Just hours after he delivered a State of the State address that he hoped would set the tone for his campaign to avert a recall election threat, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was hit with exactly the sort of news that embattled politicians fear most.
Two former aides to Walker—one of whom was in the employ of his campaign until just days ago—have been charged with felonies and misdemeanors in the ongoing “John Doe” investigation [1] of wrongdoing by aides, political allies and campaign donors with links to the embattled governor.
These charges follow closely on the filing of felony charges against Tim Russell [2], a former Walker deputy chief of staff and one of the governor’s closest aides over the past decade.
The aides charged Thursday were, according to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, engaged in fundraising activities and other political work while working on the staff of Walker when he served as county executive.
Chisholm explains in a fifty-seven-page complaint [3] that Russell and the newly indicted aides established a “secret email system available to and used by select ‘insider’ staffers for both official and unofficial business.” That system was built around a wireless router that was kept in an armoire in the office of Walker’s deputy chief of staff’—just a few feet from Walker’s office. Its existence was “never disclosed to county employees outside a closely held group within the Walker administration.”
The complaint discuses the exchange of thousands—yes, thousands—of e-mails involving fundraising and political activity. Many of these e-mails from the deputy chief of staff who is now charged with four felony counts of misconduct in public office, Kelly Rindfleisch, and top political aides to Walker, including Keith Gilkes, who went on to serve as the governor’s chief of staff.
Walker has said that during the campaign he was in constant communication with Gilkes about fundraising and campaign strategy.
And Rindfleisch, it appears, was in constant communication with Gilkes and other campaign aides.
Despite the fact that it is illegal for county officials to use their offices for campaign work, Rindfleisch revealed in one e-mail that “half” of her taxpayer-funded work was “for the campaign [3].”
Another individual who appears to have been in e-mail contact with Rindfleisch was Reince Priebus, then the chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, now the chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Additional e-mails went to the campaign of Brett Davis, a Walker ally [4] who was running for lieutenant governor in a 2010 Republican primary. Davis lost that race, but now works in the Walker administration as a top appointee of the governor. The manager of the Davis campaign for lieutenant governor was Cullen Werwie, who exchanged emails with Rindfleisch.
Werwie, who now serves as Governor Walker’s spokesman, has been granted immunity in the John Doe investigation.
For Rindfleisch, Walker’s former deputy chief of staff, the charges are very serious—major felonies that carry with them the prospect of multiple years in jail. The fifty-seven-page complaint against her, and against a lower level political operative named Darlene Wink, provides a rough outline for what political observers in Wisconsin have begun to refer to as a classic “Pay-to-Play” political operation, where key government aides are involved in both policymaking and campaign fundraising from parties that are interested in those policies.
The added twist is that rarely if ever has an investigation into this sort of activity revealed that discussions about money and policy were mixed on a “secret email system.”
The investigation is ongoing. It continues to expand at an exponential rate, touching more and more of Walker’s inner circle, including aides in the county executive’s office, 2010 campaign aides and donors, and aides in the governor’s office and Walker’s current campaign. Notably, Rindfleisch, who was paid by Milwaukee County taxpayers during the 2010 Walker campaign, left county employment after Walker’s election to help organize the new governor’s inauguration. Rindfieisch then went to work as a top fundraising aide with the governor’s political operation, Friends of Scott Walker, with which she was employed until January, 2012 [5].
Sources close to the inquiry say that the “John Doe” investigation is still in the early stages of sorting through mountains of information obtained in FBI raids and related investigations of Walker aides and donors. That means that the steady flow of charges and complaints could extend their the recall campaign that Walker is all but certain to face, after one million Wisconsinites petitioned for his ouster [6].
The full impact of the investigation on the recall campaign will only be revealed over the period of the next several months.
The potential that the “John Doe” inquiry will be a major political problem for Walker now seems a good deal greater than it did just days ago.
Here’s why?
The latest complaint ties wrongdoing to Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
This new complaint makes the connection to Walker’s current spokesman Cullen Werwie, who has requested immunity in the John Doe probe. The private e-mail network in the county executive’s office was aiding both Walker’s campaign and the campaign of a Walker ally, Brett Davis, who was running for lieutenant governor. Werwie was Davis’s campaign spokesman. (In addition to Werwie, Davis is now a top Walker appointee.)
The complaint features reference to an e-mail from Walker showing at least some knowledge of problems with politicking in the office. He is primarily concerned that there are no media stories about political operations being run out of the county executive’s office—following the revelation in 2010 that one of the aides charged Thursday, Wink, was doing political work on county time. “We cannot afford another story like this one,” reads the e-mail, which was included in the complaint [7]. “No one can give them any reason to do another story.” The governor even counsels the aide about the use of laptops and websites during the workday.
That e-mail is one Walker is going to be questioned about as he tours Wisconsin following his State of the State speech.
The complaint released Thursday is the most detailed and serious yet directed at the official and political activities on behalf of Walker.
And few will debate that these charges are the most serious to arise thus far from the John Doe probe. They bring the investigation dramatically closer to the governor.
This does not mean that the governor is going to be indicted, or that he is guilty of wrongdoing.
But it does raise the classic question from the Watergate era inquiries into the misdeeds of aides to then-President Richard Nixon.
Of Nixon it was asked: “What did he know and when did he know it?”
With the latest charges and the fresh complaint, it is now entirely reasonable to say with regard to Scott Walker: “What did he know and when did he know it?”