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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Wisconsin AG Seeks Probe of Scott Walker Leak

MADISON, Wis. (CN) — Responding to a damning article on Gov. Scott Walker's campaign finances, Wisconsin's Republican attorney general asked the state's highest court to investigate the source of the information.

Brad Schimel sent a letter Thursday to conservative Chief Judge Patience Drake Roggensack of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, requesting a special master to see to the final disposition of the case and all related evidence.

After the conservative-majority Supreme Court officially ended John Doe II, a secret investigation into possible campaign law violations by Walker and third-party groups, the very evidence it ordered handed over or destroyed appeared as source material in a news article on The Guardian's website.

The article, published Sept. 14, suggests that what special prosecutor Francis Schmitz and several elected Democrats had alleged is true: Walker's campaign skirted donor disclosure laws by illegally coordinating with third-party groups that are not required to disclose the source of their money.

The article includes emails explicitly stating that Walker told donors to give to these groups for this very reason, along with the image of one check, written to the now-notorious Wisconsin Club for Growth, with a memo reading "Because Scott Walker asked."

Schimel points to this article in his letter as evidence that state prosecutors have disobeyed court orders to divest themselves of all evidence from the case, and offered support from the Wisconsin Department of Justice to investigate the matter.

"It is important that all involved, directly and the public in general, have confidence in the final results of this process," Schimel wrote.

To that end, he requested that the investigator be given the power to issue subpoenas to compel attendance and testimony.

After the Guardian article was published, the U.S. Supreme Court passed on the prosecution's request to review the John Doe II case, which was rife with accusations of political, judicial and prosecutorial bias throughout from both sides.

As is custom, the U.S. Supreme Court did not comment on its refusal to consider the case.

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