Walker downplayed the court-ordered release of the emails. Dems hope emails embarrass Walker

A former aide to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker appeared to suggest that he was involved in a secret email system where staffers blended official and campaign business, and another former aide passed along a derogatory email about religious and ethnic groups, according to documents released Wednesday.

A court ordered the documents — which included some 27,000 emails from a convicted former aide to Walker — to become public, shedding light on a past probe of the Republican’s camp. Walker himself was never charged with any wrongdoing and has said he did not believe he was a target of the probe, which ended last year, but the release of the documents fueled Democratic hopes of embarrassing the potential 2016 presidential candidate.


The emails come from the computers of Walker’s former deputy chief of staff in the Milwaukee County executive’s office, Kelly Rindfleisch, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Rindfleisch is appealing her 2012 conviction on a felony count of “misconduct in office” for doing political work in her official capacity, the Journal Sentinel reported. Five others also were charged.

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The March 2010 message regarding the secret email system came from Cynthia “Cindy” Archer, an aide to Walker when he was the Milwaukee County executive, according to an initial review by the Journal Sentinel. Archer was not charged with any wrongdoing.

“Consider yourself now in the ‘inner circle,’” Archer reportedly told Rindfleisch. “I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW” — Walker’s initials.

The Journal Sentinel called the email “the closest link yet” between the governor and the previously disclosed system.

Archer is currently listed as director of the administrative services division in the Wisconsin state public defender’s office. She did not immediately return a phone message there on Wednesday.

The newly released emails and related documents also show that a judge widened the investigation one day before Walker won the governor’s race in 2010, according to the Journal Sentinel.

And they include a derogatory chain email forwarded to unidentified people in July 2010 by Tom Nardelli, chief of staff to Walker when he served as the Milwaukee County executive.

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“I can handle being a black, disabled, one armed, drug-addicted, Jewish homosexual on a pacemaker who is HIV positive, bald, orphaned, unemployed, lives in a slum, and has a Mexican boyfriend, but please, Oh dear God, please don’t tell me I’m a Democrat!” said the email, according to a copy posted by the Journal Sentinel.

Walker’s spokesman, Jonathan Wetzel, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Archer’s or Nardelli’s emails. Nardelli did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

However, earlier Wednesday, the governor’s office downplayed the court-ordered records release as news organizations that had argued for the documents to become public began poring over them.

“The recently released communications of a county staffer from several years ago are part of a legal process that was completed early last year,” Wetzel said in an email to POLITICO. “Governor Walker is confident that during that legal process, these communications were thoroughly reviewed by the authorities. The focus of Governor Walker remains on moving Wisconsin forward by helping employers create more jobs and reducing the tax burden on Wisconsin families.”

A second probe into recall election fundraising reportedly is ongoing in Wisconsin, though details are sparse. Walker survived a recall attempt in 2011, spurred by his move to limit public union bargaining rights.

National Democratic groups highlighted the release of the emails and documents, with Democratic Governors Association spokesman Danny Kanner emailing reporters to wish them “happy digging.”

Walker is up for reelection this year and is expected to visit Washington this weekend as an annual gathering of the nation’s governors gets underway

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