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 The documents were released in connection with a criminal case
involving a former Walker aide, as part of an investigation into
county workers illegally campaigning for Republican candidates when
Walker was working as county executive.
Walker was not indicted in the three-year probe that led to six
convictions. His campaign said that the documents were part of a
legal process completed early last year, and he is confident they
were "thoroughly reviewed by the authorities."
Democrats compared the Walker case with the controversy surrounding
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, another potential Republican
presidential candidate, whose aides are accused of tying up traffic
to punish a political opponent.
"This wasn't the work of a few rogue staffers — this was a
coordinated effort that goes right to the top," said Michael Czin,
national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.
Walker is running for re-election as governor in 2014 against
Democratic businesswoman Mary Burke and is considered an emerging
top-tier candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in
2016.
The 28,000 pages of documents, mostly emails, involve Kelly
Rindfleisch, Walker's former deputy chief of staff, who is appealing
her conviction for misconduct in public office. A state appellate
judge ordered the documents unsealed at the request of news
organizations.
Rindfleisch has admitted to doing campaign work for Republicans
while she was on the clock for Milwaukee County, where Walker was
county executive from 2002 until his election as governor in 2010.
The documents show that on November 1, 2010, investigators requested
and received permission to seize hard drives and other equipment
from Walker's offices, though it did not seek Walker's own computer,
according to a transcript of a secret court hearing.
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David Budde, an investigator for the Milwaukee County district
attorney's office, testified that Walker "would appear to be aware"
that laptops were used in his offices for accessing non-County
networks, according to the transcript.
Budde refers to a May 14, 2010 email in which Walker discusses a
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story which reported that Walker aide
Darlene Wink spent much of her time at her county job posting
pro-Walker comments online. The Walker email has already been made
public, according to the Journal Sentinel.
Walker wrote in the e-mail: "We cannot afford another story like
this one. No one can give them any reason to do another story. That
means no laptops, no web sites, no time away during the workday, et
cetera."
Budde also discusses e-mails that seem to set up a daily campaign
coordination conference call in Walker's office.
The document release will not likely hurt Walker's chances to be
Republican presidential candidate, said Mordecai Lee, a political
science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
"His ultimate defense is that they had all these documents and I
wasn't indicted and I was never charged," Lee said.
(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski and Brendan O'Brien; editing by Gunna
Dickson, Bernard Orr)
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Probe
into Wisconsin governor expanded before vote: documents
