Walkergate: Collaboration Cubed Equals Corruption
The collaboration between Walker and his dark money allies grows to deeper depths of corruption
When this lawsuit failed, another dark money group, the grossly misnamed Citizens for Responsible Government, filed another lawsuit - using the same lawyers from the first lawsuit and funded by another group with ties to Wisconsin Club for Growth - to stymie the investigation.
Miraculously, the case again landed in front of the Randa, who ruled in favor of his benefactors even before the prosecutors could argue their case.
In other words, there was collaboration within collaboration.
Now, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that there was collaboration within collaboration with collaboration.
First, the lawyers that represent both the WCfG and CRG manipulated the system in order to get the case before Randa:
Normally, federal judges are randomly assigned to cases. But when CRG filed its lawsuit, it said its case was related to two others that Randa already had. Doing that meant the case automatically went to Randa to determine if it should stay with him.
One of the cases that CRG contended was linked to its lawsuit was a challenge to an investigation of Gov. Scott Walker's campaign and groups allied with him. However, CRG filed its suit only after an appeals court had ruled that earlier case be dismissed.
"This was artful to the point of manipulative," said Jeremy Levinson, a Democratic attorney who specializes in campaign finance laws.
But that's not all. There's more. There's always more.
Because Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen, refused to do his job, it became the onus of Walker's chief legal counsel, Brian Hagedorn, to quickly appoint an attorney to represent the prosecutors running the investigation. Logically speaking, the attorney should have been one already familiar with the issues, since there was such a tight time table to reply to the lawsuit.
Instead, Hagedorn dragged his feet and at the last minute appointed an attorney, Daniel Kelly, who was unfamiliar with the issues. Kelly asked for an extension because he was only hired the day before the hearing. Randa blew off the request and thumbed his nose at the appellate court by rubber stamping CRG's lawsuit.
Critics of the lawsuit state that Kelly should have filed an appeal immediately, something that he has yet to do.
Oh, it should come as no surprise that Kelly is known for representing former Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green and another corrupt judge, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David "Chokehold" Prosser.
Show me someone who says that there is no collaboration between Walker and all these third party groups and I will show you someone who is either the biggest idiot and/or biggest liar in the nation.