its donors.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;">img</div>In court submissions, the prosecutors alleged that Walker's campaign used WCfG as a shadow committee that allowed him to solicit large sums of corporate cash without scrutiny or accountability. “Contributions were personally solicited by Governor Scott Walker to WCfG ... in order to circumvent the reporting and contributions provisions of Wisconsin statutes,” an investigator working for the <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105192-2013-08-29-Schmitz-Affidavit.html#document/p77/a317542" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">prosecutors in the John Doe investigation, Robert Stelter, alleged.</a>A good example of the way things worked was the donation made by Donald Trump. On 3 April 2012, two months before the governor faced the electorate, Walker flew to New York for a rapid-fire string of fundraising meetings with big money interests.He travelled the length of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, making stops at the investment bank Morgan Stanley, a hedge fund, a corporate law firm, and the residence of publishing tycoon Steve Forbes. He also <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p9/a317522" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">enjoyed a 45-minute audience with Trump</a> in his Fifth Avenue lair.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;"><div style="margin-left: auto;"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p9/a317522" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/screen_shot_2016-09-15_at_11.49.40_am.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 158px; width: 614px;" /></a></div><div><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p9/a317522" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/2012-08-14-exhibits-01-100-pt2-p9-normal.gif" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 193px; width: 614px;" /></a><div> </div></div></div>There is no record of the conversation between the two men. But it appears to have been a warm encounter, as the John Doe files show that Trump <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p11/a317523" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">wrote a check for $15,000</a> on the same day. Who was the beneficiary of Trump's generosity? Wisconsin Club for Growth.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105985-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2.html#document/p11/a317523" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/2012-08-14-exhibits-01-100-pt2-p11-normal.gif" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 303px; width: 614px;" /></a><div><div style="margin-left: 5px;"> </div></div></div>Another example of the pattern is the casual comment Walker dropped into an email to his fundraiser dated 14 June 2011:<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105980-Fundraising-Coordination.html#document/p8" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">“Also, I got $1m from John Menard today”.</a> Eight days later <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p53/a317694" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">a check for $1m</a> is cut on a corporate check of Menard Inc, the billionaire John Menard's home improvement chain Menards, and made out not to the governor's campaign committee but to Wisconsin Club for Growth. There the donation remained a secret until the publication of the Guardian's leaked files.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105980-Fundraising-Coordination.html#document/p8" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/fundraising-coordination-p8-normal.gif" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 330px; width: 614px;" /></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto;"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p53/a317694" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img data="" src="https://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/u625/2012-08-14-exhibits-01-100-pt1-p53-normal.gif" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; width: 614px;" /></a><div><div style="margin-left: 5px;"> </div></div></div>Friends of Scott Walker, Wisconsin Club for Growth and other parties named in the John Doe investigation have all vigorously denied any legal violations. They point out that no charges have been brought against any subject of the inquiries.John Fadness, spokesman for the Scott Walker campaign, told the Guardian: “As widely reported two years ago, the prosecutor’s attorney stated that Governor Walker was not a target. Several courts shut down the baseless investigation on multiple occasions, and there is absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing.”In June 2014, the special prosecutor Schmitz <a href="http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-not-a-target-john-doe-special-prosecutor-says/article_9d5579ed-039d-5f22-ac98-947469c3c22d.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">said through a lawyer</a> that Walker was not a target of his John Doe investigation. Yet legal documents contained in the John Doe files identify as the anonymous <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105199-2014-2-21-Schmitz-Affidavit.html#document/p15" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">“Movant No. 1”</a> of the investigation “Friends of Scott Walker, the personal campaign committee of Scott Walker.”David Rivkin, the attorney representing Wisconsin Club for Growth and its director Eric O'Keefe, said in a statement to the Guardian: “As the Wisconsin Supreme Court explained, the John Doe prosecutors made up crimes 'that do not exist' under Wisconsin law in order to target 'citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing.' Because the U.S. Supreme Court does not review matters of state law, it should be obvious that the John Doe prosecutors' appeal is legally frivolous and just another publicity stunt intended to tarnish their targets' reputations and salvage their own.”Further insight into the position of the subjects of the investigation – the “movants” as they are technically known – is given in court papers including in the Guardian's <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105213-WICFG-Motion-Quash.html" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">John Doe Files.</a> They criticise the prosecutors for making fundamental mistakes in their reading of campaign finance law. They said that regulatory restrictions on the size and source of donations only applied to groups that were expressly advocating for or against a named political candidate.WCfG's director Eric O'Keefe <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105216-WICFG-Quash-Aff.html" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">said in an affidavit</a> that the club's involvement had stemmed purely from its commitment to “advancing liberty and fiscal responsibility”. Its role in the recall elections was “to educate Wisconsin citizens ... The Club paid for advertisements that advanced its pro-liberty, fiscal responsibility, pro-Act 10 beliefs. None of the advertisements expressly urged voters to vote for or against any candidate.”The movants also complained that in issuing over-broad subpoenas for evidence and conducting <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">pre-dawn raids</a> on the homes of some individuals, the prosecutors strayed well beyond their legitimate powers and into the realm of governmental abuse.In the course of the John Doe investigation, the prosecutors obtained hundreds of emails and bank records under subpoena. An email sent by Kate Doner, Walker’s fundraiser, in April 2011, summed up the strategy. She said the aim was to raise $9m in six weeks, to pay for political advertising – she called it “issue advocacy efforts” – in the senatorial recall races.Walker, she said, wants all the ads <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p33" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">“run thru one group to ensure correct messaging”,</a> and that group, the governor declared, should be Wisconsin Club for Growth. “The Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth [which] can accept Corporate and Personal donations without limitations and no donors disclosure.”The email trail shows a pattern of behavior developing: Walker meets up with big corporate donors and encourages them to contribute unlimited sums of money through WCfG in secret, then shortly after the checks start to flow. In June 2011, the emails show, the governor had dinner with the CEO of the largest privately owned trucking company in the US, Schneider National, in the hope of getting him and his peers to donate $250,000.“Stress the donations to WiCFG are not disclosed and can accept Corporate donations without limits,” <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p42/a317530" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Walker's talking points said.</a>...all no links img
https://movetoamend.org/scott-walker-john-doe-files-and-how-corporate-cash-influences-american-politics
guard uk
Because Scott Walker askedScott Walker, the John Doe files and how corporate cash influences American politics

September 14, 2016Ed Pilkington and the Guardian US interactive teamThe GuardianBecause Scott Walker asked
Scott Walker was under pressure. It was September 2011, and earlier that year the first-term governor had turned himself into the poster boy of hardline Republican politics by passing the notorious anti-union measure Act 10, stripping public sector unions of collective bargaining rights.
Now he was under attack himself, pursued by progressive groups who planned revenge by forcing him into a recall election. His job was on the line.

He asked his main fundraiser, Kate Doner, to write him a briefing noteon how they could raise enough money to win the election. At 6.39am on a Wednesday, she fired off an email to Walker and his top advisers flagged “red”.
“Gentlemen,” she began. “Here are my quick thoughts on raising money for Walker’s possible recall efforts.”
Her advice was bold and to the point. “Corporations,” she said. “Go heavy after them to give.” She continued: “Take Koch’s money. Get on a plane to Vegas and sit down with Sheldon Adelson. Ask for $1m now.”
Her advice must have hit a sweet spot, because money was soon pouring in from big corporations and mega-wealthy individuals from across the nation. A few months after the memo, Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate who Forbes estimates has a personal fortune of $26bn, was to wire a donation of $200,000 for the cause.
Adelson’s generosity, like that of most of the other major donors solicited by Walker and crew, was made out not to the governor’s own personal campaign committee but to a third-party group that did not have to disclose its donors. In the world of campaign finance, the group was known as a “dark money” organisation, as it was the recipient of a secret flow of funds that the public knew nothing about.
One of the checks made out to the group, for $10,000, came from a financier called G Frederick Kasten Jr. In the subject line of the check, Kasten had written in his own hand: “Because Scott Walker asked”.


 Because Scott Walker asked. That could stand as an elegant catchphrase for the state of democracy in the US today, where elections are lost or won as much according to candidates’ ability to attract corporate cash as by the strength of their leadership or ideas.
The phrase is to be found within a batch of 1,500 pages of leaked documents obtained by the Guardian that are being published in their entirety for the first time. The cache consists of a stack of evidence gathered by official prosecutors in Wisconsin who were conducting what was called a “John Doe investigation” into suspected campaign finance violations by Walker's campaign and its network.
The John Doe files published today open a door onto how modern US elections operate in the wake of Citizens United, the 2010 US supreme court ruling that unleashed a flood of corporate money into the political process. They speak to the mounting sense of public unease about the cosy relationship between politicians and big business, and to the frustration of millions of Americans who feel disenfranchised by an electoral system that put the needs of corporate donors before ordinary voters.
The John Doe files
The Guardian has obtained 1,500 pages of leaked documents assembled by Wisconsin prosecutors in the course of their John Doe – ie anonymous – investigation into alleged campaign finance violations in Wisconsin. They include legal filings held under seal and email exchanges between Scott Walker, his team of advisers, and rightwing lobby groups who support the governor and his anti-union agenda.
Explore the full cache of documents on DocumentCloud
 
The theme has become a rallying cry in the US presidential election. Bernie Sanders accused politicians – not least his Democratic rivalHillary Clinton – of selling themselves to Wall Street and special interests.
Donald Trump went further, brazenly using himself as an example of a billionaire who has put politicians in his pocket. “When you give to them,” he said in a confessional tone during a televised Republican debate in the run-up to the primaries, “they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”
According to the independent monitoring group, the Center for Responsive Politics, $2bn of corporate cash has been lavished on the presidential race so far. It’s a bewildering figure, but it only tells us so much about how the new American democracy works in practice, because so much of that largesse is shrouded in secrecy.
Donors are often undisclosed, campaign finance laws arenotoriously complicated, and scrutiny by electoral authorities is rare, prosecutions even rarer. When official investigations are launched, they often flounder before reaching a conclusion and virtually never have the chance to reveal their findings to the public.
It is into that dark and obscure post-Citizens United world that the John Doe files leaked to the Guardian land. These are the documents that some of the most powerful judges in the country tried to stop the public from ever seeing.
In July 2015 the state's highest court, the supreme court of Wisconsin, terminated the John Doe investigation before any charges were brought. The conservative majority of the court ruled that the prosecutors had made a basic misreading of campaign finance law and targeted individuals who were “wholly innocent of any wrongdoing”.
In a contentious twist to the ruling, the justices ordered the prosecutors to “permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation”.
This latter-day equivalent of a book burning could have condemned the John Doe investigation into permanent oblivion, leaving voters none the wiser. But at least one copy of the evidence gathered by the prosecutors survived the bonfire, and have now been leaked to the Guardian.

