GAB gov't acctabilty bd
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see WEC</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see WILL</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see walker [we still don''t know why he dropped out of prez race]</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">voter suppression fuckery
</font><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://wisconsin<b>examiner.</b>com/<b>2021/08</b>/23/conservative-think-tank-end-wisconsin-elections-commission/</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">looks legit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"> conservative think tank — run by a former staffer for then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and connected to former <b>Gov. Scott Walker — has called for abolishing the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) and moving the administration of state elections to the elected secretary of state. </b></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>The think tank, the Institute for Reforming Government,</b> called for the change to state election law in a news release Monday morning. </span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“It is time to abolish WEC and implement good government accountability when it comes to Wisconsin’s elections and work to restore confidence among Wisconsin residents,” Chris Reader, executive vice president of IRG, said in a <a target="blank" href="https://reforminggovernment.org/irg-calls-for-state-to-abolish-wisconsin-elections-commission/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">statement</a>. “When unelected bureaucrats oversee Wisconsin’s elections it can lead to the erosion of faith and confidence in our electoral system. Thirty-three other states have elected officials overseeing the election process, providing a good measure of accountability by empowering people across ideological spectrums to provide a check on who manages elections. This is a good government measure that will benefit all Wisconsinites.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The think tank’s president is CJ Szafir, who previously worked on Fitzgerald’s staff and served as the executive vice president for the right wing legal outfit, the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"> <a target="blank" href="http://wisconsinexaminer.com/2021/08/10/what-does-it-cost-will-lawsuits/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Walker is named on the think tank’s website as its former national honorary chairman. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">According to the think tank’s most recently available </span><a target="blank" href="https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2019/824/034/2019-824034864-202033179349306953-9.pdf?gl=11lmkpngaMTAzNDkyNTAzOC4xNjI0NjUwMjc4ga_0H865XH5JKMTYyOTc0MTM4MS41LjEuMTYyOTc0MTM5OS4wga_5W8PXYYGBX*MTYyOTc0MTM4MS41LjEuMTYyOTc0MTM5OS4w&ga=2.45823399.221335683.1629741381-1034925038.1624650278" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">tax records</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, it paid Walker’s consulting firm, the Walker Group, more than $164,000 in 2019. </span></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The call comes as Republicans continue an effort to delegitimize state election administration in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><b style=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This weekend, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) </span></span><a target="blank" href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/vos-kisses-trumps-ring/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">met with Trump</span></a></b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style=""> to discuss an ongoing investigation into the election led by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman</b>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"> Gableman recently traveled to South Dakota for a conspiracy theory-laden convention, run by<b> MyPillow CEO <a target="blank" href="http://wisconsinexaminer.com/2021/02/15/its-not-surprising-how-the-republican-party-lost-control-from-reopen-rallies-to-insurrection/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">Mike Lindell</a>,</b> where lies were spread about the 2020 election</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Gableman was joined by a state lawmaker and<b> Robert Spindell,</b> a member of the Elections Commission who has frequently spread <a target="blank" href="http://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/wisconsin-spindell-election-fraud-investigation-law-forward/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">conspiracy theories about last year’s election</a> as well. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
The conservative group’s call to disband the Wisconsin Elections Commission — made up of six members, three appointed by Democrats and three by Republicans — comes just six years after Republicans themselves created the commission.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), who chairs the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Commission, has continued an effort to hold a “<a target="blank" href="http://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/elections-chair-initiates-a-forensic-arizona-style-audit-in-wisconsin/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">forensic audit</a>” of the 2020 election — similar to the widely derided audit held in <a target="blank" href="https://www.azmirror.com/blog/appeals-court-senate-cyber-ninjas-must-produce-audit-records-immediately/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">Arizona</a>. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Fitzgerald, now a member of Congress, and Walker were behind the creation of the WEC in 2015 after they disbanded the Government Accountability Board (GAB) over some similar complaints to the present complaints about the WEC.</b> The GAB was made up of members appointed by a panel of appellate judges and was responsible for administration of the state’s election, ethics and campaign finance laws. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Republicans disbanded the GAB after it began investigating Walker for violations of campaign finance laws through so-called <a target="blank" href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/103836734.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">John Doe investigations</a>. </b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><b style=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">GOP leaders, including A</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ssembly Speaker Robin Vos, </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a target="blank" href="https://www.wpr.org/gab-chair-blasts-conservatives-wisconsin-supreme-court" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">directly cited</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> those investigations as the reason for the disbanding of the GAB and the creation of two new commissions to take its place — the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Wisconsin Ethics Commission. </span></span></b></p><span style="font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>The legislation that created the WEC was introduced by then-Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson). Knudson is now a member of the WEC and its former chair.