The investigation began as Walker was facing a recall election in 2012. Walker allegedly in 'criminal scheme'

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker participated in a “criminal scheme” to coordinate fundraising for Republicans trying to beat back efforts to recall him and state senators from office, local prosecutors argue in court documents released Thursday.

Walker, his chief of staff and others were involved in the coordination effort with “a number of national groups and prominent figures,” including Karl Rove, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz alleged.


“[T]he evidence shows an extensive coordination scheme that pervaded nearly every aspect of the campaign activities during the historic 2011 and 2012 Wisconsin Senate and Gubernatorial recall elections,” Schmitz wrote in a December motion, on behalf of five attorneys from some of the state’s most liberal counties, just now unsealed by an appellate court judge.

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The political fallout for the likely 2016 presidential candidate is unclear. Walker has denied wrongdoing, and no charges have been filed. But Thursday’s development thrusts an investigation into his political activities that had gone dormant back into the news as the governor is locked in a neck-and-neck race for a second full term. And Democrats were quick to pounce.

The newly released court papers came in response to a lawsuit by the Wisconsin Club for Growth and its director against the prosecutors. The group has argued that it was unfairly targeted by subpoenas and that its First Amendment rights were infringed as a result.

A U.S. district judge ruled in favor of the group last month, in a decision that halted the investigation into possible illegal coordination and represented a victory for Walker. A federal appeals judge is now reviewing that ruling.

“The investigation focuses on a wide-ranging scheme to coordinate activities of several organizations with various candidate committees to thwart attempts to recall Wisconsin Senate and Gubernatorial candidates,” Schmitz wrote. “That coordination included a nationwide effort to raise undisclosed funds for an organization which then funded the activities of other organizations supporting or opposing candidates subject to recall. The subpoenas are necessarily broad in an effort to collect additional evidence because the coordination activities were extensive and involving at least a dozen sepatate organizations.”

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Schmitz, who spent 30 years in the Wisconsin U.S. attorney’s office, was appointed by a judge in August 2013 as a special prosecutor to lead the five-county investigation.

“The conduct under investigation clearly violates Wisconsin law and the subpoenas do not infringe on constitutionally protected speech or activity,” he argued.

Schmitz seems to have focused in on R.J. Johnson in their investigation, who is linked with outside groups and played an official, paid role on Walker’s campaign. One of the emails obtained via subpoena was from Walker to Rove, the GOP rainmaker. The full May 4, 2011, message is not being made public but the prosecutor quotes from it.

“Bottom-line: R.J. helps keep in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin,” the governor wrote Rove. “We are running 9 recall elections and it will be like running 9 Congressional markets in every market in the state (and Twin Cities.)”

This refers not to Walker’s own recall, but the union-led effort to remove state senators who had backed Walker’s controversial budget to limit the collective bargaining power of public employees. Several big outside groups spent heavily to protect the Republicans.

Schmitz argues that, for all practical purposes, Johnson controlled the Wisconsin Club for Growth and that he used it as “the hub” for a coordinated campaign between 501(c)(4)’s and the Walker campaign.

“Notably, prior to the 2011 Wisconsin Senate recall elections, the national Club for Growth organization raised concerns about coordination or interaction between [the Wisconsin chapter] and [the Walker campaign] as early as 2009,” Schmitz writes.

The Wisconsin Club for Growth said in its own motion that “armed officers raided the homes of R.J. Johnson, WCFG advisor Deborah Jordahl, and several other targets across the state” early one morning last October. The group’s lawyers argued in court filings that there was “frivolous” overreach in the investigation that amounts to prosecutorial misconduct.

Walker’s campaign, which is not a party to the case, pointed to its victories at the lower court level.

“The Friends of Scott Walker campaign are not party to the federal suit and have no control over any documents in that suit,” campaign spokeswoman Alleigh Marre emailed. “Two judges have rejected the characterizations disclosed in those documents.”

But Democrats seized on the court records disclosed Thursday.

“While the seemingly incriminating email to Karl Rove should satisfy the Beltway-centric appetite, the real potential political fallout involves Walker’s already tenuous reelection prospects, not the 2016 race for the White House,” the Democratic Governors Association said in a statement.

On May 6, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa granted a preliminary injunction against the five county-level prosecutors from continuing their so-called John Doe investigation. Randa, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1992, ordered that all property seized in the investigation be returned and said the conservative groups don’t need to cooperate.

Frank Easterbrook, the judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals who is reviewing the decision, was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1985.

Looking ahead, if the injunction remains in place, Walker will claim vindication. If Easterbrook reverses the lower court and allows the investigation to proceed, it could mean charges against Walker allies or at the very least hang over Walker in this year’s election and 2016.