Protesters rally inside the Wisconsin state capitol on 23 February 2011 against an anti-union bill proposed by Governor Scott Walker. Photograph: Carlos Ortiz/EPASnippets of the documents have already seen the light of day, quoted in legal filings, some of which were mistakenly posted to an official website. But the Guardian’s documents – consisting of email exchanges between Walker, his advisers, Republican leaders and major donors who included none other than Trump himself, together with court filings held under seal – amount to a rich chronicle of the electoral health of the United States in the wake of Citizens United.
They also form the substance of a case currently before the US supreme court, which has been petitioned by the Wisconsin prosecutors in an appeal against the decision to shut down their investigation. The nation’s highest judicial panel is expected to announce within days whether or not it will take the case.
 Citizens United, explainedFor more than 60 years, it was an explicit federal rule that profit-making corporations were not allowed to intervene directly in elections. Then along came Citizens United v FEC, the US supreme court's highly contentious 2010 decision.
The ruling gave corporations – and by extension labor unions - the same first amendment rights to free political speech as any human being.
It opened the floodgates for corporate cash to pour into elections. Coupled with the related ruling, Speechnow.org v FEC, it spawned Super Pacs that can spend unlimited amounts of corporate money on trying to sway votes.
Since 2010 Super Pacs have become a fixture of the political landscape, as have so-called “dark money” groups that channel undisclosed donations.
At the heart of the John Doe files is Scott Walker, the governor who shot to national prominence – a hero for conservatives, pariah for liberals – soon after taking office in February 2011 when he introduced the hyper-partisanAct 10. The legislation instantly made Wisconsin the battleground state in the fight between boardroom might and union muscle.
The state capital Madison erupted in weeks of protests in which the legislative building was overrun with thousands of protesters. Democratic lawmakers fled the state and took up residence in neighboring Illinois in a failed attempt to foil Walker's plans.
In the fallout of Act 10, progressive groups retaliated by dragging Walker and several other Republicans through a series of bitter recall elections. Six GOP senators were forced to defend their seats in 2011, and Walker himself was put through the recall furnace in 2012.
Those recall elections, and the question of whether Walker flouted campaign finance regulations in order that he and other Republican politicians could stay in office and preserve their anti-union legislation, were the focus of the investigation that generated the files now leaked to the Guardian. It was run by five Wisconsin prosecutors, led by Francis Schmitz, a former federal counter-terrorism expert.
It was known as a John Doe investigation because, much like a grand jury, its subjects were kept anonymous while officials weighed whether or not to press charges. In this case, prosecutors alleged that there was evidence to indicate that Walker and his team of advisers and associates had set up a coordinated effort with lobbyists and major donors to swing elections by secretly pouring huge amounts of corporate cash into the races.
The money was channeled through a third-party group, the DAs alleged, in order to circumvent state and federal rules that set limits on political contributions and require them to be publicly revealed.
The documents show the governor and his fundraising team going after, and receiving cash from, many of the most prominent rightwing donors in the country. In addition toAdelson, there was business magnate Carl Icahn who wasapproached for $100,000 though nothing in the files indicates that he donated; the hedge-fund billionaire Stephen Cohen, whoarranged a wire transfer of $1m; and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone who gave $25,000.
 Paul Singer, hedge-fund manager and chairman of the Manhattan Institute, also crops up in the documents. Three months before Walker's recall election, Singer attended a forum of business leaders held by the American Enterprise Institute in a luxury resort off the coast of Georgia.
Walker was also there, arriving at the resort armed with a to-do list from his chief fundraiser Kate Doner. It bore the pithy command: “Paul Singer: Grab him”.The governor presumably did as he was told. Two months later a check from Singer was banked for $250,000.
What particularly caught the attention of the prosecutors was that when the money came in it did not go directly to Walker's personal campaign committee, Friends of Scott Walker. To do so would have been problematic, as any campaign committee directly linked to a candidate is limited in Wisconsin to accepting contributions of up to $43,000 that have to be fully disclosed.The prosecutors alleged in court filings published here for the first time that Walker's campaign found a way around these restrictions by banking the corporate cash through the third-party group, Wisconsin Club for Growth. WCfG describes itself as a “pro-liberty, pro-fiscal restraint” organisation, sharing the same small government and anti-union ideology as Walker. It is a tax-exempt group, or 501 (c) (4), that is supposed to be primarily concerned with “social welfare” rather than partisan politics and as such is not obliged to reveal its donors.Left: The American Enterprise Institute, a rightwing thinktank, holds its annual 'World Forum' at Sea Island, a luxury resort off the coast of Georgia. Right: Scott Walker introduces Donald Trump at a rally in West Bend, Wisconsin. Photographs: Carlos Ortiz/EPA, Darren Hauck/GettyIn court submissions, the prosecutors alleged that Walker's campaign used WCfG as a shadow committee that allowed him to solicit large sums of corporate cash without scrutiny or accountability. “Contributions were personally solicited by Governor Scott Walker to WCfG ... in order to circumvent the reporting and contributions provisions of Wisconsin statutes,” an investigator working for the prosecutors in the John Doe investigation, Robert Stelter, alleged.
A good example of the way things worked was the donation made by Donald Trump. On 3 April 2012, two months before the governor faced the electorate, Walker flew to New York for a rapid-fire string of fundraising meetings with big money interests.
He travelled the length of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, making stops at the investment bank Morgan Stanley, a hedge fund, a corporate law firm, and the residence of publishing tycoon Steve Forbes. He also enjoyed a 45-minute audience with Trump in his Fifth Avenue lair.There is no record of the conversation between the two men. But it appears to have been a warm encounter, as the John Doe files show that Trump wrote a check for $15,000 on the same day. Who was the beneficiary of Trump's generosity? Wisconsin Club for Growth.
Another example of the pattern is the casual comment Walker dropped into an email to his fundraiser dated 14 June 2011:“Also, I got $1m from John Menard today”. Eight days later a check for $1m is cut on a corporate check of Menard Inc, the billionaire John Menard's home improvement chain Menards, and made out not to the governor's campaign committee but to Wisconsin Club for Growth. There the donation remained a secret until the publication of the Guardian's leaked files.Friends of Scott Walker, Wisconsin Club for Growth and other parties named in the John Doe investigation have all vigorously denied any legal violations. They point out that no charges have been brought against any subject of the inquiriesJohn Fadness, spokesman for the Scott Walker campaign, told the Guardian: “As widely reported two years ago, the prosecutor’s attorney stated that Governor Walker was not a target. Several courts shut down the baseless investigation on multiple occasions, and there is absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing.”In June 2014, the special prosecutor Schmitz said through a lawyer that Walker was not a target of his John Doe investigation. Yet legal documents contained in the John Doe files identify as the anonymous “Movant No. 1” of the investigation “Friends of Scott Walker, the personal campaign committee of Scott Walker.”
David Rivkin, the attorney representing Wisconsin Club for Growth and its director Eric O'Keefe, said in a statement to the Guardian: “As the Wisconsin Supreme Court explained, the John Doe prosecutors made up crimes 'that do not exist' under Wisconsin law in order to target 'citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing.' Because the U.S. Supreme Court does not review matters of state law, it should be obvious that the John Doe prosecutors' appeal is legally frivolous and just another publicity stunt intended to tarnish their targets' reputations and salvage their own.”
Further insight into the position of the subjects of the investigation – the “movants” as they are technically known – is given in court papers including in the Guardian's John Doe Files. They criticise the prosecutors for making fundamental mistakes in their reading of campaign finance law. They said that regulatory restrictions on the size and source of donations only applied to groups that were expressly advocating for or against a named political candidate.
WCfG's director Eric O'Keefe said in an affidavit that the club's involvement had stemmed purely from its commitment to “advancing liberty and fiscal responsibility”. Its role in the recall elections was “to educate Wisconsin citizens ... The Club paid for advertisements that advanced its pro-liberty, fiscal responsibility, pro-Act 10 beliefs. None of the advertisements expressly urged voters to vote for or against any candidate.”
The movants also complained that in issuing over-broad subpoenas for evidence and conducting pre-dawn raids on the homes of some individuals, the prosecutors strayed well beyond their legitimate powers and into the realm of governmental abuse.
In the course of the John Doe investigation, the prosecutors obtained hundreds of emails and bank records under subpoena. An email sent by Kate Doner, Walker’s fundraiser, in April 2011, summed up the strategy. She said the aim was to raise $9m in six weeks, to pay for political advertising – she called it “issue advocacy efforts” – in the senatorial recall races.
Walker, she said, wants all the ads “run thru one group to ensure correct messaging”, and that group, the governor declared, should be Wisconsin Club for Growth. “The Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth [which] can accept Corporate and Personal donations without limitations and no donors disclosure.”
The email trail shows a pattern of behavior developing: Walker meets up with big corporate donors and encourages them to contribute unlimited sums of money through WCfG in secret, then shortly after the checks start to flow. In June 2011, the emails show, the governor had dinner with the CEO of the largest privately owned trucking company in the US, Schneider National, in the hope of getting him and his peers to donate $250,000.
“Stress the donations to WiCFG are not disclosed and can accept Corporate donations without limits,” Walker's talking points said.Two checks are recorded in the John Doe files from Schneider, both made out to WCfG and totalling $65,000The Schneider checks, like several others included in the files, were cut on corporate checks in the name of the company itself. It has long been a rule under Wisconsin state law, commonly known as the “corporate ban”, that corporations are not allowed to make direct political donations; they are only allowed to fund third-party groups that have to be fully independent of candidates, or spend money themselves on political TV advertising so long as the expenditure is declaredSome of those checks are published by the Guardian today, redacted to remove bank numbers. The Guardian has also redacted other documents in the files to remove personal information such as cellphone numbers and private home addresses. Personal email addresses have also been redacted unless they have already been put into the public domain, as in the case of Scott Walker's own personal email address.The John Doe files reveal that Walker's own advisers reached the conclusion that the large sums flowing into WCfG's coffers from corporate donors was critical to the survival of the Republican senators in their recall elections. In a memo sent to Walker shortly after the elections in August 2011, his former top campaign consultant RJ Johnson looked back on the contest and ruminated that “Our efforts were run by Wisconsin Club for Growth ... who coordinated spending through 12 different groups. Most spending by other groups was directly funded by grants from the Club.”He went on to note that WCfG “raised 12 million dollars and ran a soup to nuts campaign ... Polling, focus groups and message development was a collaborative effort.” A mass of micro-targeted mail-outs and TV advertising that was bought with the donations had the impact that they “moved independent swing voters to the GOP candidate”.
Campaigns, corporate contacts and checks
Governor Scott Walker had numerous meetings and phone calls with big corporations and super-wealthy donors over the course of 2011 and 2012 when he and his fellow Republicans in the state senate were facing recall elections. Large donations often followed, with many of the checks being made out to the conservative lobby group Wisconsin Club for Growth, which prosecutors alleged was working in coordination with Walker's personal campaign committee.
(IP) In Person         (BP) By Phone
Meeting with Walker camp
Who | Title | Date
Donation to WCfG
From | Amount | Date
(IP) Dick and Liz Uihlein | Founder, Uline and wife | 17 May 2011 Richard Uihlein | $50,000 | 11 Aug 2011(IP) Jon Hammes | Founder, Hammes Company |17 May 2011 HF Securities LLC | $25,000 | 28 Jul 2011(IP) Ted Kellner | CEO, Fiduciary Management |17 May 2011 Ted D. or Mary T. Kellner | $100,000 | 10 Jun 2011(IP) Chris Lofgren | CEO, Schneider National |20 Jun 2011 Schneider Enterprise Resource LLC | $25,000 |12 Jan 2012(BP) Larry Nichols | CEO, Devon Energy | 31 Jan 2012 Devon Energy Production Company, L.P. | $50,000 |3 May 2012(BP) David Herro | Republican donor | 9 Feb 2012 David G. Herro | $6,000 | 11 Feb 2012David G. Herro | $25,000 | 12 Apr 2012(BP) Dave Hanna | CEO, Atlanticus Holdings | 24 Feb 2012 David William Hanna Trust | $50,000 | 27 Feb 2012(BP) Annie Dickerson and Dan Senor | Advisers to Paul Singer | 8 Apr 2011 Paul Singer | $500,000 | 1 Jul 2011Paul Singer | $250,000 | 8 May 2012(IP) Barry MacLean | CEO, MacLean-Fogg | 11 Mar 2012(IP) Barry and Mary Ann MacLean | CEO, MacLean-Fogg and wife | 20 Apr 2012 MacLean-Fogg Company | $100,000 | 14 May 2012(IP) Donald Trump | Businessman | 3 Apr 2012 Donald J. Trump | $15,000 | 3 Apr 2012(BP) John Roberts | CEO, JB Hunt | 3 Apr 2012 J B Hunt Transport | $10,000 | 5 Jun 2012(BP) Ken Langone | Founder, Home Depot | 10 Apr 2012 Kenneth G. Langone | $15,000 | 10 Apr 2012(IP) Keith Colburn | CEO, CED | 20 Apr 2012 Keith Colburn | $25,000 | 24 Apr 2012(IP) Richard Colburn | Board member, CED | 20 Apr 2012 Richard W Colburn | $50,000 | 7 May 2012(BP) Stacy Schusterman | CEO, Samson Investment Company | 27 Apr 2012 Stacy H Schusterman | $10,000 | 1 May 2012 The collaboration set up in 2011 was successful in helping four of the six Republican senators fend off the recall challenge and keep their jobs – allowing them to hang onto their senate majority by one vote. Act 10 was safeguarded for the moment, and in a gesture of gratitude Walker himself was moved to ask an aide shortly after the vote: “Did I send out thank you notes to all of our c(4) donors?”Supporters of Governor Walker and the outside groups that worked with him, including some prominent media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, argue that the prosecutors were mistaken in their view that the coordinated activities amounted to a violation of campaign finance law. They point out that nobody in the governor's circle has been charged with any alleged violation relating to the recall elections, and argue that WCfG and the other outside groups engaged in advocacy over issues related to the elections, which is not subject to restrictions, as opposed to express advocacy on behalf of one political candidate or another.They also insist, using a complex formula related to the electoral calendar, that Walker only became an official candidate on 9 April 2012. Any actions he and his associates took before then were not subject to restrictions, they argued. To which the prosecutors replied that Walker's campaign committee had been frantically fundraising and coordinating long before that date.The John Doe files do contain some evidence that Walker's senior team attempted to maintain a firewall between candidate and outside interests after that date. On 19 April, the lead adviser to the governor's recall campaign, Keith Gilkes, replied to a group of businesses wanting to put up billboards supporting Walker's candidacy: “I cannot have any comment on this – it is anindependent expenditure separate from the campaign.”But the files also contain documents that show that RJ Johnson, a prominent political strategist in Wisconsin who worked closely with Walker for many years, and Johnson's business partner Deborah Jordahl, were simultaneously arranging political ad spending on TV and radio for both Walker's campaign and the outside lobbying groups. On 23 April 2012 Johnson emailed Gilkes about a Walker ad that he was putting out for the recall election; a week later Johnson and Jordahl were emailing each other about radio ad spending on behalf of Wisconsin Club for Growth.
That lead the special prosecutor, Francis Schmitz, to conclude that “a review of email reflects that RJ Johnson ... was involved in the media buys on behalf of Wisconsin Club for Growth and Friends of Scott Walker.”