</b> </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The current Wisconsin secretary of state is Democrat Doug La Follette. The office is largely responsible for maintaining government records, as Republicans took nearly all of the other responsibilities — and most of the staff — away from the office they now want to run elections under Walker, moving La Follette to a storage room in the Capitol basement. In 2015, a different right wing think tank, the MacIver Institute, called for </span><a target="blank" href="https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2015/02/as-responsibilities-dwindle-does-wisconsin-need-a-secretary-of-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">abolishing the position</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: Newsreader, serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The<b> Institute for Reforming Government </b>did not respond to a request for comment.</span></p></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">usatoday opinion </font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">nb mueller bs //</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Governmental accountability board? More like Wisconsin's Secret Police</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Opinion columnist Published 3:40 p.m. ET Dec. 11, 2017 | Updated 4:46 p.m. ET Dec. 11, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>We talk about the recent revelation that the John Doe investigation into Gov. Scott Walker gathered millions of pages of records from Republicans</div><div>
</div><div><b>It was a partisan witch hunt masquerading as an inquiry into campaign irregularities. And it might presage the outcome of the Mueller investigation.</b></div><div>AP DRUG TESTS FOOD STAMPS A FILE USA WI</div><div>(Photo: Angela Major, The Janesville Gazette, via AP)</div><div>
</div><div><b>The “Cheesehead Stasi.</b>” That’s what Twitter humorist IowaHawk called a long-running and politicized investigation organized by Democratic politicians in Wisconsin, targeting supporters of Republican Gov. Scott Walker. The mechanism for this investigation was an allegedly nonpolitical, but in fact entirely partisan, “Government Accountability Board.”</div><div>
</div><div>In the course of its secretive “John Doe” investigation, the GAB hoovered up millions of personal emails from Republican donors and supporters, and even raided people’s homes, while forbidding them to talk about it:</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I was told to shut up and sit down. The officers rummaged through drawers, cabinets and closets. Their aggressive assault on my home seemed more appropriate for a dangerous criminal, not a longtime public servant with no criminal history,” Archer wrote in a June 30, 2015, Wall Street Journal op-ed. The column was published a day before she filed her civil rights lawsuit.</span></div><div>
</div><div>When the agents finally left her home, Archer said she took inventory of the damage. She found drawers and closets ransacked, her<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> “deceased mother’s belongings were strewn across the floor.” Like so many other targets of the secret John Doe investigation, Archer was forced to watch her neighbors watch her — the star of a very public search-and-seizure operation. . . .</span></div><div>
</div><div>And like her fellow targets, she was told she could say nothing publicly about being a target of Chisholm’s probe. Doing so could have landed her in jail and hit with hefty fines. The secret investigations come with strict gag orders."</div><div>
</div><div><b>[More: Africans are being sold at Libyan slave markets. Thanks, Hillary Clinton.</b></div><div>
</div><div>More: Social media threat: People learned to survive disease, we can handle Twitter]</div><div>
</div><div>Now an investigation by Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel on behalf of the overseeing court has spelled out a long list of misdeeds by the investigators, and has called for punishments including contempt-of-court holdings and possible disbarment. And the stuff that it has uncovered is pretty awful.</div><div>
</div><div>STORY FROM EVERQUOTE</div><div>San Jose, California: This Unbelievable, Tiny Company Is Disrupting a $200 Billion Industry</div><div>See more ?</div><div>
</div><div><b>In short, it was a partisan witch hunt masquerading as an inquiry into campaign irregularities. And confidential information gathered during that investigation was deliberately leaked in an effort (unsuccessful) to influence a pending United States Supreme Court decision.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>The prosecutors felt justified in these actions because they had already made up their minds about their targets’ guilt.</b> As the report says, “After reviewing the emails exchanged between the attorneys at GAB, it is apparent that GAB attorneys had prejudged the guilt of Governor Walker, Wisconsin Republicans, and related organizations that they were investigating and this dramatically influenced their ability to give competent legal advice. GAB attorneys did not act in a detached and professional manner. The most reasonable inference is that they were on a mission to bring down the Walker campaign and the Governor himself.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>The investigation continued despite its failure to find anything like the sort of violations it was ostensibly intended to investigate.</b> It continued despite court orders to stop. And prosecutors retained evidence (including medical and other records about Republican officials and donors, kept in a file labeled “opposition research”) even after being ordered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to turn all the information over. It was a lawless exercise of prosecutorial power, for political ends.</div><div>
</div><div>More: If only our fake president acted more like the 'fake' news media he hates</div><div>
</div><div>POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media</div><div>
</div><div>Wisconsin Democrats took Scott Walker’s victory very hard. They tried to recall him, and failed. And they tried to undermine his term in office through the abuse of legal institutions. Now some of them will face professional discipline, and judicial punishment, as a result. (Criminal charges would be appropriate, except that, as the Attorney General’s report notes, record-keeping was — conveniently — poor enough that it’s hard to be sure exactly who did what.)</div><div>
