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Not a good day for GOP governors all around.....

Prosecutors: Scott Walker part of 'criminal scheme'


The investigation began as Walker was facing a recall election in 2012. | AP Photo

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker participated in a “criminal scheme” to coordinate fundraising for the Republican in response to 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, says special prosecutor Francis Schmitz.

Scott Walker's career

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“[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.

(QUIZ: How well do you know Scott Walker?)

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. Democrats were quick to pounce on the documents.

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.”

(PHOTOS: Scott Walker’s career)

Prosecutors seem to have focused on R.J. Johnson in their investigation, who is linked with outside groups and played an official 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 prosecutors quote 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.

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.


Eric D. Schwerin
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On Jun 19, 2014, at 4:01 PM, tedkaufman@comcast.net wrote:

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EXCLUSIVE: PROSECUTOR IS CLOSING IN ON GOV. CHRISTIE
Indictments against four cronies are near certain, sources say. Only question is if David Samson, Christie's longtime crony, will flip.

By Scott Raab and Lisa Brennan on June 19, 2014
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
“It’s over, it’s done, and I’m moving on.” -- Chris Christie, reassuring potential donors in Utah on June 14th

Back on planet Reality, meanwhile, Paul Fishman, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, wades through the sewage of Christie’s stewardship. Two sources with intimate knowledge of the case say Fishman’s pace is quickening -- he has empaneled a second grand jury, and the U.S. Justice Department has sent assistant prosecutors and FBI agents to work the case.

“What’s taking the most time,” according to one source, “is separating what's viable from all the bad stuff they’re finding that may not be viable.”

Fishman’s challenge is to nail down specific criminal charges on several fronts -- the diversion of Port Authority money to fund New Jersey road and bridge projects; the four-day rush-hour closures of George Washington Bridge lanes in Ft. Lee; and a web of real-estate deals spun by David Samson, long a Christie crony, when he chaired the PA’s Board of Commissioners as Christie’s appointee. (One such deal, a stalled office-tower development in Hoboken, New Jersey, is central to a claim that Christie’s lieutenant governor told the town’s mayor that the state would withhold Hurricane Sandy relief aid from Hoboken if the mayor didn’t sign off on the development project.)

Whatever Christie says or does -- and whatever potential donors or Jimmy Fallon and his viewers think -- the question that truly matters is whether Fishman’s pursuit leads to the governor himself. Christie’s Port appointees -- not only Samson, but former PA Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni and his oddball sidekick David Wildstein -- all face near-certain indictment and are being pressed to hand up Christie, as is the governor’s former chief counsel, Charlie McKenna.

Wildstein, portrayed as the mastermind behind Ft. Lee’s traffic problems, has made proffers to Fishman’s investigators -- hoping to trade information to the prosecutor in exchange for gentler legal treatment -- but Fishman has cut no deals with anyone so far, and the looming indictments have encouraged Christie’s PA appointees to sing. “Don’t underestimate what Wildstein has on Christie,” says one source. “And Wildstein and Baroni have both turned on Samson. If Samson doesn't give Fishman Christie, Samson is toast.”

Federal charges in the bridge closures potentially include both intentional interference in interstate commerce and -- in the cover-up that ensued -- obstruction of justice. The use of Port Authority money, raised by issuing bonds, to pay for non-PA projects will likely result in charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit same; the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating on this front, along with the Manhattan District Attorney, who’s seeking evidence to support state charges of falsifying business records and official misconduct. Charges derived from David Samson’s numerous conflicts of interest while serving as a PA official could, in Hoboken’s case, include federal charges of extortion under the Hobbs Act, and New York state charges of official misconduct and corruption.

The clearest, quickest road to Christie, both sources agree, runs through David Samson, a former Attorney General of New Jersey who’s 74 years old and reportedly suffers from Parkinson’s disease. So: Will Samson flip?

“They’ve got him cold,” says one source. “He got sloppy, arrogant, and greedy. Samson will want a deal. This way, he’d get one or two years. He’d have a future on the other side. He won’t want to die in jail.”

Fishman’s timetable is unclear -- he has yet to send out target letters even to the lower-hanging fruit: Wildstein and Baroni, and Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien, Christie’s former Deputy Chief of Staff and his former campaign manager, each deeply implicated in the Fort Lee/GWB debacle. One source expects Fishman to return some indictments as soon as next month. Both sources say that all of those four certainly will be indicted -- and both further note that Fishman, an Obama appointee, hopes to see the entire matter resolved before this President’s term expires. “But Fishman is really focused on Christie,” says one source. “Ultimately, he believes he'll get to the governor.

Big-ticket donors are gamblers; in politics, there are no certainties. The safest bet that is obvious: there’s no future for Chris Christie in the White House. The Big House is a safer bet, by far.