DEBORAH JORDAHLCAMPAIGN CONSULTANT Prosecutors alleged that RJ Johnson and Deborah Jordahl were "key operatives advising and directing both FOSW [Friends of Scott Walker]" – the governor's personal campaign committee – and Wisconsin Club for Growth. Kate Doner and Doner Fundraising created fundraising plans for both entities, they alleged.Neither RJ Johnson nor Deborah Jordahl immediately responded to requests for comment.
Until the US supreme court indicates later this month whether or not it will intervene in the John Doe case, the question of the legality of the Walker network and the coordination that it involved will hang in the balance. The Wisconsin supreme court was firm on the issue: in its July 2015 ruling, the court castigated Schmitz for instigating a “perfect storm of wrongs that was visited upon the innocent Unnamed Movants and those who dared to associate with them.”In colorful language, the state's highest court praised Walker, WCfG and other movants in the investigation (it didn't name them, but their identities are self-evident from the John Doe files as “brave individuals”. It said they had “played a crucial role in presenting this court with an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution.”
For good measure, the court added: “Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation.”
That point is certainly clear, unless the US supreme court, which has the final say in any matter of constitutional law, decides otherwise. The nation's highest court has been asked to take the prosecutors' petition by an alliance of campaign-finance monitoring groups, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Brennan Center and Common Cause.
In their petition, the prosecutors ask the US supreme court justices to consider whether Wisconsin's top judicial panel was truly objective in reaching its decision to shut them down. “Is the state as a litigant in an adversary proceeding entitled to a hearing before a panel of impartial justices, free of bias?”, the prosecutors ask.
Protecting Walker's agenda
The John Doe files obtained by the Guardian give clues as to why the prosecutors have raised doubts about impartiality in the state courts. They suggest that two of the conservative judges on Wisconsin's top court who voted to halt the John Doe investigation may have themselves been intimately connected to the same campaigning network of rightwing politicians, lobbyists and major donors that the prosecutors were investigating.JUDGE DAVID PROSSERWISCONSIN SUPREME COURT
Take David Prosser. He was one of the four conservative judges who approved the July 2015 ruling that terminated the John Doe investigation, sacked Schmitz from his position as special prosecutor and ordered the destruction of all the documents that had been collected (later that order was softened a little to a demand that the prosecutors hand in all the documents to the court which would keep them secret under seal).At precisely the same time as the six Republican senators were embroiled in their recall election, Prosser was in his own electoral fight for survival. He was up for re-election in April 2011 and facing a tough challenge from JoAnne Kloppenburg, then Wisconsin's assistant attorney general. The Prosser election and the recall election were intertwined in that Kloppenburg was attempting to turn her battle against Prosser into a referendum on Governor Walker'santi-union legislation, Act 10.Among the leaked John Doe files that the Wisconsin supreme court ordered to be suppressed are documents that underline how anxious Walker's circle were about the threat, as they saw it, to the court's conservative majority. In an email dated 14 December 2010, WCfG's director Eric O'Keefe says he's been in touch with Diane Hendricks, the owner of a roofing company who Forbes describes as America's richest self-made woman with a personal fortune of $5bn. Hendricks is a well-known funder of rightwing causes and individuals, among them Scott Walker himself who she was to go on to support with $500,000 in 2012 for his own recall election.Judge David Prosser faced a tough re-election battle to remain on the seven-justice Wisconsin Supreme Court. Photograph: M.P. King, State Journal/APHendricks has also popped up as part of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. Trump recently added her to his inner team of economic advisers, having come under fire for only appointing men.“I have traded emails with diane hendricks,” O'Keefe says in the email. “She is concerned about the state s. Ct.”Hendricks was right to be concerned about the state supreme court. Were Prosser to lose the vote, the consequences for Walker and his entire rightwing union-bashing agenda would have been devastating. The four-to-three, conservative-to-liberal, balance of the state's top court would have been reversed, allowing progressive groups to overturn the reforms through legal challenges.The correspondence reveals how Walker's network of associates vowed to go to work to keep Prosser in his job, and thus preserve (or “maintain”) the court's conservative upper hand. “It would be good for [Hendricks] to talk with us or have her see our plan,”writes RJ Johnson, the then “general consultant” to Governor Walker's campaign committee. He says that WCfG “is leading the coalition to maintain the court. Thus far I have raised 450kand am looking to raise an additional 409k.”DIANE HENDRICKSDONORJohnson name-checks other sources of big money donations that he intends to tap. Leo Leonard of the conservative legal group the Federalist Society was looking for an extra $200,000, he says, and there were hopes for a further $1m from the US Chamber of Commerce.He wasn't bragging. As election day approached, money from rightwing lobby groups and corporations began to pour into Wisconsin, unseen by the public, as the message got out that Prosser's salvation was a necessary step to safeguarding Walker's radical rightwing reforms and Act 10.An email from March 2011, just two months after Walker took office as governor and a month before Prosser was tested at the polls, makes the point. It's from Matt Seaholm, state director of Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party-affiliated group founded and funded by the billionaire rightwing Koch brothers.
By now the anxiety surrounding the fate of the Wisconsin supreme court judge, David Prosser, is growing more intense. “This could stop everything that Walker is trying to accomplish and [the unions] know it. Goes without saying, that would be a bad thing,” Seaholm says, writing to Tim Phillips, AFP's national president.By 20 March, two weeks before the election, worry is distilling into panic. Brian Fraley of the Wisconsin-based conservative think-tank the MacIver Institute, shoots an impassioned plea for help to what he calls his “group” of like-minded lobbying groups and individuals, forwarded to Walker's chief of staff and other top advisers in Madison.
“David Prosser is in trouble,” Fraley begins. “And if we lose him, the Walker agenda is toast, as could be the Senate GOP majority and any successes creating a new redistricted map. That's not hyperbole.”
By the end of the bitter campaign, some $3.5m was spent by outside lobby groups channeling undisclosed corporate money to support Prosser's re-election – more than eight times the $400,000 the judge was allowed to spend himself. That included $1.5m from WCfG and its offshoot Citizens for a Strong America, and $2m from Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), all of it in unaccountable “dark money”.
It worked. Prosser was re-elected, with a squeaky-tight margin of just 7,000 votes and after a fraught recount. The following month, Walker boasted to the Republican kingmaker, Karl Rove, “Club for Growth–Wisconsin was the key to retaining Justice Prosser.
Act 10 was safe.Both of the two outside groups that channeled the recall election money (WCfG and WMC) are named as “movants” of the John Doe criminal investigation into alleged campaign finance violations that was shut down under the court ruling that Prosser, having won re-election in no small part with their help, joined. Yet when it was suggested to Prosser and a second conservative judge on the court, Justice Michael Gableman, that they should recuse themselves from deliberations in the case, they both refused.
In their petition to the US supreme court, the prosecutors challenge that refusal, arguing that “the special prosecutor did not receive a fair and impartial hearing”. The petitioners go on to discuss Prosser in detail, but the passage is so heavily redacted that their argument is obscured. They do say at one point, quoting constitutional law, that “No jurist 'can be a judge in his own case or be permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome'.”
Prosser declined to step aside citing a rule change that had been suggested and partially written by WMC itself. The change removed the obligation of supreme court judges in Wisconsin to recuse themselves in cases involving groups that had helped them secure their own elections.
Kurt Bauer, WMC's president and CEO, declined to comment on the John Doe proceedings. But he stressed that the organization's “grassroots lobbying activities are conducted carefully within both the letter and the spirit of the state law. WMC strongly disputes any allegations of wrongdoing and will vigorously defend itself against such allegations.”
Bauer added that WMC was an independent group that was not controlled by any candidate or candidate’s campaign. “WMC will not allow itself to be silenced from commenting about public officials and public policy. WMC has long been a proponent of the First Amendment and has a history of fighting to protect its ability to publicly express its views. WMC maintains that commitment to protecting its right to express a point of view on public policy, public officials and candidates for office as well as protecting the confidentiality of its donors.”
In a telephone interview with the Guardian, Prosser, who retired from the state supreme court in July, said that in his view sufficient time had passed between his re-election in 2011 and the judgment in the John Doe case in 2015 for any potential conflict of interest to fade. “If this had been a year after the contributions I think I would have had to withdraw, but it was four years. There was no expectation on the part of recipient or givers that the contributions were designed to effect litigation, and so the contributions raised no questions whatsoever.”
Prosser said that at the time of his re-election he was facing hostile TV ads that falsely tried to link him to Walker's contentious anti-union legislation Act 10, while he himself was unable directly to solicit large amounts of campaign contributions under new strict fundraising limits imposed by an earlier Democratic-controlled legislature. “I certainly expected Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce sooner or later to put some money into my campaign. Of course I was going to hope that somebody would come in and defend me because I was unable to defend myself.”
But the judge stressed that the only spending involved came from "third parties in which no one on my campaign knew they were coming, didn't ask for them, and frankly if they hadn't come I would have been blown out of the water by false advertising”.
Last year Prosser issued a 12-page justification of his refusal to recuse himself from the John Doe case. In it, he made reference to an email from an “Unnamed Petitioner” that discussed raising money for a campaign “to maintain the Court”. The judge said the comment was “little more than evidence of the fact that some targets of the investigation ... engaged in expenditures that, under all the circumstances, were very valuable to my campaign.”
Just two weeks before writing that sentence, Judge Prosser had approved the court ruling that ordered the destruction of the John Doe files, among which was to be found the very same email to which he referred. The Guardian now publishes that full email for the first time, and as a result the identity of the anonymous “Unnamed Petitioner” who vowed to “maintain the Court” can be revealed: RJ Johnson, “general consultant” to the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.Left: An estimated 70-100,000 demonstrators rallied outside the Wisconsin capitol building in February 2011 to protest a bill restricting collective bargaining rights. Right: A petition to recall the governor launched in November of that year. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty, Chicago Tribune/MCT/GettyWhy it mattersSo why should we care about today's fiendishly complicated ways of funding elections? After all, isn't it a cornerstone of American democracy that everybody should be able to express themselves, under the first amendment right of free speech, after which the American people gets to have the final say at the ballot box?
One area of possible concern raised by the John Doe files chimes with the anger and disgruntlement of voters that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have so powerfully articulated in the presidential race. If money channels are set up in secret to allow corporations and the super-wealthy to inject vast amounts of undisclosed cash into political races, the level playing field can be distorted to the benefit of corporate-friendly candidates and to the disadvantage of those representing ordinary voters.
By the end of Scott Walker's recall election, some $81m overallwas spent on the battle – equivalent to $23 for every registered voter in the state. The governor and other Republican groups and committees invested $58.7m, while his Democratic rival and supporters were only able to muster less than half that amount, $21.9m.
“The sheer increased volume of corporate money that has been brought into elections in recent years may go more on one side than the other,” explained Richard Briffault, a professor specialising in campaign finance law at Columbia law school. “Corporations tend to lean more Republican.”

Governor Scott Walker greets supporters at an election-night rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on 5 June 2012. Walker overcame a concerted effort to recall him from office, defeating Democratic opponent Tom Barrett. Photograph: Scott Olson/GettyBriffault added that the proliferation in the modern era of outside “social welfare” 501 (c) (4) organisations – the tax-exempt status enjoyed by Wisconsin Club for Growth – also raised the possibility that political donations would go hidden. As tax-exempt groups that are supposed not to be primarily political in their orientation, they do not have to disclose their donors.
“That can be a very good device for hiding the participation of wealthy individuals,” Briffault said.
The other great anxiety addressed by campaign finance regulations is the potential for corruption. The US supreme court has said in rulings going back decades that the first amendment right to free speech is tempered by the need to protect against cash-for-favors. The court has repeatedly stated that elected officials must avoid not only the reality of corruption in their dealings with donors, but also any appearance of corruption, because even a suggestion that dollars might have been exchanged for political favors has the ability to undermine public faith in democracy.
The justices use the legalistic phrase: quid pro quo. Literally that means “this for that”; colloquially, it's the idea that if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
Paradoxically, one of the most robust statements made by the US supreme court justices about the dangers of real or apparent quid pro quo was made in Citizens United, their highly contentious 2010 ruling. Citizens United extended to for-profit corporations and labor unions the same first amendments rights to engage in elections that had hitherto been enjoyed by individuals.
Corporations were essentially treated for the first time as though they were people. Together with the related ruling inSpeechnow.org, the supreme court paved the way for the creation of Super Pacs that can make unlimited spending on political advertising to help their preferred candidates into office.
What is less well known about Citizens United is that in it, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the opinion, addressed head-on the fear that unlimited corporate cash would lead to an explosion in real or perceived corruption in the political system. He stated forcefully that there was no danger of corruption if one important condition was met: that corporations kept their distance from the candidates they were supporting and remained fully independent of the candidates' campaigns.
“By definition,” Kennedy wrote, “an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.” Such separation was necessary, he added, to avoid the risk that unlimited secret donations are given “as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate”.
The problem is that the US supreme court has never defined in detail what precisely it means by “coordination” between a candidate's campaign and outside groups, preferring to leave the fine print to lower courts and state legislatures. Most of the legal emphasis on coordination is on actual spending on political TV and radio ads, while the other end of the money chain – fundraising by candidates from big corporate donors channeled through third-party “dark money” groups that do not have to disclose their sources of income – is largely unregulated. The lack of firm rules has left players in the election game relatively free to act as they wish – one reason why prosecutions are so rarely brought, or if they are, ever completed.
The outcome of this legal fuzziness is clearly evident in Wisconsin, where the John Doe investigation has been halted before it could even reach a decision on whether or not a full criminal inquiry was merited. That remains the legal standing of the case at present, pending the US supreme court's decision.
But a moral question continues to hang in the air. If, as Kennedy put it, even the appearance of quid quo pro must be avoided to uphold trust in democracy, does the light shone on the modern American way of staging elections by the John Doe files leaked to the Guardian give cause for public concern?
The lead paint mystery
The strange case of lead paint might help answer that question. Lead, as the terrible events of Flint, Michigan, have shown, is a potent poison that can seriously impair the intellectual ability of young children. The Flint health crisis was caused by contaminated water, but another peril to public health is the presence of the toxin in household paint before 1978, when it was banned in the US.
The John Doe files reveal that the billionaire owner of NL Industries, one of America's leading producers of lead used in paint until the ban, secretly donated $750,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth at a time when Walker and his fellow Republican senators were fighting their recall elections. Also in the same time-frame, the Republican-controlled senate passed, and Walker signed into law, legal changes that attempted to grant effective immunity to lead manufacturers from any compensation claims for lead paint poisoning.
HAROLD SIMMONSOWNER, NL INDUSTRIES'
Since the laws were passed, the federal courts have stepped in and overturnedkey elements of them, leaving NL Industries – or National Lead Company as it was once known – still facing many legal challenges. But the point remains: had the new provisions been allowed to stand, they had the potential to save the company and others like it millions of dollars in damages.
Lawyers working on the lawsuits argue that at stake were the rights of hundreds of children from poor urban areas whose lives were devastated by lead poisoning inhaled from paint when they were growing up. “These children were perfectly innocent. They entered life with all the gifts and health that God gave them and were devastated by this neurotoxin,” said Peter Earle, the principal attorney on 171 cases that are currently ongoing against NL Industries and other former manufacturers of lead paint.
The owner of NL Industries, Harold Simmons, made theundisclosed payments to WCfG in three tranches between April 2011 and January 2012, precisely when the GOP senators and then Walker were facing a fight-to-the-death at the ballot box.
Simmons, who died a year after Walker won his recall election, was a prominent funder of rightwing causes who, along with Donald Trump, was reprimanded by the Federal Election Commission in the 1990s for exceeding legal limits of political campaign contributions. He bankrolled with $3m the notorious Swift Boat smear campaign against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election that erroneously questioned the current secretary of state's Vietnam war record.
Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature made an initial attempt to change the law on the liability of lead paint producers shortly after Walker became governor. As the name implied, Act 2 was one of his opening gambits that he rammed through the legislature in less than a month after he came to office in January 2011.
One of Act 2's key provisions was to tighten tort law to make it much more difficult for lead victims to sue. Under its terms, anyone injured by lead paint who wanted to issue a new lawsuit had to prove that the company they were taking on was responsible for making the specific paint that was on their walls at the time they inhaled the toxin – a practically impossible task given the number of different manufacturers and the layer-upon-layer of paint on the walls of old houses.
The measure in effect granted immunity to NL Industries and other lead producers from any new claims for compensation.
Less than three months after the law was enacted, Simmons arranged for the first and largest check – of $500,000 – to be paid directly from Contran Corporation, his business empire, to Wisconsin Club for Growth. It landed at the time that the six senators were in their recall battles.
 Later that year, Walker's interest in soliciting more money from Simmons for use in his own personal recall election is made plain in an email among the John Doe files dated 14 November 2011. It was written by Keith Gilkes, Walker's then senior campaign adviser.
The email was sent just one day before opponents of the governor formally triggered the recall procedure, putting Walker's job on the line. Gilkes rehearsed the names of several wealthy donors to hit up for donations, singling out Simmons and“Sheldon Aldenhouse”, presumably a garbling of the name of Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate who laterdonated $200,000 to bolster Walker's recall chances.
The Gilkes memo sets out for Walker some of the “red flags” associated with Simmons and other potential corporate donors “so you are aware of what you might need to defend in terms of contributions from donors when these are disclosed”. Hewarns Walker that Simmons had a controversial track record for reportedly dumping toxic waste in Texas. Gilkes pointed to an article by Dallas Magazine in which the billionaire was dubbed “Dallas' most evil genius”. The memo also notes that Simmons avoided having to pay millions of dollars in damages to pay for medical treatment for child victims of lead poisoning in Wisconsin's largest city Milwaukee after an appeals court cleared NL Industries of causing a public nuisance and dismissed a lawsuit brought by the city for $52.6m.
The leaked John Doe files do not record what conclusion Walker and his chief adviser reached about Simmons when they discussed him as a potential donor. What the documents do reveal is that only a month later, a second corporate checkfrom Contran Corporation for $100,000 was sent to WCfG.
 The third and final check from Simmons for $150,000, also made out to WCfG, was cut the following month from his own personal account.
 At this point, the Wisconsin legislature and Governor Walker made a renewed pitch to change the law to the benefit of NL Industries and other historic manufacturers of lead paint. They had already passed Act 2, but that only covered new claims, leaving the company still facing a mountain of lawsuits that were already ongoing.
So the legislators had another go. In the same month as the third check landed, senate Republicans introduced a bill that would make the effective immunity for former lead paint manufacturers retroactive, thereby scuppering all existing lawsuits.
That attempt failed to pass the Wisconsin legislature. But even then the Republican group did not give up. In 2013, after all the recall elections had been fought and won, partly with the benefit of Harold Simmons' support, the legislators tried one more time to pass a bill making the immunity retroactive.
They did so with a great deal of encouragement from NL Industries. Earle, the lawyer acting for victims, has discovered under freedom of information laws that the firm employed a professional lobbyists for 330 hours, at a cost of $172,500, to persuade the Wisconsin legislature to pass the retroactive immunity bill.
Another Foia document shows that NL Industries' lobbyist directly suggested to the Republican leader in the state senate the language that should be added to existing law to make the effective immunity retroactive. The lobbyist encouraged the Republicans to write four words into an amendment that would apply the new immunity protections to all negligence lawsuits “whenever filed or accrued”.
Two months later GOP senators slipped into a budget bill an amendment that contained the same four words proposed by NL Industries: “whenever filed or accrued”. The amendment was introduced after midnight just before the bill was finalized. It can be found by anyone who looks hard enough on page 548 of a 603-page bill that Scott Walker duly signed into law.
NL Industries used the amendment to press for dismissal of the negligence lawsuits it was facing. But the move failed. A federal appeals court stepped in and ruled that such a retroactive granting of corporate immunity was a violation of the US constitution.