</div><div>Given the vast powers with which prosecutors are entrusted, it’s easy for an investigation to get out of hand, especially when the investigators are a partisan bunch lacking in political diversity, and start out with the certainty, shored up by political resentment, that their targets must be guilty of something. But these abuses can ultimately turn back on the abusers.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s too early to say, as one account does, that the Wisconsin debacle prefigured the ongoing Robert Mueller investigation into Trump’s campaign, though there are certainly similarities between the attitudes of “The Resistance” in Washington and the Wisconsin establishment’s response to Walker.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Writing in The Washington Post last week, Ed Rogers wrote that, though he’d supported Mueller in the past, Mueller needed to get a handle on the overwhelming partisan slant of his prosecutors or he’d be discredited. </span></div><div>
</div><div>It’s good advice. Mueller and his investigators should take care not to get wrapped up in partisan politics while conducting a criminal investigation. Because that seldom ends well.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor </b>and the author of <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, i</span>s a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @instapundit. </div><div>
</div><div>You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">nat fed soc bs </font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">greim</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">R<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">eaders may remember news coverage over the past few years about Wisconsin’s infamous “John Doe” investigations. In the first half of this decade, these secret probes—assembled by the Milwaukee County District Attorney and later involving Wisconsin’s ironically-named Government Accountability Board—targeted the activities of certain conservative groups. Those groups, their supporters, and some officeholders all had one thing in common: they vocally supported Governor Scott Walker’s policy agenda and, in the eyes of the local press and other left-leaning politicians and activists, played a decisive role in preserving Walker’s reforms when they were tested through various local candidate elections that many observers treated as proxy votes on Walker’s program. </span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.01) 0px 0px 1px; line-height: 30px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The probes seized millions of emails, bank records, hard copy documents, and other materials through a combination of electronic search warrants, subpoenas, and raids. Under Wisconsin’s John Doe statutes, most of this occurred in secret before a single judge who did not sit as a court of law. But it all began to unravel in October 2013. That’s when the prosecutors’<b> armed raids of homes and offices in Wisconsin, and their service of document subpoenas across the country, alerted dozens of targets and witnesses that the conservative half of the political spectrum was under coordinated attack.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.01) 0px 0px 1px; line-height: 30px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That was the beginning of the end. Determined litigation in the Wisconsin state courts froze the John Doe investigations in early 2014. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately terminated them in the summer of 2015. In reaction, the Wisconsin legislature passed sweeping reforms of its campaign finance and criminal laws, eliminating the Government Accountability Board, changing John Doe rules, and fixing secrecy laws so that they restrained the prosecutors, not the targets. But was the “John Doe” of yore really extinct? </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.01) 0px 0px 1px; line-height: 30px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A report by Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, unsealed by yet another John Doe Judge on December 6, 2017, seems to conclude that the John Doe was just in hibernation. Schimel’s report followed an investigation he initiated when, in September 2016, <b>the British Guardian published approximately 1,400 pages of seized witness emails and draft court filings prepared by the prosecution team. </b>The disclosure was made shortly before a conference at which U.S. Supreme Court justices were to take up the prosecution team’s cert petition—their attempt to revive their John Doe investigation after their 2015 loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Some of the leaked pages appeared to have been scanned in May of 2016, shortly before a previous conference at which the cert petition was to be taken up before extensions and delays pushed the justices’ consideration to their September “long conference.” Because of the timing and contents of the disclosures, suspicion immediately focused on the prosecution team, including lawyers on the recently-defunct Government Accountability Board who’d worked hand in glove with the prosecutors and who presumably were closely following the Supreme Court’s conference schedule.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.01) 0px 0px 1px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Schimel conducted dozens of interviews and ultimately </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">executed at least one search warrant on the Government Accountability Board’s successor organization,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> which still had its ancestor’s files.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> He ultimately found that when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ended the John Doe proceedings, Special Prosecutor Fran Schmitz had not in fact turned over all seized evidence to the Supreme Court Clerk. A trove of evidence remained at the Government Accountability Board offices. Further, Schimel found that security and chain of custody procedures were lax, so that it was impossible to tell who had accessed the seized evidence during years of appellate litigation over the Does. (Indeed, in some cases, it was not even possible to trace seized evidence to a particular search warrant or subpoena.) For its part, the GAB appeared to have lost a critical drive that had contained evidence GAB staff lawyers considered “gold.” Schimel concluded that because of this, there remains no way to guarantee that future leaks of improperly seized emails will not occur. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Further, he reported that he plans to file a motion for contempt of court against nine members of the prosecution team before the new John Doe Judge. </b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.01) 0px 0px 1px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, litigation is now unfolding on several fronts. The MacIver Institute, a Wisconsin think tank, brought a claim against the prosecution team under the Stored Communications Act, arguing that a John Doe Judge is not a court of general criminal jurisdiction, rendering the seizures of millions of emails in John Doe I and II unlawful.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> That matter has been argued in the Seventh Circuit after MacIver’s case was dismissed in the district court. At stake is MacIver’s request that all of the seized material be gathered and returned to the hundreds who had their emails seized. Other witnesses may petition other courts, including the Wisconsin Supreme Court, for return of evidence. And finally, new individuals who only learned of the investigation due to Schimel’s report may be weighing their own claims against the prosecution team. Stay tuned. </span></font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ag report 12/17</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://cdn.wrn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Report-of-the-Attorney-General-Signed-UNSEALED.pdf</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...'Board attorney Shane Falk for discipline to the Wisconsin Court System’s Office of
