People line up Wednesday morning at the clerk’s office of the Court of Appeals’ in Madison for the release of thousands of emails and other records that have been under court seal. The records open a new window into the years-long John Doe probe run by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. John Doe proceedings are often conducted in secret and give prosecutors the power to compel people to produce documents and testify. Credit: Dee J. Hall / Wisconsin State Journal

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Madison — Thousands of documents unsealed Wednesday link Gov. Scott Walker to a secret email system used in his office that would avoid public scrutiny when he was Milwaukee County executive.

The records also show that on the day before he was elected governor in 2010, the secret investigation into links between Walker's county government staff and his political campaign was widened to include four more aides. That same day, search warrants were executed on Walker's campaign and county offices, as well as the homes of some of his assistants.

The Republican governor spoke to the press only before the records were released, saying he was confident there wouldn't be anything damaging in them beyond what had already led to criminal charges against several former aides and appointees.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat whose office led the John Doe investigation, would not comment on the pre-election timing of the expansion of the investigation and searches, which included the seizure of computers.

The trove of documents unsealed by the courts Wednesday shows just how intertwined Walker's campaign operation was with his taxpayer-paid county staff in the months leading to the November 2010 general election.

It is against state law in Wisconsin for public employees to work for political parties and campaigns while being paid by taxpayers to provide government services.

Throughout the secret investigation, Walker said he had zero tolerance for government employees doing campaign work while on the clock. But the newly released records detail almost daily interactions between his top county and campaign staffers.

Walker used his campaign email to communicate with his county aides, who frequently used their own private email accounts when interacting with Walker or his campaign — all of which would shield their discussions from the public.

"Consider yourself now in the 'inner circle,'" Walker's administration director, Cynthia Archer, wrote to Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch just after the two exchanged a text message in March 2010.

"I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli. You should be sure you check it throughout the day," she wrote, referring to Walker by his initials and to Walker's then-chief of staff, Tom Nardelli.

Court documents have previously shown Walker's aides set up a secret wireless router in the county executive's office and traded emails that mixed county and campaign business on Gmail and Yahoo accounts.

The raft of documents were unsealed Wednesday as part of Rindfleisch's appeal of her 2012 conviction of misconduct in office for doing campaign work on county time.

The records open a new window into the yearslong John Doe probe run by Chisholm. John Doe proceedings are often conducted in secret and give prosecutors the power to compel people to produce documents and testify.

They also reveal a frenzy of activity by prosecutors and investigators on Nov. 1, 2010, the day before Walker was elected governor. Just before prosecutors launched their raids that day, John Doe Judge Neal Nettesheim agreed to their request to enlarge the probe to include Rindfleisch and three other top aides in the Milwaukee County executive's office — Nardelli; Fran McLaughlin, his spokeswoman; and Dorothy Moore, his scheduler.

Of that group, only Rindfleisch was charged. McLaughlin was eventually given immunity. Moore now serves as Walker's scheduler in the governor's office.

The revelation of the expansion of the investigation and the pre-election raids come as Walker's allies increasingly allege the probe was politically motivated by Chisholm and other Democrats.

Walker on Wednesday downplayed his relationship with Rindfleisch, his former deputy chief of staff, and said he would stay focused on cutting taxes and creating jobs.

"This is going to be communications from a county employee from several years ago that went through a legal process that concluded early last year. I'm confident that through that process they were able to review each of those communications — the authorities were — and they concluded that process last March," Walker said.

When word of the secret email system was first disclosed in January 2012, Walker declined to tell reporters whether he knew about it, saying he couldn't comment while the investigation was ongoing.

In the secret hearing held the day before the election, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf presented evidence to expand the scope of the investigation and secure a host of search warrants. During his presentation, investigator David Budde testified that the use of the private email system was common among Walker's top assistants.

"Did you find any emails written by the county executive himself suggesting that there may have been use of county laptops in the — personal laptops in the county executive's office?" Landgraf asked.

"Yes," replied Budde, who later came under fire from conservatives for having a sign in his front yard in support of recalling Walker.

Landgraf provided the judge with a bundle of emails and other supporting documents, tagging them as exhibits SW1 through SW71.

Some of the documents unsealed Wednesday showed how focused prosecutors were on the secret email system. County staff responsible for responding to public records requests were unaware of the system, meaning they had no way of checking it when reporters, political opponents or members of the public sought information about county business that must be made available under the state's open records law.