It is perhaps worth asking what it would have meant for the victims had the amendment stood. Victims like Yasmine Clark, one of the plaintiffs. She suffered such severe poisoning from lead inhaled from residential paint in her home in Milwaukee that she was hospitalized twice, when she was two years old and again when she was five.
When she was at rock bottom, Clark was found to have a lead level in her blood of 48 micrograms per deciliter and had to undergo chelation therapy to remove the toxins. To give a sense of what that meant, doctors in Flint, Michigan, sounded the alarm after children were found to have levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter from polluted water supplies – about one-tenth of Clark's concentration.
Clark's negligence suit, and 170 other cases like hers, are still ongoing against NL Industries and other former manufacturers of lead pigment paint. “They haven't been able to shut me down,” Earle said.
“Yasmine is a victim of egregiously vindictive behavior by these corporations,” the lawyer said. “The idea of freedom in the US is that no matter how poor you are you have the opportunity to surmount those disadvantages, and these lead companies took that opportunity away from her.”
As for Scott Walker, Earle said: “The governor has chosen to ignore the children and instead fought tooth and nail for the corporations that did this. I don't have words to describe that conduct.”
Scott Walker's campaign did not respond to Guardian questions relating to its relationship with NL Industries. NL Industries itself, and Contran Corporation, did not respond to numerous invitations to comment.
As researchers pore over the Guardian's leaked John Doe files, seeking light amid the darkness of today's political process, they may ponder the lead paint mystery. There is no evidence that Wisconsin Republicans led by Scott Walker attempted to change the law as a favor in return for Simmons' $750,000 donation that had helped some of them win their own elections and stay in office. No charges have ever been brought.
But is there even the slightest appearance of quid pro quo? And if potentially there is, should that be a matter that the American people care about? Give the last words to Donald Trump, the presidential nominee of Scott Walker's Grand Old Party: “When you give to them, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”
The Guardian US interactive team is Aliza Aufrichtig, Kenan Davis, Jan Diehm, Rich Harris and Nadja Popovich.
Additional research by Lauren Leatherby, Nicole Puglise and Mazin Sidahmedcontext:   oct 2015<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/10/12951/kochs-wisconsin-money-government">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/10/12951/kochs-wisconsin-money-government</a>Following the bipartisan "John Doe" investigation into campaign finance violations by Governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin Republicans are out for revenge. And the Kochs have their back.This week, the Wisconsin state legislature will take up a trifecta of bills that will undermine the state's long traditions of clean and transparent government.One bill will gut the state's campaign finance laws and retroactively decriminalize the secretive campaign finance schemes that Walker engaged in during the recall elections, opening the doors to new levels of dark money in state elections.Another bill will cripple the the state's nonpartisan Government Accountability Board--considered a model for other states--and turn it into a toothless, partisan agency. The board of nonpartisan retired judges will be replaced with partisan appointees that are guaranteed to gridlock (like the broken Federal Elections Commission), and gives the legislature power to cut funding for an investigation that it doesn't like.A third bill will prohibit Wisconsin's John Doe process, which was used to investigate Walker and is similar to a grand jury yet in front of a judge, from being used to investigate political corruption.Taken together, the bills would eliminate most limits on money in elections, and render it nearly impossible to enforce the anti-corruption laws that remain."Mark on your calendars the week of Oct. 19, because the era of clean, open and transparent government in Wisconsin is over," declared Wisconsin State Representative Peter Barca. "I fear for the future of democracy in Wisconsin, and I am not overstating the problem in my judgment," he said.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kochs Are Backing Big Money Bills</h2>During public hearings on the bills last week, citizens lined up to register their opposition to the legislature's effort to push more secret money into politics. Few spoke up in favor of the legislation, which is little surprise given that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/politics/poll-shows-americans-favor-overhaul-of-campaign-financing.html" style="text-decoration: none;">poll</a>after <a href="https://mayday.us/data/20150925_gop_polling_results.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">poll</a> shows that both Republican and Democratic voters overwhelmingly support donor disclosure and limits on money in elections.So who does support these measures? Lobbying data show the only organizations registering in support of the bills are big money players tied to the Koch brothers.The only group <a href="https://lobbying.wi.gov/What/BillInformation/2015REG/Information/12393?tab=Principals" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">lobbying in favor</a> of the bill to deform the GAB is David Koch's Americans for Prosperity, which spent $10 million in Wisconsin during the recall elections. A newly-formed group called "Wisconsin Alliance for Reform" has begun running radio ads supporting the bill; its web domain was <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/whois_lookup_domain_availability-registration_information-godaddy.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">registered</a> by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/lorri_pickens_linkedin.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lorrie </a><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/lorri_pickens_linkedin.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Pickens</a>, a former leader of AFP, and its Executive Director is Luke Fuller, a former staffer for the bill's sponsor Sen. Leah Vukmir (who is also the number two at the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council, or "ALEC.")The only groups <a href="https://lobbying.wi.gov/What/BillInformation/2015REG/Information/11732?tab=Principals" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">lobbying in support</a> of the bill exempting political corruption from John Doe probes is, again, Americans for Prosperity, as well as Wisconsin Family Action, a group that was implicated in the John Doe probe.The only group <a href="https://lobbying.wi.gov/What/BillInformation/2015REG/Information/12389?tab=Principals" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">lobbying in support</a> of the bill to gut the state's campaign finance laws is Wisconsin Right to Life, whose Executive Director is Pickens, the former AFP leader who also registered the web domain for "Wisconsin Alliance for Reform." Pickens was implicated in the 1997 campaign finance coordination probe that resulted in the harshest penalty ever levied for election violations in the state, and which <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12884/scott-walker-john-doe-assault-campaign-finance-law" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">established the legal precedent for the Walker investigation</a>.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Darkness Descends upon Wisconsin</h2>The campaign finance bill would allow corporations and billionaires to donate unlimited sums to political parties. Those donations would be publicly disclosed, yet the bill also creates new means for special interests to spend millions supporting candidates without public scrutiny. This would usher in a new era of secrecy in Wisconsin elections.Under the bill, almost any spending by outside groups like Americans for Prosperity can remain secret, even if the group is running ads expressly calling for the election or defeat of a candidate. As long as a group declares that express advocacy is not its "major purpose" it can keep its sources of funding hidden from the public. Groups engaging in express advocacy within 60 days of an election will need to report their spending, but can continue keeping their donors secret.Plus, the bill would allow a candidate to raise money for an express advocacy group, creating a situation where the politician benefitting from the expenditures will know where the money comes from, but the public will not.Additionally, the bill legalizes coordination between candidates and groups that run so-called "issue ads" that omit words like "vote for" or "vote against." These ads are deemed to be entirely beyond the reach of Wisconsin law, including the law's disclosure requirements, even if a candidate raised money for the group running the ad and the candidate's campaign told the group how to spend it.This would codify the Wisconsin Supreme Court's <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12887/five-things-know-about-scott-walker-john-doe-ruling" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">deeply flawed</a> ruling from earlier this year shutting down the campaign finance coordination probe into Governor Walker's 2012 recall campaign, decided by justices <a href="http://wislawjournal.com/2015/09/02/closing-arguments-should-two-justices-have-recused-themselves-in-john-doe-case/" style="text-decoration: none;">elected to the bench</a> with millions in support from the same groups under investigation.If the bill becomes law, a state politician could form their own shadow campaign committee, have it operate out of their campaign offices, and ask billionaires and corporations from around the country (or overseas) to contribute million-dollar checks, without any public disclosure.<div class="clearfix" style="line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donors who max out on contributions directly to campaigns will have a new conduit for giving money, with the full knowledge of the candidate, but no disclosure to the public. Special interests seeking political favors — but not public scrutiny — can curry favor with candidates without questions from the media.The bill would also undermine Wisconsin's ban on corporations and foreign funds in elections. Because this bill would deem "issue advocacy" beyond the reach of Wisconsin campaign finance law, if it is enacted candidates could ask corporations—and foreign corporations—to spend on Wisconsin elections, as long as they bankroll groups whose ads stop short of saying "vote for" or "vote against."Koch Industries, one of the largest privately-held companies in the country--and which has helped fund Americans for Prosperity--could cut a check directly from the corporate treasury at a candidate's request, and the public would have no way of knowing.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scott Walker Shows that Dark Money Scenarios Are Not Hypothetical</h2>These scenarios are not hypothetical. Documents made public in the "John Doe" probe into Governor Walker show that secret fundraising will inevitably follow if issue ad coordination is legalized.In those documents, prosecutors list email after email of Governor Walker secretly fundraising for Wisconsin Club for Growth (WiCFG), which raised and funneled some $20 million into the recall races via "issue ads" from donors who kept their identities secret. Walker's staff advised the governor to "stress that donations to WiCFG are not disclosed" and to tell donors "that you can accept corporate contributions and it is not reported."There is the $1 million deposit into the club's account from Stephen Cohen, the founder and manager of SAC Capitol Advisors, less than a month after the governor was scheduled to meet with an SAC representative.There is the March 2012 email from Walker to his fundraiser stating that "Bruce and Suzie Kovner said they want to give more" and, 10 days later, a $50,000 check from Bruce Kovner arriving in the club's account. The check's memo line reads "501c4-Walker."And there is the 2012 email from Walker's fundraiser to the governor regarding "meetings to make happen while in Sea Island...Paul Singer: Grab him." A few months later, $250,000 was deposited into the club's account from the infamous vulture capitalist.Veteran journalist Michael Isikoff revealed that another secret donor was Jon Menard, and linked his $1.3 million donation to $1.5 million in tax credits from Walker's jobs agency and special treatment from Walker's Department of Natural Resources.And, as the Wisconsin legislature debated a controversial mining bill last term, the public never knew that the CEO of the out-of-state mining company that sought the legislation had secretly donated at least $700,000 to the club.There is no constitutional requirement that issue ad coordination be legalized. In fact, federal election law regulates coordination between candidates and groups that run issue ads near an election, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this law in 2003. Additionally, in a recent 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Wisconsin law, prominent conservative jurist Frank Easterbrook wrote:"No opinion issued by the Supreme Court, or by any court of appeals, establishes . . . that the First Amendment forbids regulation of coordination between campaign committees and issue-¬advocacy groups—let alone that the First Amendment forbids even an inquiry into that topic."As if that were not bad enough, <a href="http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/amendments/ab387/aa1_ab387" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">last-minute changes</a> to the bill by Speaker Robin Vos would even provide for more secrecy around direct contributions to candidates, which must be disclosed: donors will no longer need to provide the name of their employer, creating new hurdles for identifying which industries are supporting which candidates.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Justifications for "Reform" Built on a Foundation of Lies</h2>Average Wisconsinites aren't calling for a less effective elections agency, more secret money in state elections, or new protections for corrupt politicians. Yet Scott Walker and his allies in the legislature have drummed up a false narrative to try and justify this naked power grab.For over a year, the Wall Street Journal editorial board and outfits like the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity's "Wisconsin Watchdog" have depicted the John Doe probe as a partisan witch hunt that was not grounded in state law. Yet these depictions--coming from media outlets with close ties to the groups under investigation--were entirely untrue.The probe was, in fact, led by Republicans, and involved the enforcement of established Wisconsin law; indeed, a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice had previously been fined $20,000 for engaging in the same kind of conduct as Walker and his allies. Claims about aggressive pre-dawn raids were undermined by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/08/12897/Walker-JohnDoe-tape" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">audio of the searches</a>. Other purported justifications for the trio of bills--like the GAB allegedly accepting "Mickey Mouse" on recall petitions--<a href="http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/oct/16/scott-walker/gov-scott-walker-says-board-wanted-accept-mickey-m/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">are also false</a>.Yet with complete Republican control of the legislature and governor's mansion, none of this matters. The bills are expected to pass along party lines this week.subpoena's in John Doe Wisc (eric o'keefe?)--http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/09/12584/leaked-audio-suggests-afp-violated-law-wisconsinLeaked audio from an invite-only Koch donor summit highlighted the role of the billionaire brothers in boosting Scott Walker in Wisconsin -- and suggests that David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation may have violated its charitable status during the state's 2012 recall elections.Phil Cox, Executive Director of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), told a gathering of right-wing donors this summer that Americans for Prosperity (AFP) was a "tremendous partner" and "heavily involved" during Wisconsin's 2012 recall elections. He also thanked David Koch for "his very strong support of the RGA," according to a recording <a href="http://ladylibertine.net/2014/08/27/republican-governors-association-head-says-non-partisan-group-his-strongest-partner/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">obtained by The Undercurrent</a>.AFP spent <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/03/politics/wisconsin-recall-bus-tour/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">at least $10 million</a> touting Walker's policies during the 2012 Wisconsin recalls, much of it from the group's "charitable" arm, which is organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code and barred from any political intervention. AFP's television ads, bus tour, phone banks, door hangers, and door-to-door canvassing during the recall certainly looked like electioneering, but AFP's leaders claimed that its activities had nothing to do with "any candidates, political parties or ongoing races."Yet, if AFP's charitable arm coordinated during the recalls with the RGA, a 527 Political Action Committee that <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/rga-congratulates-governor-scott-walker/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">spent $9 million</a> expressly calling for Walker's reelection, the Koch-backed charity may have run afoul of federal tax law.An "IRC 501(c)(3) organization should not coordinate its activities with a non-IRC 501(c)(3) organization for partisan political purposes," <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">according to IRS guidance</a>, "including any coordination with a candidate or IRC 527 organization.""In Wisconsin, it was a really tough battle in 2012," Cox said at the Koch gathering. At the time, the RGA was led by former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who is currently on trial on public corruption charges.[convicted]"AFP was a tremendous partner" to RGA during the recall effort, he added.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AFP "Not Dealing With Any Candidates, Political Parties or Ongoing Races"</h2>AFP consists of two legal entities.One is a "social welfare" organization incorporated under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, a group legally permitted to engage in some political activity and which serves as the conduit for most of AFP's ad spending on the national level.The other is the AFP Foundation, a "charity" organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Much of AFP's $10 million in spending during the Wisconsin recalls <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11289/americans-prosperity-nonprofit-spreading-pro-walker-message" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">came</a> from its 501(c)(3) charitable arm, despite facing an absolute bar on political intervention. (The $900,000 AFP has spent on Walker ads so far in 2014 has <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12490/americans-prosperity-charity-pours-900k-walker-race" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">also come from its charitable wing</a>.)AFP did not report its expenditures in 2011 and 2012, so the precise breakdown of spending between the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) is not known, but AFP's Wisconsin leaders went out of their way to claim the group's activities had nothing to do with elections."We're not dealing with any candidates, political parties or ongoing races," AFP's Wisconsin director, Luke Hilgemann, <a href="http://patch.com/wisconsin/hudson-wi/americans-for-prosperity-bus-tour-to-stop-in-hudson-on-june-1" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">told</a> a Hudson, Wisconsin online news site in late May of 2012. It was apparently a coincidence that the AFP Foundation had launched a ten-city bus tour, shipped 80 paid staffers into the state, and sent hundreds of AFP canvassers door-to-door in the weeks before the June 5 recall election. "We're just educating folks on the importance of reforms."As activists began circulating petitions for Walker's recall in late 2011, the AFP Foundation <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11289/americans-prosperity-nonprofit-spreading-pro-walker-message" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">launched a huge television ad buy</a> that carefully avoided naming Walker, yet promoted his signature anti-union legislation and budget cuts with the slogan "It's Working!" The "Its Working" ads pushed a message consistent with that of the Walker campaign, ran through the spring of 2012, and cost the AFP Foundation an estimated<a href="http://www.wisdc.org/afp2012.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$3.7 million</a>. (This campaign came on the heels of AFP's "Stand With Walker" ads in Spring of 2011, as protests were at their peak; however, that spending appears to have come from AFP's 501(c)(4) arm.)As the June 5 election day pulled closer, AFP brought in staff and volunteers from around the country. AFP's ten city bus tour included mobile phone banking, where volunteers read from a script that included lines like, "did you know that Governor Walker's reforms have saved taxpayers more than $1 billion?" Businessweek <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/kochs-take-tip-from-soros-investing-in-voter-registration.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reported that</a> "AFP ground troops knocked on 6,500 doors in the three days before Walker prevailed," carrying Samsung tablets loaded with voter information, maps, and scripts. Just before election day, AFP volunteers distributed door hangers that pictured Walker and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, under the message "Policies That Work for Wisconsin."At an AFP national convention held in Washington DC a few months after Walker survived the recall, Hilgemann boasted of his group's role in Walker's reelection -- describing how they "beat back the liberal hordes that had taken over" the state with ads, rallies, bus tours and canvassing -- but again emphasized that "we don't advocate for politicians."<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AFP Foundation May Violate Tax Law if It "Improperly Coordinates or Colludes" With 527 Group Like the RGA</h2>Taken alone, the AFP Foundation's activities pushed the envelope on impermissible political intervention by charities. The Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11289/americans-prosperity-nonprofit-spreading-pro-walker-message" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">noted</a> this <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11533/kochs-americans-prosperity-not-supporting-walker-wi-recall" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">at the time</a>, and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr031312.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">filed an IRS complaint</a> in 2011 asking the agency to investigate.Yet if the AFP Foundation coordinated with the Republican Governors Association -- organized under Section 527 of the tax code, a provision designated for political groups -- it almost certainly would have violated rules barring political intervention by charities.<div id="block-inject-1" class="block-inject block-inject-1" style="line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="block-block-40" class="block block-block first odd" style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><div class="adv">A<a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ccording to the IRS</a>, a charity like the AFP Foundation "might indirectly intervene in a campaign or operate for a substantial nonexempt purpose if it improperly coordinates or colludes with" a 527 group such as the RGA.</div></div></div>Improper collusion <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">can include</a> "coordinating the content, timing, or distribution of information materials," or distributing one another's materials."While coordination may often be difficult to prove, any public statements or private memoranda . . . indicating coordination between the officials or agents of the two organizations would be damaging," <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopics00.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the IRS has stated</a>.Cox calling AFP a "tremendous partner" at the secret Koch summit was not the first time an RGA official made such a reference. Four months after the recall election, then-RGA Chair Bob McDonnell <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/virginia-gov-bob-mcdonnell-stumps-for-romney-in-state-q675t4u-173378091.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">said</a>:"We spent $9 million in Wisconsin . . . the combination of the Walker team, Americans for Prosperity, the NRA (National Rifle Association), formed a formidable grass-roots coalition."<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Separate Investigation under State Law into Campaign Coordination</h2>Cox's possible admission of coordination between the RGA and the AFP Foundation comes amidst a separate criminal coordination investigation in Wisconsin.<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12473/reporters-guide-john-doe-investigation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">For more than a year</a>, a bipartisan group of Wisconsin prosecutors have been examining whether Walker and his campaign violated state campaign finance law by coordinating with independent groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12475/scottwalker-john-doe-darkmoney-sixthings" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Under Wisconsin law</a>, expenditures coordinated with a candidate are <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/gov-scott-walker-allies-knew-prevailing-interpretation-of-state-law-b99307863z1-267404011.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">counted as campaign donations</a>, and must comply with disclosure laws and contribution limits.The alleged coordination between the Walker campaign and outside groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth could be a violation of Wisconsin campaign finance law. In contrast, if the RGA and AFP-Foundation improperly coordinated with one another, it would mean that AFP violated federal tax law.Wisconsin prosecutors may not looking at federal tax law violations. Yet, both the RGA and AFP have reportedly received subpoenas in the state criminal probe, and the RGA's name has recently been mentioned in connection with the investigation. Taken together, the allegations indicate how closely many Republican groups worked together during the recalls.According to newly-unsealed court documents, <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/secret-probe-targets-try-to-head-off-more-court-disclosures-b99337497z1-272569051.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">prosecutors allege</a> that the Walker campaign -- in addition to coordinating with Wisconsin Club for Growth -- worked with the RGA-run Right Direction Political Action Committee in 2012, which ran at least eight ads attacking Walker's opponent Tom Barrett.Prosecutor Francis Schmitz, a former federal prosecutor with Republican credentials who voted for Walker, alleged in court filings that agents of the Walker's campaign "were regularly conducting meetings and conference calls with the RGA to discuss campaign strategy, including polling.” Schmitz also alleges that the campaign worked closely with the Republican State Leadership Committee which, like the RGA, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_contribs.php?ein=050532524&cycle=2014" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">receives Koch funding</a>.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Koch Is Top Funder to Both AFP and RGA</h2>David Koch and the privately-held Koch Industries have been major funders of both AFP and the RGA.AFP does not disclose its donors, but <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/07/12541/koch-political-spending" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy</a> show that David Koch -- who founded the group -- has been its top single donor in some years, giving as much as $1 million annually during the early 2000s. Koch Industries has also been a top AFP donor, giving nearly $1 million in 2000 and 2001. It is not known how much Koch Industries or David Koch may have provided to AFP in more recent years, as the group has played an increasing role in elections and its budget has grown exponentially. David Koch, as well as top Koch Industries executives, are on the AFP Foundation's board of directors.David Koch is also one of the RGA's top donors. In 2010, David Koch wrote a $1 million check to the RGA, as the Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/02/9964/cmd-special-report-scott-walker-runs-koch-money" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">noted at the time</a>, and in 2012 he gave $2 million. (The RGA reported <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/rga-congratulates-governor-elect-scott-walker/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">spending $5 million</a> getting Walker elected in 2010, and <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/rga-congratulates-governor-scott-walker/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">another $9 million</a> during the 2012 recall.) In the first half of 2014 Koch has donated $3.75 million, and Koch Industries has chipped-in another $525,000.Cox acknowledged this financial backing when addressing the Koch summit in June."I want to thank David specifically for his very strong support of the RGA and AFP’s great partnership over the last four years," he said.<a href="http://motherjones.com/print/149261" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://motherjones.com/print/149261</a> Michigan DARK $ state CoC launders $==