Lawyer Regulation and (2) initiate contempt proceedings against John Doe Special
Prosecutor Francis Schmitz and former GAB employees who grossly mishandled
secret John Doe evidence and related materials and then failed to turn over all
evidence as ordered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court..'</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">bs</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">maciverinstitute.</span>com/2017/12/doj-report-wisconsins-infamous-john-doe-was-more-sinister-than-first-reported/</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>M</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>acIver News Service [sic]</b>| December 6, 2017</span></font><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By M.D. Kittle</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe investigation was more sinister and politically driven than originally reported.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A Wisconsin Attorney General <a href="https://cdn.wrn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Report-of-the-Attorney-General-Signed-UNSEALED.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> on the year-long investigation into <a href="http://www.maciverinstitute.com/2017/09/maciver-news-service-september-3/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">leaks of sealed John Doe court documents to a liberal British publication</a> in September 2016 finds a rogue agency of partisan bureaucrats bent on a mission “to bring down the (Gov. Scott) Walker campaign and the Governor himself.”[actually o'keefe who openly leaked docs]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The AG report, released Wednesday, details an expanded John Doe probe into a “broad range of Wisconsin Republicans,” a “John Doe III,” according to Attorney General <a href="https://www.doj.state.wi.us/exec-profile/brad-d-schimel" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Brad Schimel,</a> that widened the scope of the so-called John Doe II investigation into dozens of right-of-center groups and scores of conservatives. Republican lawmakers, conservative talk show hosts, a former employee from the MacIver Institute, average citizens, <b>even churches, were secretly monitored by the dark John Doe.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 360px; float: right; border: 0px solid; padding: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Department of Justice investigators found hundreds of thousands of John Doe documents in the possession of the GAB long after they were ordered to be turned over to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Government Accountability Board, the state’s former “nonpartisan” speech cop, proved to be more partisan than originally suspected, the state Department of Justice report found. For reasons that “perhaps may never be fully explained,” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">GAB held onto thousands of private emails from Wisconsin conservatives in several folders on their servers marked “Opposition Research.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” The report’s findings validate what conservatives have long contended was nothing more than a <b>witch-hunt into limited government groups and the governor who was turning conservative ideas into public policy.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Moreover, DOJ is deeply concerned by what appears to have been the weaponization of GAB by partisans in furtherance of political goals, which permitted the vast collection of highly personal information from dozens of Wisconsin Republicans without even taking modest steps to secure this information,” the report states.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And in an all-too familiar occurrence involving allegations of government abuse, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">a key hard drive believed to contain the court-sealed John Doe documents leaked to The Guardian in October 2016 has suspiciously disappeared – GAB officials with knowledge of the hard drive can’t seem to explain what happened to it.</span></font></p><span class="bctt-click-to-tweet" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 4px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1.75em;"><span class="bctt-ctt-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; padding: 15px 0px; margin: 15px 0px; position: relative; line-height: 29.4px; word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none !important; border-bottom: none !important; box-shadow: none !important;">The DOJ recommends the John Doe judge initiate contempt proceedings against former GAB officials and the John Doe probe’s special prosecutor for “grossly” mishandling secret evidence. #wiright #wipolitics</font></span><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://www.maciverinstitute.com/?p=37481&text=The%20DOJ%20recommends%20the%20John%20Doe%20judge%20initiate%20contempt%20proceedings%20against%20former%20GAB%20officials%20and%20the%20John%20Doe%20probe%E2%80%99s%20special%20prosecutor%20for%20%E2%80%9Cgrossly%E2%80%9D%20mishandling%20secret%20evidence.%20%23wiright%20%23wipolitics&via=MacIverWisc&related=MacIverWisc" target="blank" class="bctt-ctt-btn" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: url(" img="img" birdy.png="birdy.png" right="right" top="top" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" transparent="transparent" margin="margin" padding="padding" position="position" relative="relative" display="display" block="block" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" float="float" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" important="important" border-bottom="border-bottom" box-shadow="box-shadow"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">CLICK TO TWEET</font></a></span><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Still, despite a damning report laying out myriad examples of criminal misconduct by government bureaucrats, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Schimel, a Republican, says his Department of Justice cannot file criminal charges – chiefly because of disappearing evidence, less-than-cooperative John Doe agents and the “systemic and pervasive mishandling of John Doe evidence (that) likely resulted in circumstances allowing the Guardian leak in the first place.