John D'oh! Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP's No Good, Very Bad Week

WISCONSIN -- It's a stunning amount of documentation that has never seen the light of day...until now.

For years, the sordid facts contained in a secret John Doe investigation related to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin GOP campaign activities have been hidden from public view.

This week, The Guardian obtained 1,500 pages of leaked documents assembled by Wisconsin prosecutors during the John Doe investigation into alleged campaign finance violations in Wisconsin. According to The Guardian, these documents include legal filings held under seal and email exchanges between Walker, his team of advisers, and lobbyist groups.

It is not clear how The Guardian obtained the documents, but you can read each and every one of them here:

1,500 pages of John Doe Filings

You can read the full report by The Guardian here:

"Because Scott Walker Asked"

Five takeaways from the Guardian's report

1) Wisconsin Club for Growth's Dubious Role: John Doe prosecutors noted that when campaign donations came in, they did not go directly to Walker's personal campaign committee, Friends of Scott Walker. Said The Guardian, "The prosecutors alleged in court filings published by The Guardian for the first time that Walker's campaign found a way around Wisconsin campaign disclosure laws by banking the corporate cash through the third-party group, Wisconsin Club for Growth."

2) Fifth Avenue Shakedown: Two months before Gov. Walker faced his June 2012 recall election, Walker flew to New York for a rapid-fire string of fundraising meetings with big money donors. Said The Guardian, "He traveled the length of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, making stops at the investment bank Morgan Stanley, a hedge fund, a corporate law firm, and the residence of publishing tycoon Steve Forbes. He also enjoyed a 45-minute audience with Donald Trump in his Fifth Avenue lair.

3) Walker himself funneled money into Wisconsin Club for Growth: Walker said this in an email obtained by The Guardian referencing a 2011 big-time donation: “Also, I got $1m from John Menard today”. Said The Guardian, "Eight days later a check for $1m is cut on a corporate check of Menard Inc, the billionaire John Menard's home improvement chain Menards, and made out not to the governor's campaign committee but to Wisconsin Club for Growth." It was a secret until this week.

4) Walker Boasts Wisconsin Club for Growth Key to Retaining Friendly Judge: David Prosser was one of the four conservative judges who approved the July 2015 ruling that terminated the John Doe investigation. Said The Guardian, "When Prosser was re-elected, it was with a squeaky-tight margin of just 7,000 votes and after a fraught recount. The following month, Walker boasted to the Republican kingmaker, Karl Rove, “Club for Growth–Wisconsin was the key to retaining Justice Prosser."

5) Lead Paint Pay for Play: The John Doe files reveal that the billionaire owner of NL Industries, one of America's leading producers of lead used in paint, secretly donated $750,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth during Walker's recall. Said The Guardian, "Also in the same time-frame, the Republican-controlled senate passed, and Walker signed into law, legal changes that attempted to grant effective immunity to lead manufacturers from any compensation claims for lead paint poisoning."

Next Steps

The Supreme Court will decide later in September whether to intervene in the John Doe case. Until then, its legal status is essentially up in the air.

But Wait, There's More

A deeper dive into The Guardian's 1,500 pages of leaked documents reveals that in 2011, Republican Operatives were planning to push the narrative of "Widespread voter fraud," even before the final tallies were available. The documents appear [in this Prosser file].

Image via Michael Vadon, used under Creative Commons