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;">Scott Walker's former top aide Cindy Archer has become the poster child for allegations that state prosecutors investigating corruption around Walker ran amok and engaged in aggressive, unconstitutional "raids" on people's homes. Newly-released audio contradicts many of those claims.

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The stakes could not be higher, but the converging cases have garnered little national attention.

Walker Criminal Probe to Be "Heard" in Silence

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is slated to take up the "John Doe" criminal investigation of alleged coordination between Friends of Scott Walker and "independent" groups during the tumultuous 2011-2012 recall elections.

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12473/reporters-guide-john-doe-investigation" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">has detailed</a> the bipartisan state investigation into the Walker campaign and the secretive big money groups that bankrolled his 2012 recall victory. Wisconsin Club for Growth (WiCFG), headed by Walker campaign manager R.J. Johnson and the "third Koch Brother" Eric O'Keefe, spent at least $9.1 million on Wisconsin's unprecedented recall elections, and funneled almost $10 million more to other politically-active groups, including Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Yet, WiCFG, which enjoys tax free status, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/10/12640/cmd-files-irs-complaint-against-wisconsin-club-growth" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">told the IRS that it spent $0 in political activity</a> during that period.

Prosecutors allege that Walker secretly raised millions for WiCFG from out-of-state donors like Donald Trump and Paul Singer, and allegedly coordinated with WiCFG in order to evade Wisconsin's donor disclosure laws. Talking points prepared for the governor advised him to "stress that donations to WiCFG are not disclosed," and to tell donors "that you can accept corporate contributions and it is not reported."

These dark money schemes left voters completely in the dark about who was truly influencing elections in the state, CMD argued in the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/rumors-of-john-does-death-greatly-exaggerated-b99446656z1-293094181.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.</a> Wisconsinites never knew that a Florida-based mining company lobbying for a massive open pit mine in Wisconsin <a href="http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/brendan-fischer-assault-on-clean-election-laws-is-well-funded/article_7eae9db4-7785-50fa-863c-7a3a16da3695.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">secretly gave</a> $700,000 to WiCFG, nor did they know that John Menard <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-photo-charlie-114429739886.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">gave $1.5 million</a> to the group, and in turn received at least $1.8 million in tax credits from Walker's job development agency.