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such failures prevent prosecutors from proving criminal liability beyond a reasonable doubt, the attorney general wrote, although the report points to a small universe of GAB employees that had access to the leaked documents.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They also seemed to have a political ax to grind.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Department of Justice, however, recommends the John Doe judge initiate contempt proceedings against former GAB officials and the John Doe probe’s special prosecutor for “grossly” mishandling secret evidence. Schimel also recommends that <a href="https://www.watchdog.org/issues/accountability/before-lamenting-the-end-of-the-gab-read-this/article_df94943b-bc49-519c-b274-01efef6d02ef.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Shane Falk,</a> who served as lead staff attorney in the John Doe probes, be referred for discipline to the Wisconsin Court System’s Office of Lawyer Regulation. Falk took a job with a private law firm in August 2014, just as allegations of investigative abuse began to surround the political investigation.</span></font></p><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back Doe</font></span></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The John Doe has a long and winding history. It all began in 2010, when the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, led by Democrat John Chisholm, signed off on a secret investigation into the Milwaukee County Executive’s office, at the time directed by then-Republican candidate for governor, Scott Walker.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was Walker who, the year before, brought questions about a discrepancy in a county veterans fund to the DA’s attention. His chief of staff at the time asked the agency to investigate. Eventually, the district attorney’s office opened a John Doe, as Walker, a fiscal conservative in a liberal county, was rolling into his run for governor.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That investigation brought six convictions, only two of which were related to the original scope of the veterans fund investigation.</b> Prosecutors, with the help of a very accommodating John Doe judge, went after Walker’s staff and conservative allies in what was commonly known in the DA’s office as the “Walker Doe,” according to an inside source. They threatened two County Executive staffers with lengthy prison sentences if they didn’t talk, if they didn’t turn on their boss. They didn’t because they couldn’t. There was nothing to tell, according to the targeted staffers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chisholm used the hundreds of thousands of electronic communications – including reams of private email – to seek a second John Doe. This time, the district attorney, with the help of the very willing Government Accountability Board, set their sights on just about every right-of-center group in Wisconsin. The probe investigated the prosecutors’ theory that conservative organizations illegally coordinated with Walker’s campaign during the bitterly partisan recall elections of 2011 and 2012.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">John Doe agents effectively conducted a spy operation, secretly grabbing up millions of digital records from Republicans who had no idea they were being targeted in the Democrat-led dragnet. The agents capped it off in October 2013 with <a href="http://www.maciverinstitute.com/2017/10/wisconsins-shame-remembered-the-john-doe-raids-of-2013/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">coordinated, predawn, armed raids</a> on the homes of several conservative Wisconsinites</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. <b>Many </b>were forced to sit by while law enforcement officials rooted through their possessions in the name of a campaign finance paper investigation.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Only one problem: There was no illegal coordination, no campaign finance wrongdoing, no collusion. Sound familiar? (See Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign).</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The John Doe judge at the time in early 2014 quashed the subpoenas used in the investigation. He found that the prosecutors lacked probable cause that crimes alleged had been committed.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ruling followed a string of court decisions that not only raised questions about the prosecutors’ theory, but the tactics involved in the political probe.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In July 2016, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared the John Doe investigation unconstitutional and ordered it shut down. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The majority opinion concluded that Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz was “the instigator of a ‘perfect storm’ of wrongs” perpetrated against citizens who were legally exercising their First Amendment rights. At least they were until the John Doe investigators silenced them.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wisconsin’s John Doe law is similar to a grand jury investigation, without the benefit of a jury of peers. The procedures are overseen by a single judge with extraordinary power to compel witnesses to testify – all in the pursuit of determining whether a crime has been committed. Unlike a grand jury investigation where the accused can publicly defend themselves, John Doe targets and witnesses must remain silent. Failing to do so could land them in jail or subject them to steep fines.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After the Supreme Court decision, the Republican-led Legislature reformed the John Doe law and its secrecy order that one federal appeals court judge described as “screamingly unconstitutional.” It also jettisoned the “nonpartisan” Government Accountability Board following growing evidence of investigative abuses.</font></p><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘Pretty Please’</font></span></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite court orders in January 2014 barring the John Doe prosecutors and their bureaucratic pals from further reviewing any of the “evidence” they had illegally obtained, GAB staff pushed on.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Days after the court order, Shane Falk, GAB’s lead attorney on the John Doe, directed staffer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollynagappala" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Molly Naggappala</a> to log into the investigation’s account with an offsite data storage site where the millions of documents were stored (at taxpayer expense). He told Naggappala to print off emails seized from search warrants.