Wednesday's records give the clearest view yet of how the system was used and how Walker's aides changed their habits as investigators looked into the issue.

On May 13, 2010 — three days after prosecutors launched their probe — the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Walker aide Darlene Wink spent much of her time at her county-paid job posting pro-Walker comments online. She resigned that same day, and the next day prosecutors seized her work computer.

That night — in an email previously made public — Walker wrote to Timothy D. Russell, a longtime campaign and county aide. Russell was later convicted of stealing more than $21,000 from a veterans group that Walker named him to head.

"We cannot afford another story like this one," Walker wrote Russell in one previously disclosed email. "No one can give them any reason to do another story. That means no laptops, no websites, no time away during the work day, etc."

"The significance of this email is that it shows that the county executive would appear to be aware that laptops were used in the county executive's office for accessing things on non-county networks," Budde testified.

"And it also is very significant because it shows that the various members of the county executive staff worked in concert to conceal laptops and/or networks — wireless networks that were in existence in that office suite, and these items were not present when we did our search warrant later in the day on May 14, 2010."

Days later, on May 18, 2010, Archer wrote to campaign and county staff and said she would no longer be checking her private email account, telling people to contact her on her cellphone for urgent matters.

"The significance of this email is that it shows that the people addressed on this email are acting in concert with the county executive staff to find alternative ways to communicate using private email during the work day," Budde testified. "This also is a direct admission that Archer was using private email during the work day."

The records immediately became political fodder as Walker pursues re-election this fall and is routinely named as a potential contender for president in 2016.

"As scandals continue to unfold in front of him, they beg more questions than I'm sure the governor would like to answer," said Democratic National Committee chairwoman and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

In his comments to reporters before the documents became available, Walker blasted Democrats for hyping the release of the emails and for holding a conference call for reporters with Wasserman Schultz, who was in Madison for a fundraiser.

"It shows the cynicism we see in politics today," Walker said. "These are people who are naysayers who want something bad to happen in Wisconsin."

The records make clear that Walker's campaign staff and county team were in constant communication in the months leading up to the 2010 primary and general election.

According to prosecutors, Rindfleisch had nearly 5,700 email exchanges withthe campaign staff of Walker and then-Rep. Brett Davis (R-Oregon), who was running for lieutenant governor. Davis lost the primary in September 2010 but went on to serve in Walker's administration as Medicaid director.

The emails cover most of 2010, from late January up to the November election, and were so voluminous that a team of 11 reporters was unable to read all of them on Wednesday.

Some exchanges were frank, with Rindfleisch describing in a February 2010 email how she set up numerous email accounts, writing she had established one through Gmail so she could see messages more quickly.

"This one I'm using on my laptop to do things I shouldn't be doing on my county computer," she wrote.

Another exchange, in April 2010, showed Nardelli and Walker's campaign manager, Keith Gilkes, arranged for daily 8 a.m. conference calls between the campaign and key county staff.

Order to unseal

Chisholm closed the John Doe probe in March 2013. But seven months earlier, he opened a second John Doe investigation, looking into campaign spending and fundraising in recall elections. That second investigation is ongoing, and Rindfleisch also is caught up in that one. It is not known why she is a subject of that probe.

(The latest investigation has been targeted in a spate of legal challenges, with three lawsuits filed in as many months in attempts to halt it.)

Rindfleisch was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation after she pleaded guilty in 2012 to one felony count of misconduct in office for doing campaign work at her government job.

Despite her guilty plea, Rindfleisch under state law is allowed to appeal her conviction based on the scope of the search warrants used against her.

She argues her conviction should be thrown out because the search warrants were so broad as to be unconstitutional.

Sealed documents from the investigation were added to the case file last year at the request of the state Department of Justice so it could more effectively argue the scope of the search warrants was appropriate.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, Associated Press and other media groups intervened in the case in an effort to make the records public.

The records have previously been unavailable because of secrecy orders issued by the John Doe judge. Rindfleisch argued the secrecy order remained in place, while the media groups contended the records should be public.

Appeals Court Judge Patricia Curley issued a decision last week requiring that the documents be unsealed Wednesday because an array of records collected as part of a criminal investigation are routinely included in court files and must be available to the public except in unusual circumstances.

Journal Sentinel reporters Jason Stein in Madison and Steve Schultze, Lee Bergquist, Don Walker, James B. Nelson, Tom Kertscher and Dave Umhoefer in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

Twitter: twitter.com/patrickdmarley