In a desperate move to stall the John Doe investigation into Scott Walker's campaign activities when Walker was the Milwaukee County Executive, a defense attorney for one of the possible John Doe targets has requested that the Republican Attorney General of Wisconsin investigate the investigators.
Paul Bucher is a defense attorney and a former Waukesha County District Attorney. He ran for the Republican nomination for state Attorney General in 2006 but lost. He represents at least one person who has had contact with the John Doe investigators but Bucher has not named his client.
Bucher's complaint is lodged against the office of the Milwaukee County District Attorney, John Chisholm, which is running the John Doe investigation. Bucher wants the Wisconsin Department of Justice to take over the investigation.
Maybe Bucher doesn't remember that Chisholm's office actually asked for the DOJ's assistance shortly after the investigation began in 2010. Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen declined to assist Chisholm's office at that time. In fact, the head of the DOJ's Criminal Investigations Department wrote in an internal email later obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "This is one to try and stay away from. I can't see any good coming from it."
Here is the first page of the letter. The entire letter can be viewed here.
Bucher raises the strawman argument about employees from the Milwaukee County DA's office signing recall petitions against Scott Walker having a conflict of interest. The DA's office has indicated that nobody who allegedly signed the petition is working on the John Doe probe.
The complaint will go nowhere, and is most likely part of an effort to confuse the public about the investigation and smear the Milwaukee County DA before Walker faces a recall election on June 5th.
Disgusting, isn't it?
More info from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
UPDATE 1:05 p.m. CDT...Well, that didn't take long. Attorney General's office says No.
From the Journal Sentinel's updated article:
"Our office receives many letters from many people and we do our best to respond to all of them," Dana Brueck, a Justice Department spokeswoman, wrote in an email to the Journal Sentinel. "Among other things, our response to Mr. Bucher will inform him that we simply don’t have the legal authority to take John Doe investigations away from elected District Attorneys."
Which, as a former county DA himself, Bucher already knew, proving that it is Bucher who is behaving like a partisan ass. I can't wait to read the "other things" the DOJ will add to their response to Bucher. How do you say STFU in legalese?