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Can you print out everything that you pulled out of Relativity (the data storage operator) and previously sent us? Then give a copy to Nate (Judnic) and one to me. Pretty please?” Naggappala complied, according to the Attorney General’s investigative report<b>. It was a “direct violation” of the judge’s cease and desist order.</b></font></p><span class="bctt-click-to-tweet" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 4px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1.75em;"><span class="bctt-ctt-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; padding: 15px 0px; margin: 15px 0px; position: relative; line-height: 29.4px; word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none !important; border-bottom: none !important; box-shadow: none !important;">Naggappala complied, according to the Attorney General’s investigative report. It was a “direct violation” of the judge’s cease and desist order.</font></span><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://www.maciverinstitute.com/?p=37481&text=Naggappala%20complied%2C%20according%20to%20the%20Attorney%20General%E2%80%99s%20investigative%20report.%20It%20was%20a%20%E2%80%9Cdirect%20violation%E2%80%9D%20of%20the%20judge%E2%80%99s%20cease%20and%20desist%20order.&via=MacIverWisc&related=MacIverWisc" target="blank" class="bctt-ctt-btn" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: url(" img="img" birdy.png="birdy.png" right="right" top="top" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" transparent="transparent" margin="margin" padding="padding" position="position" relative="relative" display="display" block="block" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" float="float" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" important="important" border-bottom="border-bottom" box-shadow="box-shadow"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">CLICK TO TWEET</font></a></span><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schmitz, the special prosecutor, didn’t order Falk to “stand down,” and Falk and other GAB staff continued to access the documents in defiance of the court order.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents Falk sought were the “very emails … that were leaked to the Guardian newspaper,” the DOJ report states.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was previously reported that John Doe investigators used Gmail accounts disconnected from the state electronic communications system when sharing investigation information and ideas. The Department of Justice probe into the leaks found Falk used an external hard drive for the storage of separate John Doe files. Falk told DOJ investigators that he turned the hard drive over to colleague Nathan Judnic when he left the GAB.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Falk and former GAB staff and current administrators at the GAB’s successor, the state Ethics Commission, could not provide the hard drive to investigators. After some conflicting answers, none of the attorneys and bureaucrats could offer an explanation for what happened to it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Falk came to the GAB with a left-leaning pedigree. He previously had served as a Democrat appointee on a state campaign ethics board, the predecessor to the GAB. In 2008, he testified before the relatively new GAB, urging the agency to find ways of “getting around the constitution” to go after issue ads from organizations such as Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When it comes to the point of it affecting an election, the compelling interest rises to the level where the state can get around the constitutional right to free speech,” he testified.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the John Doe probe, Falk encouraged Schmitz, the special prosecutor, to stay strong in their pursuit of Walker and his conservative allies.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Remember, in brief, this was a bastardization of politics and our state is being run by corporations and billionaires,” Falk wrote in an email on conservative issue advocacy. “That isn’t democracy to say the least, but due to how they do this dark money, the populace never knows.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The populace also didn’t know just how political the John Doe probe had gotten.</font></p><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘Falk Boxes’</font></span></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Department of Justice report refers to “Falk boxes,” in which three hard drives in particular contained nearly 500,000 unique emails from Yahoo and Gmail accounts, totaling millions of pages.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The hard drives included transcripts of Google Chat logs between several individuals, most of which were purely personal (and sometimes very private) conversations,” the report states.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GAB placed a “large portion” of the emails into several folders titled, “Opposition Research” or “Senate Opposition Research.”</font></p><span class="bctt-click-to-tweet" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 4px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1.75em;"><span class="bctt-ctt-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; padding: 15px 0px; margin: 15px 0px; position: relative; line-height: 29.4px; word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none !important; border-bottom: none !important; box-shadow: none !important;">GAB placed a “large portion” of the emails into several folders titled, “Opposition Research” or “Senate Opposition Research.”</font></span><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://www.maciverinstitute.com/?p=37481&text=GAB%20placed%20a%20%E2%80%9Clarge%20portion%E2%80%9D%20of%20the%20emails%20into%20several%20folders%20titled%2C%20%E2%80%9COpposition%20Research%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9CSenate%20Opposition%20Research.%E2%80%9D&via=MacIverWisc&related=MacIverWisc" target="blank" class="bctt-ctt-btn" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: url(" img="img" birdy.png="birdy.png" right="right" top="top" px="px" no-repeat="no-repeat" transparent="transparent" margin="margin" padding="padding" position="position" relative="relative" display="display" block="block" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" float="float" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" important="important" border-bottom="border-bottom" box-shadow="box-shadow"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">CLICK TO TWEET</font></a></span><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John Doe investigators dug deep in their expansive </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“John Doe III” probe, obtaining through warrants electronic communications of the governor, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Oshkosh), former RNC chair Reince Priebus, U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, and state Sens. Van Wanggard and Howard Marklein. They also monitored the emails of conservative talk show hosts Vicki McKenna, Mark Belling, and Charlie Sykes, as well as former<b> MacIver Institute employee Brian Fraley.