It turns out that ‘John Doe’ was Scott Walker all along

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Cartoon_22So who won the “Koch Bros. Primary” last week at “Kochtopus” Coachella 2015? The kidz at POLITICO Tiger Beat on the Potomac, whose Mike Allen emceed the event, report that Scott Walker, “the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin,” was the winner.

Well sure, stick with the guy you already own and have already invested millions of dollars in. Scott Walker prevails in Koch donor straw poll:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won a surprising nod in an informal straw poll of major conservative donors gathered by the Koch brothers’ operation last weekend in Orange County, California, according to sources familiar with the gathering.

In a closed-door session that included about 100 donors, Republican pollster Frank Luntz asked donors to clap to indicate their choice for the Republican Party’s nomination. While Luntz did not formally track or announce the results, sources say it was clear that Walker got the most applause, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who received roughly the same amount of applause. The next most applause was for former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

Seriously POLITICO? Anonymous billionaires — because all sources are anonymous in POLITICO — told you about a subjective “clap poll” conducted by Frank Luntz and you report this as news? No ballots, no recorded vote — not news. For all we know the wait staff skewed the poll for a tip bribe.

In real news today, it turns out that Koch lap-dog Scotty has been lying for years about his involvement in the “John Doe” investigations that his rich friends got thrown out of the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently with some strategically placed  campaign donations.

Despite Walker’s denials, court documents released today show that “John Doe” is none other than Scott Walker. Prosecutors believed Scott Walker committed a felony while county executive:

Prosecutors believed Gov. Scott Walker committed a felony when he was Milwaukee County executive for his role in the rejection of a lease extension for county office space, a Wednesday court filing shows.

Walker, who is seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, was never charged with a crime, and has long said he was never a target of the secret 2011 John Doe investigation into his county office.

On Wednesday, prosecutors filed into the court record a 2011 request for a search warrant that was part of the investigation. 2011 search warrant request. The filing by investigator Robert Stelter in federal court came in response to a lawsuit brought against the prosecutors by Walker aide Cindy Archer, who also was under investigation.

Stelter wrote in the search warrant request that there was probable cause to believe Walker, Friends of Scott Walker campaign treasurer John Hiller and real estate broker Andrew Jensen violated state public office misconduct laws in 2010.

None of them, or Archer, was charged. But six other Walker aides or associates were convicted on a variety of charges, including two for doing illegal campaign work in 2010.

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Prosecutors, including Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, and assistant district attorneys Bruce Landgraf and David Robles, were looking into signs of misconduct and bid-rigging regarding competition to house the Department of Aging in private office space.

Hiller, a real estate broker who at the time was Walker’s longtime campaign treasurer, was quietly working for one of three bidders seeking to provide office space and buy an aging building known as City Campus owned by Milwaukee County.

Stelter argued in the warrant request that Walker committed a felony when in June of 2010 he used a personal email account to ask Hiller for a letter that rejected Department of Transportation and Public Works director Jack Takarian’s request for a six-month extension for the county’s Department on Aging office lease in the Reuss Federal Plaza in Milwaukee. That rejection set up the need for a later deal “against the interests of Milwaukee County,” the warrant said.

Hiller then forwarded the email to Jensen, according to the search warrant request, who then with Hiller wrote the letter rejecting the extension.

The State Journal reported in 2014 that Hiller got detailed financial information from Archer when she was county director of the Department of Administration around the time he was bidding on the deal, according to emails released in the John Doe investigation. The probe, which began when Walker was Milwaukee County executive, showed Hiller lobbied for the county to sell its City Campus building and then got information around the time bids were being evaluated to provide office space for workers to be displaced by the sale.

The county never followed through with the deal for the building and no charges were filed.

Hiller, in one email to Archer on Aug. 20, 2010, said he thought officials involved with the request for proposals were unaware of his involvement. “I am very sensitive to the situation and I work pretty hard not to leave finger prints,” wrote Hiller, who resigned as Walker’s campaign treasurer in May 2011.

The emails related to the sale and lease deal were included in roughly 16,000 emails released by the office of current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele in 2014.

Now here is an actual “e-mail scandal” that the media outside of Wisconsin somehow overlooked and failed to report. Six Walker associates were convicted, and if the courts hadn’t been corrupted by “dark money” in Wisconsin, the prosecutors would have collected a few more notches in their belt, perhaps including Scott Walker.

I recently commented that Scott Walker reminds me of Richard Nixon more than any politician in the past 40 years. I did not know at the time I wrote this that other people have noticed the similarity as well. Here’s a quick sampling:

“Tricky Dick” had his Bebe Rebozo and Scotty has the Koch brothers.