It looks like Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is up late. He just posted a story on the newspapers web site on Sunday, February 5, at 10:37 PM Central time. I can't tell you why I wandered over there, having read the paper today, but I'm glad I did.
Scott Walker and his 2 new criminal defense attorneys are going to meet with John Chisholm, Milwaukee County District Attorney today (Monday).
Walkers announcement on Friday that he was "volunteering" to meet with John Doe prosecutors "to aid them in their investigation" was met with more than a few guffaws by those of us who have followed Walker in the slow motion train wreck that has been his governing of Wisconsin for a little more than a year. My chuckle at the "volunteering" part comes from my experience working as a Registered Nurse for Milwaukee County for almost 3 decades and needing to retire early largely due to his malfunctioning management.
Throughout the secret investigation, Walker has defended himself and proclaimed that he does not believe he is the target. But he has said little about the former and current aides caught up in the 20-month probe.
Ciara Matthews, spokeswoman for Walker's campaign, did not return messages last week.
As of today, no calls made by reporters since last week to the Governors office have been returned. However, Walker has made himself increasingly unavailable to Wisconsin media and has turned to RW talk radio for friendly interviews, appearing frequently each week with Milwaukee hate radio shills Mark Belling on WISN radio and Charlie Sykes on WTMJ radio.
I'm divided in my opinion on whether he was invited, subpoened, or truly volunteered to see the prosecutors. With the late addition of 2 criminal defense lawyers, it could be that he was summoned. However, Walker is arrogant enough to believe that he's smarter than just about anyone else, so volunteering might gain him some insight or, at least, some talking points about "cooperating wit the investigation" to crow about.
Listen to what Mike Papantonio had to say about people "volunteering" to see prosecutors:
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Scott Walker doesn't volunteer, doesn't resign, doesn't compromise, doesn't discuss. It's his way or the highway. Always. This is why qualifications, experience, and education don't matter for the people he hires or appoints. The only thing they need to have is complete and total loyalty and blind obedience to Scott Walker.
He's also a major hypocrite. He loves recalls when he benefits from them (like the recall of the Milwaukee County Executive that set up a special election where he ran and won the office for himself). Not so much when his butt is on the line. Now, he's all huffy about the recall process and tried to ram through changes to the recall process (such as requiring that each page of signatures be notarized) that would make it much, much harder to recall an elected official.
Someone clever even used an old Walker ad which supported recalls to point out the hypocrisy:
Now that's Scottenfreuden!
Another bit of hypocrisy was what Bice was talking about in his article. In 2006, as Governor Jim Doyle was running for re-election, then-U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic (appointed under President George W. Bush and who now represents Walker's campaign) jumped juristictions to charge Georgia Thompson, a civil service employee in charge of state travel, with steering state contracts to her old travel firm (even though state law requires that contracts be awarded to the lowest bidder, which Adelman was in the contract in question). Why Biskupic, who was the Milwaukee US attorney, filed the charges rather than the US Attorney in Madison who would handle any state complaints, remains an unanswered question and the stench of political prosecution is still there regarding this case.
However, the rapid trial, conviction and immediate imprisonment despite the normal release during appeal process left the bad taste of politics in everyones mouth. That foul taste and smell was quickly verified as a relentless series of attack ads charged Doyle with running a corrupt administration.
Walker went on the attack against Doyle, even though Thompson was a civil service employee who was hired in 2001 under Gov. Scott McCallum, a Republican.
"Today's indictment provides further confirmation that the Doyle administration is damaged and must be removed from the Capitol," said Walker, a Wauwatosa Republican, of his Democratic predecessor. "Governor Doyle needs to purge his administration of individuals who place politics and special interests ahead of the people of Wisconsin."
Walker went on to call on Doyle to adopt a series of reforms that the candidate was proposing.
After the election which Doyle handily won, an appealate court found the case against Ms. Thompson to be so lacking in evidence that they ordered her immediate release from prison.
Of course, none of that mattered to Walker who only wanted to make political hay out of what still looks to be a warrantlessl prosecution of a low level civil servant in order to attack a Democratic Governor during his re-election. He got his licks in.
However, the John Doe Probe here involves Walkers own close personal staff and high level aides, not some random civil servant in an office in the basement. Too bad there isn't a Democrat out there ready to hammer Walker the way he, a Republican State Legislator at the time, pummelled the then Governor.
Then again, Republicans always get their remarks, talking points, and attacks published in our RW and RW leaning media here. Not so much with any criticism of Republicans.
OK, I'm finished for now fleshing this out. Sorry for the frequent updates as I continued to post, but I wanted to get this out to Kossacks before they made their way to bed. I would recommend reading the article I linked to at the top. It's quite well done.
UPDATE: Scott Walker did not meet with prosecutors today, but did speak out about the meeting. He now admits he was "invited" to meet with Chris Chisholm.
Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Monday that prosecutors initiated the upcoming meeting they will have with him as part of the John Doe investigation about activities that occurred during Walker's tenure as Milwaukee County executive.
"Up until now, we've provided written documentation (from the campaign)," Walker said during a briefing with reporters in Waukesha. "They'd like to talk to us about what they've found and what additional help we can provide."
In his five-minute briefing on Monday, the first-term governor wouldn't say when he was to meet with Chisholm, except that the sit-down would not occur Monday.
"That's up to the district attorney to announce."
Here's another
link.
I feel let down. I've been looking for updates on this all day. And anticipating (or dreaming about) the outcome.
At least we know that the "volunteering" part was Walker BS.
I'll keep looking for a leaked date for this event and keep following the John Doe Probe among other goings on in Wisconsin.
Major Update: An earlier version of this post was picked up and published on Alternet. I didn't realize this until I got an email from a friend who was astounded. Me, too!