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The breadth of information and communications contained in the ‘Falk boxes,’ apparently as the result of the John Doe III investigation into Wisconsin Republicans, was breathtaking,” the attorney general’s report asserts. “Just to illustrate this point, the investigators obtained, categorized, and maintained over 150 personal emails between Senator Leah Vukmir and her daughter, including emails containing private medical information and other highly personal information.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“DOJ was unable to determine why investigators ever obtained, let alone saved and labeled, over 150 very private and very personal emails between a Senator and her child, or why investigators placed those emails in a folder named ‘Opposition Research,’” the report states.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Vukmir, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, was astounded in learning that she was spied on, but she vowed to fight against such “intrusive behavior.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<b>Attempting to bully her into silence will not work,</b>” said Vukmir campaign spokeswoman Jessica Ward. “Sen. Vukmir intends on exploring additional legislative or legal options to ensure this never occurs again, and that any individuals involved are held fully accountable.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the Vukmir emails were just the tip of the iceberg. The Department of Justice investigation found the John Doe probe swept up all kinds of private emails, including:</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Over 1,000 emails between a private bible study group called a “Life Group” at Blackhawk Church in Middleton, Wisconsin. The emails covered such subjects as “LG- He is risen,” “LG- helping out Mom,” “LG- Game Night,” “LG- Spiritual Formation,” “LG-The Spirit and Scripture,” “LG-New Sermon Series=Rainbows and Sugarplums,” and “[Redacted] Requests Prayer.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pictures of a woman who was purchasing a new dress, asking the email recipient how the dress looked on her.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> A string of 20 emails referencing a “Kenmore Mini Fridge” negotiation over Craigslist.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An email thanking the recipient for advice concerning the purchase of a Benelli over/under shotgun at Dick’s.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An email between parents discussing a daughter’s need for an OB-GYN.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An email regarding prescription medications needed.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A series of Google Chat logs between friends covering a variety of private topics, including whether the writer needs “to lose 20 lbs asap.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several emails between family members circulating drafts and corrections to a Christmas letter.</font></li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Department of Justice’s review of these emails did not find any unethical or illegal behavior by “any state official, employee, or other Wisconsin Republican apparently targeted in John Doe III.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DOJ investigators believe the leak to the Guardian was calculated to attempt to influence a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether to take up John Doe prosecutors request for review of the state court’s decision shutting down the investigation – and whether they could hold onto the possessions they illegally took.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The Guardian hit piece, with hundreds of pages of cherry-picked court documents, was published just days before the court unanimously rejected the case.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sloppy disregard for the security of the court-sealed John Doe documents – at the GAB and at the state Supreme Court office – left the DOJ unable to identify beyond a reasonable doubt who had access to the records, when the records where accessed or “who stole them,” according to the report.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s the scary footnote to a frightening report on government abuse: The Department of Justice cannot assure any John Doe II or III target that information illegally seized from them “will not be published on the Internet or by The Guardian at some future date.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Nor can DOJ assure any person whose information was gathered that they will not suffer from identity theft or face other adverse consequences as a result of the irresponsible way that GAB handled personal information,” the report states.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/as-the-government-accountability-board-ends-what-s-the-future">https://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/as-the-government-accountability-board-ends-what-s-the-future</a>/article_0f92ba73-528c-5250-a689-942ab1a7afe6.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As the Government Accountability Board ends, what's the future for Wisconsin campaign finance regulation?</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KATELYN FERRAL | The Capital Times | kferral@madison.com | @katelynferral Jun 20, 2016 </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government Accountability Board director Kevin Kennedy listens as Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester and Wisconsin Rep. Dean Knudson, R-Hudson, both not pictured, speak at a press conference in the State Capitol's Assembly Parlor in Madison, Wis., Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015. <b>Knudson and Vos unveiled their plan to split the GAB and overhaul campaign finance law, </b>Wednesday. M.P. KING -- State Journal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">M.P. KING -- State Journal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, the election and campaign agency that supporters laud as a pioneering success and critics call a failed experiment, ends this month after nearly a decade in existence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The board, born in bipartisanship from the state’s caucus scandal in 2001, when both parties ran political campaigns from the Capitol, was the only nonpartisan model of its kind in the country with six former judges appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the state Senate to oversee elections. It was armed with a budget unfettered by Legislative oversight to investigate campaign finance, ethics and lobbying complaints.