With borrowing and acknowledgements to Cartoon Peril for Scottenfreude, the emotion of taking glee at the travails of Scott Walker.
Walker's been trying to say he doesn't really have much to do with Tim Russell and Brian Pierick, two of the three who've been charged in the ongoing John Doe investigation against Walker.
Other excellent diaries have outlined the basic case. I've read through Russell & Pierick's indictments, and I feel another wave of Scöttenfreude building below the cheese squiggle. Along with a wave of nausea at the abuse of trust by these individuals.
Why is Walker trying to run away? Well, Pierick has been charged with enticement of a minor. (Warning - indictment NSFW). If you read the indictment, his partner and Walker's aide while Milwaukee County executive, Russell, is in just as deep. The indictment contains some rather disturbing emails, texts, and chats between the two regarding a 17 year old boy, and between Pierick and the boy. Very disturbing.
But that's just titillation, just a little spice to get the MSM interested in the story. Let's forget the tawdry sex for awhile. Russell's indictment is a bigger blow. Russell has been charged with embezzling money from a charity event that was supposed to go to veterans and their families. Who took the finances away from a local American Legion post and transferred control to Russell? Scott Walker.
Scotty's trying to put distance between himself & Tim & Brian. Scott, you can run, but the internets are gonna get you.
Item #1. A photo of Scott with his two campaign buddies, Tim and Brian, back from 2002. I'd put the photo here, but you know, it's currently running on the Wisconsin State Journal's website, and we like to respect intellectual property. It's obvious that they've known each other for a while.
Now, let's go over Russell's indictment, shall we?
Item #2. Theft from campaign committee "Friends of Chris Kujawa" and Heritage Guard
Chris Kujawa ran for Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors in 2007. Pierick was the treasurer, but Russell had exclusive control of the funds. Kujawa loaned the campaign committee $3000. When he asked for it to be repaid, it took two years for Russell to repay. He finally paid by using money from the Heritage Guard Preservation Society, which was running Operation Freedom.
Operation Freedom was Walker's annual event to honor military veterans. Finances had been run by the Alonzo Cudsworth American Legion post, which the indictment states did an exemplary job. In 2009 Walker transferred those funds to the Heritage Guard, controlled by Russell:
To ensure its continued operation and success, I have identified a nonprofit corporation to which I am transferring Operation Freedom. While I have created and supported Operation Freedom, its existence and success should not depend upon me. The new structure will allow the community to take ownership of it
memo from County Executive Walker to the Cudworth post, from the indictment
Through 2010 County executive employees (remember Walker was county executive) processed the donation payments and put them in the Heritage Guard account.
Russell spent $20K of these funds for his vacations with his partner Pierick, including a nice little ocean cruise. All of the details are in Russell's indictment.
Item #3. But wait! It wasn't just a vacation!
In the August 2010 Guaranty Bank statement for the HGPS (Heritage Guard) account, I noted the following additional transactions: (1) an August 23, 2010 POS transaction with Godaddy in the amount of $145.28; (2) an August 23, 2010 POS transaction with Godaddy in the amount of $58.38;
The GoDaddy records show that the payments were for the renewal of multiple domain names including "scottforgov" and "scott4gov" and other variants with .net, .com, .info, and .org suffixes. This embezzled money was used for Walker's campaign expenses.
Item #4 Uppity Wisconsin has been doing some digging, too. Russell was the treasurer for the Milwaukee County Republican Party (he he - wonder if they should take a look at their books?).
He also owned the registration for Scott Walker's website, scottwalker.org. You don't put this into the hands of people you don't trust.
Mr. Russell's behavior is no surprise when you find that he was terminated for improper use of a credit card by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Agency (WHEDA). For the modern GOP, that's not a bug in an aide, that's a feature.
Thanks for bearing with. I didn't include everything, like using purloined funds to meet with Herman Cain about his run for president. (Really, you can't make this up.) And I haven't even looked at the third indictment against Kevin Kavanaugh, who allegedly embezzled money meant for the children of Wisconsin service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. (I'll leave that for your reading and posting in the comments.)
The entire indictment is, well, an indictment, not only against Mr. Russell but against a man of questionable ethics, Scott Walker. A man who believes that the ends justify the means, and that rules are for the little people. A man who defines the term "hubris".