The investigation has been halted by a passel of lawyers hired by the groups under investigation and its fate now rests with Wisconsin's Supreme Court.

In an unprecedented move, the court's right-wing majority decided <strong style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">not to hear oral arguments in order to protect the defendants against leaks, over the strong objections of the <a href="http://media.jrn.com/documents/johndoeoralarguments.pdf" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Chief Justice</a>.

While WiCFG leader Eric O'Keefe['s complaint?]  is constantly "partisan witch hunt" to the <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wall Street Journal and even likened the investigation to being raped, the fact is that the chief prosecutor is the case is Francis Schmitz, a well-respected Republican anti-terrorism prosecutor who received the "U.S. Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service" from Michael Mukasey's Justice Department in 2007. Schmitz even admitted to voting for Walker in the recall election.

Schmitz and his team took note that four of the right-wing justices were elected to office with huge expenditures by the very big money groups under investigation. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/02/12734/walker-wisconsin-supreme-court-recuse" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">He has demanded that these justices recuse </a>themselves from the case, but the request has been ignored.

In "hearing" the John Doe, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will consider not only the future of the investigation and the fate of Walker, but also the future of Wisconsin campaign finance law, and whether candidates (including the justices themselves, when they are up for reelection) will be able to coordinate with dark money groups whose job it is raise and spend unlimited dollars from powerful special interests.

Wisconsin's Common Cause director Jay Heck explained:

What is at stake here is the independence of the Wisconsin judiciary. The Wisconsin Supreme Court was once considered the model for the nation in terms of its impartiality and independence. That history could be wiped out by a single decision by this court to open up the doors to coordination with outside groups and effectively render campaign contribution limits meaningless.

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In a related case, Walker's big money allies are busily engineering a coup of the courts to strip the independent Chief Justice, Shirley Abrahamson, of her title and authority.

Wisconsin elects Supreme Court Justices for 10 year terms. For 126 years under the Wisconsin's Constitution, the title of Chief Justice has been given to the longest serving member, but sticking to that plan would leave critical thinkers in charge for decades to come. Abrahamson was reelected as Chief to a 10 year term in 2009 with 60% of the vote. After Abrahamson, Justice Anne Walsh Bradley, who has fought to keep partisan politics out of the courts, would be next in line.

As <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/01/12706/wi-gop-moves-vendetta-amendment-against-chief-justice-abrahamson" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">CMD previously reported </a>the threat of having a Chief who was not under their thumb was simply too much for Team Walker and his dark money allies. The GOP controlled legislature urged on by WMC and the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity backed a Constitutional Amendment to get rid of the Chief and rushed to get it on the low-turn out spring ballot.

As veteran Milwaukee journalist <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/04/16/murphys-law-shirley-abrahamson-against-the-world/" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bruce Murphy put it</a>:

<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;">Proponents of the measure have said it's about displacing seniority with democracy, but declined to make it effective in 2019, when Abrahamson's term ends, leaving no doubt this was a get-Shirley amendment." And let's not forget the unseemly, undisclosed lobbying by other justices <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/some-wisconsin-supreme-court-justices-urging-senators-to-support-amendment-b99157985z1-234909801.html" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">hoping to be Chief</a>, including Pat "Patience" Roggensack.

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Perhaps if the WMC ads had explained that they were unseating the chief and purchasing the best court money could buy, the result may have been different. But it was no surprise when, as the <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/editorial/chief-justice-abrahamson-is-right-to-seek-clarification-of-conflict/article_8d8c73ed-ec09-5c46-9bc1-894901d0761f.html" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Capital Times explained</a>: "They secured a narrow 53 percent to 47 percent victory in a low-turnout election; barely 10 percent of Wisconsin's voting-age population supported the deliberately confusing amendment."  Court observers tracking the <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/01/20/the-we-hate-shirley-amendment/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"We Hate Shirley" </a>amendment assumed that she would soon lose her title and her authority.

But the feisty 81-year old Chief Justice is not taking the dark money onslaught lying down. She filed a federal lawsuit <a href="http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0408abrahamson.pdf" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">(documents here)</a> brought by one of the nation's most respected constitutional lawyers, Robert Peck of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, arguing that changing the rules concerning how a Chief is selected in the middle of her term violates the Equal Protection and Due Process rights of the chief herself and the voters who elected her under the U.S. Constitution.

While WMC lobbyists and right-wing politicians are fuming at this audacious move, respected constitutional scholar David Schwartz, Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin had a different view.

Chief Judge Abrahamson's decision to file a suit in federal court is a "sensible and appropriate way" to resolve a complicated question of how to interpret the new Wisconsin amendment which was silent on when it should take effect. "Changing the rules in the middle of the game violates fundamental fairness that is guaranteed by the Due Process Clause. It would violate both her rights and the rights of voters who elected her in the expectation that she would be Chief Justice," Schwartz tells CMD. "Note that the Chief Justice's suit challenges only the retroactive application of the law, and does not question the right of the people of Wisconsin to restructure its court system in general, or to change the rules for selecting a chief justice at the next vacancy of that position."

In addition, Schwartz explained that "by suing in federal court, Chief Justice Abrahamson seeks a resolution by neutral judges who have no personal stake in the outcome of the case.  Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices have a personal stake in the case, it would be problematic for them to try resolve the question themselves."

Walker to Anoint Lawyers in the Abrahamson Challenge?

But the dark money men at the WiCFG are also not backing down. WiCFG director Eric O'Keefe is apparently so awash in money that he has teams of both state and federal attorneys "building a court they can bend to their will," as judicial watcher <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nan-aron/building-a-court-they-can_b_7032886.html" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nan Aron from the Alliance for Justice put it</a>.

Last year, O'Keefe <a href="http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-memos-torture-redefined/?r=0#rivkin" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">hired federal lawyer David Rivkin</a> to unleash a swarm of frivolous lawsuits related to the campaign finance probe. Rivkin, last spotted defending Bush's torture memo in the New York Times, filed suit in federal court to try blocking the investigation. O'Keefe had some initial success with a far-right judge <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12489/federal-judge-who-halted-walker-dark-money-criminal-probe-attends-koch-judicial" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">who regularly attended Koch judicial junkets,</a> but he was eventually slapped down by famed conservative jurist Frank Easterbrook on the 7th Circuit.

But O'Keefe, who <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/01/12714/eric-okeefe-james-okeefe-mike-ellis" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">funded infamous hatchet man James O'Keefe</a> the year he took down a Republican State Senator standing in Walker's way, is not done.

Last week, Rivkin went after the Chief Justice herself in a federal suit. In a bizarre twist, Rivkin's suit cited newspaper articles describing an incident when Justice Prosser called the Chief "a bitch" and threatened to "destroy her" and another article when Prosser <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/124546064.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">nearly choked Justice Bradley</a> to somehow make the case that it was <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Abrahamson and not Prosser who was out of control. (He missed Prosser's <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/david-prosser-turned-sleuth-in-owi-case-before-high-court-b99474570z1-298602081.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">latest ethical stumble</a>.)

Rivkin purported to represent Wisconsin voters who backed the constitutional amendment. But Milwaukee reporter Bruce Murphy <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/04/16/murphys-law-shirley-abrahamson-against-the-world/" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">quickly spotted</a> the usual cast of characters, deeply tied to both Scott Walker and Eric O'Keefe. Eric O'Keefe is on the CRG Board, says Murphy. In 2014, Rivkin helped CRG file another lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the legality of state laws banning coordination between political candidates and dark money groups. CRG was last in the news working with the David Koch's Americans for Prosperity group to stop -- horrors! -- <a href="http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/01/20/murphys-law-koch-funded-group-backs-anti-streetcar-drive/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.7999992370605px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">a proposed trolley system in Milwaukee</a>.

But Rivkin's gambit to intervene in the Abrahamson case was wisely rebuffed by the federal judge James Peterson.

And in the latest odd twist to the case<em style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"> <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/justice-crooks-rips-abrahamson-for-digging-in-heels-on-job-b99482661z1-300198131.html" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/justice-crooks-rips-abrahamson-for-digging-in-heels-on-job-b99482661z1-300198131.html" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"> reported</a> that counsel for the Supreme Court justices named in the Chief's suit will be appointed by none other than Governor Scott Walker.

Abrahamson and her attorney should protest. While Walker might think he runs the courts, he doesn't yet. If private counsel is needed by any judge it is the policy of the state courts that the Director of the State Courts appoint outside counsel, not the governor.

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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/scott-walker/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Scott Walker</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/scott-walker-recall/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Scott Walker Recall</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/wisconsin-club-for-growth/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Wisconsin Club for Growth</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/wisconsin-manufacturers-and-commerce/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce</a></div>

<div class="follow bottom-tags" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/eric-okeefe/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Eric O'Keefe</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/james-okeefe/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">James O'keefe</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/scott-walker-john-doe-investigation/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Scott Walker John Doe Investigation</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/john-doe/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">John Doe</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/shirley-abrahamson/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Shirley Abrahamson</a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/david-rivkin/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">David Rivkin</a></div>

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originally posted at BradBlog.com

It's been an entire year since the First Amendment suffered a gigantic blow as a result of the 2012 Scott Walker recall campaign in Wisconsin, though it's one that very few Americans above and beyond astute Brad Blog readers, even know about. And now, there is another threat to free speech, stemming from that same recall of GOP presidential hopeful Walker looming at the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.

Walker's attorneys are now arguing at the Wisconsin State Supreme Court that it is a violation of the First Amendment rights to even investigate whether the Walker campaign broke state law by the controversial candidate personally soliciting funds from non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups so donors to his campaign could remain secret. In a separate gambit, they also tried to make that case to the United States Supreme Court, which early Monday <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/u-s-high-court-won-t-block-probe-of-walker-s-recall-campaign" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sent the case back</a> to Wisconsin.

And it now appears that Right Wing Radio talkers -- at the core of a very real First Amendment blow suffered one year ago --- are, once again, in the thick of all of it.

This is all related to what Media Action Center (MAC) members discovered during the 2012 recall campaign when talk hosts on Wisconsin radio giants WTMJ and WISN <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/157244905.html" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">gave hours of free airtime for GOP luminaries</a> like Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus and Wisconsin GOP Vice Chair Brian Schimming in order to promote and recruit volunteers for Walker during that contentious campaign.

"Free" speech?

Supporters of Walker's opponent, Democrat Tom Barrett, contacted the two stations asking for comparable time under a long-established FCC rule called the "Zapple Doctrine," and were denied their request. It was one year ago when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Media Bureau, in response to complaints filed by MAC, publicly decided that Zapple is no longer in effect, making it perfectly legal for radio stations to provide millions of dollars in free airtime over our public airwaves for political operatives to promote and even recruit volunteers for their candidates' campaigns, without allowing supporters of opposing party's candidates on the air at all.

In doing so, the FCC cited the First Amendment rights of the radio stations to promote whomever they wish (even though the opponents' supporters equally own the airwaves, but aren't allowed access to the microphones.)

MAC (of which I am the founder) could have appealed the stunning FCC decision, but with the public interest attorneys tied up with issues related to the FCC's Net Neutrality ruling, there was no one available to assist. Plus, we always knew that the original Zapple Doctrine was a hybrid of the Fairness Doctrine rule and Section 315a of the statutory Communications Act, which guarantees equal time for political candidates. We knew the FCC could go one of two ways with its decision: the agency could endorse comparable time for candidates' supporters under Section 315a of the federal law, or it could take the easy way out and say the Zapple Doctrine was thrown out along with the Fairness Doctrine -- a set of rules formerly used by the FCC to help interpret and enforce the Communications Act.

No surprise, the agency took the easy way out and declared that when the Fairness Doctrine was killed (at the request of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s), so was the Zapple Doctrine along with it.

Still, we had to file the complaint to make the point that giving hundreds of minutes of free air time to just one political party, the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars of in-kind contributions to that party's candidate -- over our publicly-owned airwaves -- is not the way it should be. Sometimes you have to firmly establish something is wrong before you can make it right.

It didn't take long for the Right Wing spin machine to turn the ruling on its head to claim a giant victory for the First Amendment. Just one week after the FCC decision, Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai (well known for his <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10517" target="hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">partisan political antics</a>) wrote <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2014/05/30/protecting-free-speech-fcc-regulation/" target="hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">a piece for the Right Wing website RedState.com</a>, entirely mischaracterizing MAC's case while waving the flag of First Amendment "free speech". His Orwellian summation:

The end of the Zapple Doctrine presents an important lesson: There will always be someone eager to manipulate the levers of government to serve a political end. It is our responsibility to stand against such efforts and the tactics of political intimidation. We must continue to reject attempts to micromanage the marketplace of ideas and limit media choices. We must continue to empower consumers to make their own decisions and give news outlets the flexibility to make their own editorial judgments. And we must always stand up for the First Amendment --- even when, especially when, it's "controversial."

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Republicans silencing opponents while claiming violation of First Amendment free speech rights is becoming a familiar meme, one that, once again, leads directly back to the Scott Walker recall campaign -- and to Right Wing talk radio.

There have been two investigations into illegal activity by presidential hopeful Scott Walker's campaigns for Governor. The first of the two so-called "John Doe" investigations by state prosecutors <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/walker-scandal-who-got-convicted-why-n35886" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">netted six convictions of his top aides</a>. That probe also revealed that the Walker campaign had directly coordinated with WTMJ talker Charlie Sykes, one of five right wing hosts spotlighted in the MAC case.

The second John Doe investigation is looking into illegal collaboration between Walker's campaign and various dark money groups, including Americans for Prosperity and The Wisconsin Club for Growth (WiCFG), during the recall. That probe focuses on political tactics that, among other things, allowed Wisconsin billionaire John Menard, Jr. to secretly donate $1.5 million to WiCFG, which then allegedly funneled it into Walker's recall campaign, followed by giant business awards from Walker gubernatorial administration. As investigative reporter <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-photo-charlie-114429739886.html" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Michael Isikoff wrote for Yahoo News</a> in March:

Some court records that have been made public about the new fundraising probe, known as "John Doe 2," show that, when he first faced a potential recall election in 2011, Walker had personally solicited donations to the Wisconsin Club for Growth in order "to ensure correct messaging" in ads that were supporting his policies, according to an email sent by one of his fundraisers. His aides referred to the group as "your 501c 4," a reference to the provision of the tax code under which nondisclosing advocacy groups are organized.