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Its dissolution on June 30, which came with a <b>rewrite of the state’s campaign finance rules, signed into law earlier this year by Gov. Scott Walker,</b> is a necessary reform to some, but step backwards for others who question whether violations of campaign finance law will be aggressively policed and how citizens will know from where money flows to politicians</span>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">GAB, which oversaw historically tumultuous recall elections and joined an investigation into the 2012 recall campaign of Walker, is set to be replaced with separate ethics and elections boards. Lawmakers will have a bigger role in the agency charged with regulating them, with authority over the majority of the commissions’ appointees and its funding for investigations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“This is really a branch that has a strong legislative imprint, which can raise some serious separations of powers questions,</b>” said Kevin Kennedy, GAB’s outgoing director said in an interview. “This is really a big change. It’s bigger than the old model because of the legislative control and the very clear partisanship. How it’s going to play out, it’s going to be interesting to see.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kennedy, Wisconsin’s longest serving election official who is set to retire in two weeks, says <b>he doesn’t regret the boards’ investigation into coordination between conservative groups and Walker’s recall campaign with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office</b>. He warned the state’s next iteration of lobbying and ethics regulation will remain contested, as past models have, because deliberations will not be public.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republicans have criticized the board for operating unchecked in secret, launching expansive investigations with public money targeting their party. Republican legislative leaders and conservative groups have cast Kennedy as a liberal activist who unjustly targeted them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The only criticism I would have of the GAB structure is we forced too much of it to be behind closed doors,” Kennedy said. “None of that changes. None of the discussion is going to be public … this is no more transparent because you put an R and D above the decision makers because none of the processes have changed.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican lawmakers and conservative groups disagree. They designed the new model to be different and it will come with more citizen oversight, said <b>Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson) </b>who led the effort to dismantle the board and create a new model.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The concentration of all that power in one agency really led to problems no other state had ever done anything like that before,” said Knudson, who is retiring from the Legislature this year after three terms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He said the architects of the new model purposefully took what they learned from GAB and incorporated safeguards, including citizen appointees and Legislative review of the commissions’ rules to ensure better oversight.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new model will ensure that violations are properly investigated and not politicized, said Lucas Fuller, executive director of the <b>Wisconsin Alliance for Reform, a conservative advocacy group.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new model prevents “the organization from being weaponized by a political activist as we saw occur with the GAB,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new model will operate with clear guidance from the Legislature and updated campaign finance law, not with ad hoc rulemaking and an unlimited budget, he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re transitioning to a very common and proven system,” he said. “I have every confidence it will work well. By no means are we going back to what we had before.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics of the Walker administration’s handling of transparency and its changes to the campaign finance law balk at the idea that GAB was a failed experiment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The only thing that failed was that they didn’t do what you wanted them to do and they weren’t supposed to do what you wanted them to do,” said Jay Heck, executive director of <b>Common Cause </b>Wisconsin, which tracks campaign finance and elections issues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heck and others are concerned about how the new model will fare with the presidential and U.S. Senate election, the commission’s first significant test.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> It’s going to take an election cycle or two for that to play out for people to see how much money is flowing without public knowledge,” Heck said. “I think there’s only a matter of time before there’s another scandal.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics of the new model says it will have partisan gridlock akin to the Federal Election Commission.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The big problem with the bipartisan model is stalemate,” said Daniel Tokaji, a professor of law at The Ohio State University, at who has written several academic papers praising the GAB. “It becomes very difficult to take enforcement action. Politicians don’t like watchdogs, so this entity was set up to be a docile watchdog.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Knudson disagrees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I find people who bring that up to be stunningly disparaging to the citizens who have just accepted positions to these boards,” he said. “What you’re assuming is that they will fail to do their duty because they’ll be so blinded by partisan allegiance and I just don’t expect that to happen.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kennedy says he has continued to learn from his time as the state’s chief elections regulator, but said there is little in the way of the GAB’s major initiatives that he would have done differently.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is very little to criticize that is not coming from some personal bias … in the sense that it went against their self interest.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He said despite changes to the laws and the model of campaign finance and election regulation, Wisconsin’s culture of clean government remains entrenched among those who run for public office.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">OMG RIVKIN o'keefe]</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“There is less problems in Wisconsin than there are in other states</b> because there is a culture of asking for advice from the former ethics board, from the former elections board,” he said. “We shouldn’t overlook that. That doesn’t mean that its better moving forward, but we do start with a heads up than other states because we do have a culture and the people who run for office come from that. That’s why we don’t have three governors in jail like you do in Illinois.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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