Judge Blocks Anti-Conservative Witch-Hunt in Wisconsin | FrontPage Magazine
By Arnold Ahlert On May 8, 2014
The relentless efforts by Wisconsin leftists to undermine Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow conservatives—by any means necessary—has taken another hit. In a 26-page decision, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa granted a preliminary injunction halting a politically-motivated John Doe investigation that probed campaign spending and fundraising by Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, Eric O’Keefe, his Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCFG), and other conservative entities. “The Defendants must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation,” Randa wrote.
Randa illuminated his contempt for the investigation. “The defendants are pursuing criminal charges through a secret John Doe investigation against the plaintiffs for exercising issue advocacy speech rights that on their face are not subject to the regulations or statutes the defendants seek to enforce.This legitimate exercise of O‘Keefe‘s rights as an individual, and WCFG‘s rights as a 501(c)(4) corporation, to speak on the issues has been characterized by the defendants as political activity covered by Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin Statutes, rendering the plaintiffs a subcommittee of the Friends of Scott Walker (―FOSW‖) and requiring that money spent on such speech be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution. This interpretation is simply wrong.”
As a result, Randa ordered that the plaintiffs “and others” are “hereby relieved of any and every duty under Wisconsin law to cooperate further with Defendants‘ investigation. Any attempt to obtain compliance by any Defendant or John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson is grounds for a contempt finding by this Court.”
The ruling completely undermines the efforts of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, who launched the probe in mid-2012, shortly after Democrats’ failure to remove Walker in a recall election prompted by the passage of Act 10. That piece of legislation limited the power of unions to collectively bargain, setting the stage for a ferocious pushback that included Democratic state legislators fleeing the state to prevent a vote on the issue, an effort to effect a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the purpose of overturning the law, and the attempt to remove Walker in the aforementioned recall vote that ultimately failed.
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Randa illuminated his contempt for the investigation. “The defendants are pursuing criminal charges through a secret John Doe investigation against the plaintiffs for exercising issue advocacy speech rights that on their face are not subject to the regulations or statutes the defendants seek to enforce.This legitimate exercise of O‘Keefe‘s rights as an individual, and WCFG‘s rights as a 501(c)(4) corporation, to speak on the issues has been characterized by the defendants as political activity covered by Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin Statutes, rendering the plaintiffs a subcommittee of the Friends of Scott Walker (―FOSW‖) and requiring that money spent on such speech be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution. This interpretation is simply wrong.”
As a result, Randa ordered that the plaintiffs “and others” are “hereby relieved of any and every duty under Wisconsin law to cooperate further with Defendants‘ investigation. Any attempt to obtain compliance by any Defendant or John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson is grounds for a contempt finding by this Court.”
The ruling completely undermines the efforts of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, who launched the probe in mid-2012, shortly after Democrats’ failure to remove Walker in a recall election prompted by the passage of Act 10. That piece of legislation limited the power of unions to collectively bargain, setting the stage for a ferocious pushback that included Democratic state legislators fleeing the state to prevent a vote on the issue, an effort to effect a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the purpose of overturning the law, and the attempt to remove Walker in the aforementioned recall vote that ultimately failed.
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