3670
(0 votes, average 0 out of 5)
Written by Cory Liebmann
Sep 22, 2011
Gov. Scott Walker’s tenure has been marked by very low approval ratings, an extremist agenda and a worsening unemployment rate.
If that isn’t bad enough, now we are seeing headlines involving a John Doe investigation and the FBI searching the home of a top Walker aide. John Doe investigations are secret proceedings. Witnesses can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify under oath, and they’re forbidden from talking publicly about the case.
On Sept. 14, reports surfaced that officers with the FBI and other agencies were searching the home of Walker’s former deputy administration secretary Cynthia Archer. She recently resigned from that post but still is part of the administration. The raid of her home appears to be a part of a John Doe investigation that is certainly nothing new.
Over the past 16 months, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice has repeatedly reported on the existence of a John Doe investigation. It appears to involve Walker’s campaign and a number of his former Milwaukee County staff.
Based on the reports of the investigation, at least one element appears to deal with campaigning done by Walker staffers while they were at their county jobs, which are paid for by taxpayers. In fact, one of Walker’s former Milwaukee County aides, Darlene Wink, resigned last year when she was confronted with that issue.
The Walker campaign must be taking this investigation seriously because they have retained the services of an expensive law firm.
These recent developments shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who paid close attention to Walker and his Milwaukee County administration. Although he originally campaigned on ending cronyism, in many ways he perfected the practice. He went further than anyone before him in blurring the lines between his various campaigns and county government.
Throughout his tenure as Milwaukee County executive, Walker provided high profile county jobs to his long list of campaign cronies and other supporters. Many of them were cycled back and forth between his campaigns and official county positions.
These campaign cronies were effective at getting Walker elected, but many were not so great at their cushy county jobs. The county’s economic development division repeatedly had problems while Walker’s campaign cronies ran it, including multimillion-dollar deficits. Eventually the division became such a failure that Walker eliminated it.
Unfortunately not even that disaster stopped him from continually cycling these and other campaign cronies into taxpayer-funded jobs.
Hopefully the John Doe investigation is looking into how Walker’s political cronies were handling things like open records requests sent to his county administration. When political opponents sent requests for records, they were often met with deception and obstacles. One incident led to a rebuke of the Walker administration by an assistant attorney general.
Last year, when the anonymous blog “ScottforGov” sent in a records request to the Walker administration, it received the documents with lighting speed and at no charge. But the administration took months and charged hundreds of dollars to requests from others. The “ScottforGov” example is even more disturbing because this cult-like blog was taken down very quickly after serious questions were raised about Walker cronies possibly campaigning on county time. Many found the timing very telling.
Clearly investigators in this John Doe investigation believe they are on to something big. Otherwise, It would be hard to justify a 16-month investigation and raids of homes.