Key to the effort, the email indicated, was secrecy. "Stress that donations to WiCFG [Wisconsin Club for Growth] are not disclosed and can accept corporate donations without limits," reads one June 20, 2011, email from a Walker aide to the governor prior to one of his out-of-state fundraising trips. "Let them know you can accept corporate contributions and it is not reported."

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One federal judge, concluding that the investigation was a violation of the free-speech rights of the advocacy groups, ordered last year that the probe be shut down and directed prosecutors "to permanently destroy" all the evidence they had obtained. That order was later reversed, and next month the Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the investigation should proceed. The outcome could well determine whether Walker will be confronted with questions about the secret donations -- and any benefits the contributors might have received -- while he runs for president.

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Which brings me back to talk radio. "John Doe 2" revealed that, at the same time MAC was requesting comparable air time for Walker's opponent during the recall, WTMJ's Charlie Sykes wasn't just exercising his Freedom of Speech, but may well have been directly coordinating with the Walker campaign. And not just Sykes, but allegedly radio talker and Fox "News" host <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/12/wi-john-doe-claim-search-warrants-planned-for-sean-hannity-conservative-media/" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sean Hannity as well.</a>

According to <a href="http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=338674" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marie Rohde at WisPolitics.com</a> last year:

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Why, exactly, Sykes and Hannity were to be subpoenaed, we do not yet know. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has itself been acting in secretive ways, not even allowing oral arguments to be heard in the case, as<a href="http://expressmilwaukee.com/article-permalink-25577.html" target="_hplink" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lisa Kaiser of Milwaukee's Shepard Express' reports</a>. Hopefully, when the Court makes its decision, we'll find out.

Unless, of course, making public information available to the public somehow violates the First Amendment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-wilson/scott-walker-and-the-gop-_b_7397406.html

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<div>from e okeefe:</div>

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==

WALKER

Wisconsin Club for Growth has launched a new legal volley in its well-funded effort to thwart the state’sJohn Doe campaign finance probe. On Friday, WCFG and its director Eric O’Keefe <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/gab_complaint_5_29.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">filed suit</a> against the Government Accountability Board (GAB) in the Republican stronghold of Waukesha County, claiming the board exceeded its authority by assisting prosecutors in the probe.

One of many problems with that claim: the Republican Attorney General disagrees.

The crux of WCFG’s latest suit is that the GAB – the state agency tasked with interpreting and enforcing Wisconsin election law -- exceeded its authority by helping the bipartisan district attorneys leading the investigation into possible criminal charges of illegal coordination between WCFG, the Walker campaign and others during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. Any taxpayer dollars spent on the probe were illegal expenditures, WCFG alleges.

According to WCFG and its Washington DC lawyer David Rivkin (a former attorney in George W Bush's Justice Department perhaps best known for <a href="http://harpers.org/blog/2008/12/what-motivates-the-torture-enablers/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">defending torture</a> and <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070328/opcom28.art.htm" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">the Iraq war</a>), the GAB only has statutory authority to investigate and prosecute civil violations. They assert that if the GAB identifies criminal violations, it must refer the charges to a county district attorney for criminal enforcement, and the GAB's participation must end.

“Wisconsin law requires that GAB investigations be used for civil enforcement or end with referral to prosecutors,” WCFG claimed in a press release announcing the suit. “Instead, GAB funded and staffed the investigation against conservative groups that was focused on alleged criminal violations from the start. GAB also continued to participate in the process after it referred the matter to prosecutors.”

Yet that claim – that the GAB must drop out of an investigation if it could involve criminal charges and prosecutors become involved -- is at odds with interpretations from Wisconsin’s Republican Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen. Their claim is also at odds with the efficient use of taxpayer dollars to vindicate Wisconsin's clean election laws.

<h2 style=" border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Van Hollen: GAB Has Authority to Investigate Both Civil and Criminal Violations ...</h2>

===

Wisconsin Club for Growth's allegations that prosecutors in the John Doe campaign finance probe have engaged in politically-motivated "selective prosecution" don't stand up to even limited scrutiny.

On February 10, Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCFG) and its director Eric O'Keefe <a href="http://media.jrn.com/documents/johndoelawsuit.pdf" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">filed</a> a lawsuit in federal court challenging the John Doe probe as a violation of the First and Fourteenth amendments, and alleging that John Doe prosecutors have "singled out Plaintiffs as targets for investigation, ... while others similarly situated were not targeted." [// irs TP?]

John Doe prosecutors are reportedly pursuing a theory of illegal electoral coordination during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 recall elections between candidates such as the Walker campaign and "independent" groups like WCFG, which spent $9.1 million on election ads during the recalls and funneled millions more to other politically-involved groups.

WCFG devotes seven pages of its federal complaint to what it calls "materially identical" conduct by Democrats or liberal groups, which it claims shows that WCFG and other "targets of the investigation were selected based on political views and associations."

Yet a review of the alleged acts of impropriety demonstrates that WCFG is grasping at straws. Many of the alleged acts of impropriety did not violate Wisconsin law. Others were investigated and dismissed. Others lacked any documentation.

In one example, WCFG claims that "coordination" between a gubernatorial candidate, Kathleen Falk, and an independent group, Wisconsin for Falk, is "clearly demonstrated" by footage of Falk appearing in a Wisconsin for Falk ad -- despite the <a href="http://youtu.be/QV4CM-QbTn8?t=25s" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">2012 "Wisconsin for Falk" ad in question</a> clearly recycling footage from Falk's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ysa78O4K_M" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">2006 Attorney General campaign</a>. Another example of alleged coordination is based entirely on a conversation outside of a bar, secretly recorded by a Walker staffer who lied about his name and occupation, and which did not violate any laws, according to experts from both ends of the political spectrum. Another claim of liberal "coordination" was premised on a complaint that the Government Accountability Board rejected as "frivolous."...

http://www.prwatch.org/node/12384

==

<h2 style=" widows: auto; border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Latest Effort by Eric O’Keefe and Wisconsin Club for Growth to End Criminal Investigation Makes False Claims to Federal Court</h2>

MADISON – The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) today denounced false claims filed in federal court by Eric O’Keefe and Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCFG) who are seeking to derail a bipartisan, multi-county criminal investigation into their electoral activities.

“Eric O’Keefe and WCFG have misled a federal court with false claims about CMD in their effort to thwart a criminal investigation into their activities during the 2011-2012 recall elections in Wisconsin,” said CMD’s Executive Director Lisa Graves, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. “The legal complaint of O’Keefe/WCFG demonstrates a reckless disregard for the truth and defames our investigative watchdog group,” she noted, adding: “Their claim of selective prosecution, which suggests that CMD should be subject to criminal prosecution, is injurious and based on manufactured falsehoods.“

Graves believes CMD has been targeted as part of an effort to discredit the organization and its thoroughly documented investigative reporting about O’Keefe/WCFG, Citizens for a Strong America, David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity and other groups. CMD/PRWatch will not be intimidated by these smears or stop reporting on these issues.

In the complaint, signed under penalty of perjury and filed on February 10:

<li style=" border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">O’Keefe/WCFG allege that on a November press call CMD’s executive director purportedly admitted that liberal groups engage in the same electoral activities that the bipartisan prosecutors are investigating. Their complaint asserts: “One reporter asked about the investigation and whether the same activity being investigated had occurred among liberal and Democratic groups. Graves’s response indicated that such activity did occur, but was distinguishable . . . .” Graves was never asked about any John Doe investigation on that call.</li>

<li style=" border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">O’Keefe/WCFG then use a quote from Graves responding to a question from a reporter from the Topeka Capitol-Journal about how national and state non-profit think tanks are funded (the topic of the press conference) to assert that she made an admission regarding coordination around electoral campaigns. During that press call, Graves made no reference to any criminal investigation whatsoever, let alone any electoral coordination by non-profit groups.</li>

<li style=" border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">O’Keefe/WCFG also falsely allege that CMD illegally spent tens of thousands of dollars lobbying in Wisconsin in 2013, implying that this is “materially identical” to the alleged criminal activity under investigation in the John Doe. Although CMD received a donation to support its research regarding lobbying by corporations and others, CMD does not lobby Wisconsin legislators about Wisconsin bills. CMD does on occasion respond to requests for information from lawmakers and participates in educational activities. CMD does not engage in electioneering, does not run TV ads, and does not engage in any of the activities reportedly under investigation.</li>

</li></ul>

Lead attorney David Rivkin, who is best known for his previous defense of Bush Administration torture policies, has been hired to represent O’Keefe/WCFG and filed the complaint. The federal filing is predicated in part on the suggestion that county prosecutors violated O’Keefe/WCFG’s civil rights by selectively prosecuting them while failing to prosecute CMD. “I hope the court will consider imposing Rule 11 penalties against the attorneys for making false claims,” said Graves.

With the cascading news leaks about the John Doe, apparently from subpoenaed parties in the case and with important decisions of campaign finance law being discussed, CMD urges the John Doe judges to consider opening up proceedings as much as possible to the press and public so that citizens, election and non-profit law experts, and others can better understand the legal policies at stake. CMD also urges the John Doe judges to consider releasing as many documents as possible to the public, especially due to the fact that O’Keefe/WCFG have sought to distort public opinion through selective and self-serving leaks.

CMD has reported on the “dark money shell game” that O’Keefe/WCFG engaged in during the 2012 elections, and on the close ties between O’Keefe/WCFG and right-wing outlets writing about the John Doe, such as the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity and its “Wisconsin Reporter,” which was founded and has been funded by O’Keefe and his allies:

* <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/01/12371/undermine-wisconsin-elections" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Secret Court Ruling Could Undermine Wisconsin Campaign Finance Law </a>[3]

* <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12344/why-franklin-center-wisconsin-reporter-attacking-john-doe" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Why Are the Franklin Center's "Wisconsin Reporter" and "Watchdog.org" Attacking the John Doe?</a> [4]

* <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12309/new-john-doe-investigation-probes-dark-money-wisconsin-recall-elections-club" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">WI Club for Growth, Target of Walker Recall Probe, at Center of Dark Money Web</a> [5]

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</li><li style=" list-style: none;">

</li><li class="field-item even" style=" border: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px !important;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/defend-press" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Defend the Press</a> [6]</li>

</ul>

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</li><li style=" list-style: none;">

</li><li class="field-item even" style=" border: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px !important;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news-types/press-release" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Press Release</a> [7]</li>

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PR Watch is published by the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/cmd" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Center for Media and Democracy</a>. © Center for Media and Democracy 2013.

Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703 • Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714

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<div class="print-source_url" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Source URL: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/02/12383/wisconsin-club-growth-makes-false-claims-federal-court" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/02/12383/wisconsin-club-growth-makes-false-claims-federal-court</a></div>

Links:

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/35278/prw-staff

[2] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/02/12383/wisconsin-club-growth-makes-false-claims-federal-court

[3] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/01/12371/undermine-wisconsin-elections

[4] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12344/why-franklin-center-wisconsin-reporter-attacking-john-doe

[5] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12309/new-john-doe-investigation-probes-dark-money-wisconsin-recall-elections-club

[6] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/defend-press

[7] http://www.prwatch.org/news-types/press-release

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===

<div class="byline story" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for Media and Democracy / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/brendan-fischer" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Brendan Fischer</a> [1]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Right-Wing Front Group Poses as Journalists to Attack Investigation Into Political Money Laundering</h1>

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<div class="story-date">December 19, 2013  |  </div>

The Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity (through its Wisconsin Reporter and <a href="http://watchdog.org/" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Watchdog.org</a> [2] websites) has aggressively attacked the government’s "John Doe" probe into possible campaign finance violations during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 recall elections. Its media outlets have also published new information about the apparent targets of the investigation, but they have omitted an important detail: Franklin Center has close ties to individuals and groups that may be caught up in the John Doe probe.

The only name associated with the investigation led by the Milwaukee County's District Attorney's office, Eric O'Keefe, helped launch the Franklin Center's operations in 2009, and his Sam Adams Alliance group <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/127152603.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">provided the majority</a> [3] of its startup budget. O'Keefe has <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304799404579155953286552832" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">spoken publicly</a> [4] about being subpoenaed in his capacity as director of Wisconsin Club for Growth. Franklin Center's <a href="http://franklincenterhq.org/about/staff/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Director of Special Projects</a> [5] John Connors, and the <a href="http://franklincenterhq.org/about/staff/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Executive Assistant to the President</a> [5] Claire Milbrandt, also have close ties to a group reportedly involved in the probe. Its former Director of Operations and General Counsel, James Skyles, worked with another group active in the Wisconsin recalls.

Franklin Center's Wisconsin Reporter has written 16 stories so far that are highly critical of the anti-corruption probe and prosecutors (calling its series <a href="http://watchdog.org/series/wisconsins-secret-war/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">"Wisconsin's Secret War"</a> [6]), but these latest revelations raise questions about whether the outfit has a conflict of interest in its coverage.

"It does sound like a conflict-of-interest situation that minimally ought to be disclosed, whenever stories are written," said Robert Drechsel, Director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism and Mass Communications. "Particularly if the reporting in question is being done by an entity that holds itself out as nonpartisan and as doing the same kind of journalistic work being done by any traditional journalism institution."

Franklin Center Attacks John Doe, Citing Unnamed Sources

After Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/secret-probe-spreads-to-five-wisconsin-counties-b99124190z1-228569231.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">first reported on</a> [7] the new "John Doe" investigation -- a secret inquiry unique to Wisconsin that is "<a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/what-even-is-a-wisconsin-john-doe-investigation" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">just like a grand jury except no jury</a> [8]," led by special prosecutor Francis Schmitz, a former federal counterterrorism prosecutor with <a href="http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=54611" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Republican credentials</a> [9] -- interest was high, but thanks to the John Doe's strict secrecy rules, details were hard to come by.

The Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter quickly filled the void.

Wisconsin Reporter launched its "Wisconsin's Secret War" series in October, citing unnamed sources to <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/jack_craver/wisconsin-reporter-says-new-john-doe-investigation-focused-on-conservative/article_b3c94a06-40b2-11e3-bda1-001a4bcf887a.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reveal</a> [10] that Wisconsin Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and Republican Governors Association <a href="http://watchdog.org/113017/conservatives-wisconsin/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">had received subpoenas</a> [11], and describing details about "after-hours visits to homes and offices" and prosecutors' "demands for phone, email and other records." Thanks to those unnamed sources, Wisconsin Reporter had a new platform, and used it to recast the John Doe investigation as "an abuse of prosecutorial powers" with "the apparent goal of bringing down Gov. Scott Walker." The Walker campaign and 28 other groups also reportedly received subpoenas.

"This is a taxpayer-funded, opposition-research campaign," an anonymous source told the Wisconsin Reporter.

Wisconsin Club for Growth soon became the most prominent name associated with the John Doe after its director, Eric O'Keefe, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304799404579155953286552832" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">told the Wall Street Journal editorial board</a> [4] that he had been subpoenaed, with the investigation allegedly looking into what the Wall Street Journal called "illegal campaign coordination" between campaigns and independent groups. The group is also led by RJ Johnson, a top Walker advisor.

[12]

All of the groups involved in Wisconsin Club for Growth's monetary transfers are "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">dark money</a> [17]" groups, a phrase which refers to election spending by nonprofits that exploit loopholes in campaign finance disclosure laws, and keep their donors secret by running "issue ads" designed to influence elections.

Franklin Center's John Connors Directly Connected to Dark Money Web

A central character in the Wisconsin Club for Growth dark money web is John Connors, the Franklin Center's "Director of Special Projects," who has close ties to many of the groups receiving funding from O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth. Some of those groups have reportedly been subpoenaed.

In the wake of the Center for Media and Democracy's <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12309/new-john-doe-investigation-probes-dark-money-wisconsin-recall-elections-club" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reporting</a> [12] on money changing hands between O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth and groups tied to Connors, Franklin Center's <a href="http://watchdog.org/about/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Wisconsin Reporter</a> [18] quickly went on the offensive in a <a href="http://watchdog.org/117604/liberal-money-conservative/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">series</a> [19] of <a href="http://watchdog.org/118311/shouting-echo-chamber/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">articles</a> [20], making up <a href="http://watchdog.org/118639/dark-money-wisconsin/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">its own definition of "dark money"</a> [21] for an unfounded attack on CMD's credibility, and falsely claiming that CMD's reporting constituted the launch of a "national campaign" to "unseat the governor."

None of the articles note Connors' ties to the Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter, <a href="http://watchdog.org/117604/liberal-money-conservative/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">even when attacking</a> [19] CMD's stories that address him by name.

Here are some examples of those ties:

<ul>

<li>Connors is president of Citizens for a Strong America, whose entire <a href="https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/27-1204594_990O_201112.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">$4.62 million budget</a> [22] in 2011 <a href="https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/27-1204594_990O_201112.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">came from Wisconsin Club for Growth</a> [22], and which spent <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/judicial-public-financing-wisconsin-%E2%80%94-2011" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$836,000</a> [23] on ads (some of which included <a href="http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/apr/01/citizens-strong-america/ad-says-joanne-kloppenburg-jailed-80-year-old-farm/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">misleading</a> [24] claims) in support of Justice David Prosser during his 2011 Supreme Court race, and <a href="http://m.startribune.com/news/?id=127118328" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">additional undisclosed amounts</a> [25] on Senate recall races that year. The Treasurer of Citizens for a Strong America is Valerie Johnson, wife of R.J. Johnson, who is a top advisor to both Wisconsin Club for Growth and Governor Walker.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12309/new-john-doe-investigation-probes-dark-money-wisconsin-recall-elections-club" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">90 percent</a> [12] of the <a href="https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_08_EO/83-0448717_990O_201112.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">grants received by</a> [26] Wisconsin Family Action in 2011 <a href="https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/27-1204594_990O_201112.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">came from Connors' Citizens for a Strong America</a> [22], which was entirely funded by Wisconsin Club for Growth. Wisconsin Family Action spent <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">an estimated $850,000</a> [27] on the Senate recall campaigns in 2011. Connors <a href="http://media.jsonline.com/documents/Martens+Letter_120511.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">acted as a consultant</a> [28] to Wisconsin Family Action during the election year and helped plan a scheme that resulted in a different <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/groups-accused-of-voter-bribery-cleared-by-das-investigation-953bdus-135147838.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">John Doe investigation</a> [29] into possible election bribery, which resulted in no charges. The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304799404579155953286552832" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Wall Street Journal</a> [4] reports that Wisconsin Family Action has received a subpoena in the latest John Doe probe.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Connors <a href="http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2011/04/koch-brothers-heavy-hand-behind-anti.html" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">registered</a> [30] the web domain for United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, a group that <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/08/12224/wisconsin-prepares-hand-half-million-taxpayer-funds-koch-tied-gop-lobby-shop" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">worked with</a> [31] Wisconsin Family Action and Americans for Prosperity on an operation during the 2011 recall races in which absentee ballot applications were sent with the incorrect date for elections. Connors' Citizens for a Strong America <a href="https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/27-1204594_990O_201112.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">transferred $236,000</a> [22] to United Sportsmen in 2011. The United Sportsmen group was <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/221667081.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">embroiled in scandal</a> [32] earlier this year after outgoing Assembly Majority leader Scott Suder <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/08/12224/wisconsin-prepares-hand-half-million-taxpayer-funds-koch-tied-gop-lobby-shop" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">cut a $500,000</a> [31] taxpayer-funded "sweetheart deal" for the group, which Governor Walker <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/fishing-trip-underscores-close-ties-between-suder-united-sportsmen-b99108668z1-225745101.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">rescinded</a> [33] after public outcry.</li>

</ul>

A review of Franklin Center's tax filings shows that it has paid $235,157 to Connors' Milwaukee-based consulting firm, J Connors & Co, over the past two years ($114,930 <a href="http://franklincenterhq.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/990-2012-Franklin-Center.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">in 2012</a>[34] and $119,227 <a href="https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/26-4066298_990_201112.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">in 2011</a> [35]). A close Connors associate, Claire Milbrant, who has worked at J Connors & Co since its founding in 2009, was also hired by the Franklin Center last month as its Executive Assistant to the President.

In addition to being the Franklin Center's "Director of Special Projects" -- part of its "leadership team," <a href="http://franklincenterhq.org/about/staff/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">according to the organization's website</a> [5] – Connors <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/04/10534/group-called-citizens-strong-america-operates-out-ups-mail-drop-runs-expensive-ad" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">registered</a> [36] Wisconsin Reporter's "<a href="http://watchdog.org/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Watchdog.org</a> [2]" web domain.

Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter has <a href="http://watchdog.org/117604/liberal-money-conservative/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">attacked CMD's reporting</a> [19] about Connors' groups but has failed to mention that one of its directors is directly tied to those organizations.

CMD's calls to John Connors for comment have not been returned.

Club for Growth's Eric O'Keefe Helped Launch and Fund Franklin Center

Mike McCabe, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, cautioned that the public still doesn't actually know what the John Doe investigation is about: we only know what Franklin Center has reported, and what Eric O'Keefe, the Wisconsin Club for Growth chair, told the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

"Its no accident that he went to Murdoch's newspaper, and no accident that it ran as an editorial [in the Wall Street Journal] rather than a news story," said McCabe, whose nonpartisan, nonprofit group tracks election spending in Wisconsin.

On Wisconsin Club for Growth's last published IRS Form 990, O'Keefe was listed as one of just three board members who spend hundreds of hours a year leading and guiding that group, whose budget increased twelve-fold in 2011 while Scott Walker was facing a potential recall election and also grew in the 2012 election year.

O'Keefe ties to the Franklin Center run deep. He was the CEO and chairman of the Sam Adams Alliance, which in 2009 launched and funded the Franklin Center. According to an O'Keefe <a href="http://www.libertyguide.com/resources/9-how-understanding-politics-helps-in-policy/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">bio from last year:</a> [37] "Under his leadership, the Sam Adams Alliance (SAM) has established some of the most active and respected organizations in the freedom movement, including American Majority and the Franklin Center." Whether he continues to fund or direct funds to Franklin Center is unknown.

O'Keefe's Sam Adams Alliance, whose president was the former executive director of the Illinois State Republican party, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-group-em-behind-em-the-group-behind-that-sketchy-wisconsin-poll?ref=fpa" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">acted as</a> [38] the Franklin Center's "sponsoring organization" until the group obtained its 501(c)(3) status, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-group-em-behind-em-the-group-behind-that-sketchy-wisconsin-poll?ref=fpa" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">according to its communications director</a> [38]. According to the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/127152603.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a> [3], much of the $2.9 million Franklin Center raised in its first year came from the Sam Adams Alliance. (The other group that O'Keefe boasts of creating in his bio, American Majority, was established to recruit and train Tea Party political candidates, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/192810837409217/" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">held a rally</a> [39] in support of Governor Walker during the height of the 2011 protests featuring Andrew Breitbart and others.)

Franklin's President, Jason Stverak, previously worked as Regional Field Director for O'Keefe's Sam Adams Alliance, after leading the South Dakota Republican Party for six years. Their allies speak of O'Keefe and Stverak in the same breath. For example, in the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=XpB5w-rpUq4C&pg=PT251&lpg=PT251&dq=Jason+Stverak+and+Eric+o%27keefe&source=bl&ots=amTAoCkq9l&sig=tYkGFrMHYYP_k8REbk82x7tCV9k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3QGpUtvFJ8XuyQGc9IGQBA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Jason%20Stverak%20and%20Eric%20o'keefe&f=false" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">acknowledgement section</a> [40] of James O'Keefe's book, the undercover videographer whose heavily-edited videos helped bring down ACORN (and who is not related to Eric O'Keefe) thanks "Eric O'Keefe and Jason Stverak for their role in the citizen journalism movement."

In only <a href="http://watchdog.org/116566/conservative-john-doe-democrats/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">one</a> [41] of the sixteen articles Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter has written on the John Doe have they touched on O'Keefe's ties to Franklin Center.

"The public has to be very wary of taking for granted what is being reported by the Wall Street Journal and Wisconsin Reporter," McCabe said. "O'Keefe and others have decided that is who they want reporting on John Doe, they've decided what to leak, and how they want it framed, and what they want the public to believe what the investigation is about," he said, while prosecutors and judges are gagged by the John Doe's secrecy order.

Ties to the "Coalition for American Values"

Franklin Center also has connections to another mysterious organization active during the Wisconsin recalls called "Coalition for American Values." That group dropped <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">$400,080</a>[27] on a flood of ads in the final weeks before Governor Walker's recall election, and attracted significant attention by making a unique appeal: instead of promoting Walker or attacking his opponent, the ads attacked the premise of the recall itself. The ads depicted individuals who claimed they would vote for Walker not necessarily because they support his policies, but because they opposed the use of recall under these circumstances.

These ads, coupled with similar messaging from Governor Walker, proved effective. Exit polls on June 5, 2012 showed that sixty percent of voters thought recalls were only appropriate for cases of official misconduct -- acomplete reversal from polls conducted in November 2011, just as the recall was launched.

The address Coalition for American Values lists on its <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/cfav_gab_registration.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">filings with Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board</a> [42], and on its associated PAC's filings with the <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/581/13964021581/13964021581.pdf#navpanes=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Federal Election Commission</a> [43], is 119 S Emerson St #231 in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. This is also the address given for Coalition for American Values' lawyer, James Skyles, who was <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/skyles_linkedin.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">General Counsel and the Director of Operations for the Franklin Center</a> [44] until March 2011.

The "treasurer" listed on Coalition for American Values' FEC filings and the contact on its filings with Wisconsin's election board is Brent Downs. In 2008, when Connors chaired the Marquette College Republicans, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/connorsdowns.doc" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Downs was his treasurer</a> [45]. Both were both students at Marquette University at the same time, and Downs, like Connors, also <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/downs_website.png" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">chaired the Students for Prosperity</a> [46] chapter of David Koch's Americans for Prosperity at Marquette University.

In its FEC filings, the Coalition for American Values <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/581/13964021581/13964021581.pdf#navpanes=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reports</a> [43] <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/452/12954430452/12954430452.pdf#navpanes=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">tens of thousands</a> [47] of <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/138/12961466138/12961466138.pdf#navpanes=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">dollars</a> [48] of <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/824/12951655824/12951655824.pdf#navpanes=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">payments</a> [49] <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/614/13940509614/13940509614.pdf#navpanes=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">to</a> [50] Connors' Campaign Now! consulting and direct mail firm (which he has run out of the same office as J Connors & Co, along with Claire Milbrant).

The Coalition for American Values explicitly called for the reelection of Governor Walker, so the group reported its spending, but it did not report the true origin of its funds. Wisconsin law requires that nonprofits or corporations disclose the source of all contributions "made for" the purpose of funding their ads -- but Coalition for American Values sidestepped those rules by claiming that the $400,080 was not specifically provided to the group for the ads, despite there being few other reasons that a donor would have given the group hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Franklin Center Takes Bull by Horns

The Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter has led the charge against the John Doe investigation, the prosecutors involved, and even reporters covering the topic.

Professor <a href="https://comm.stanford.edu/faculty-glasser/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Theodore L. Glasser</a> [51], a Professor of Communications at Stanford University, told CMD that at a minimum, a news outfit should disclose their connections to the subjects they are reporting on. "For the reader, without that transparency, it is hard to make a judgment about the independence of that reporting," he said.

"Not to say that the conflict [of interest] would go away with transparency, but it would at least allow readers to judge for themselves."

</div>

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