Leftist prosecutors spied on conservatives, defied court orders
The law is such an inconvenient thing: Newly released documents in connection with the leftwing Democratic Party political “John Doe” witchhunt in Wisconsin against conservatives have revealed that the prosecutors not only used their power to obtain private and inappropriate information about their political opponents, they continued to do so even after the courts had repeatedly ordered them to cease and desist.
A Wisconsin Attorney General report on the year-long investigation into leaks of sealed John Doe court documents to a liberal British publication in September 2016 finds a rogue agency of partisan bureaucrats bent on a mission “to bring down the (Gov. Scott) Walker campaign and the Governor himself.” The AG report, released Wednesday, details an expanded John Doe probe into a “broad range of Wisconsin Republicans,” a “John Doe III,” according to Attorney General Brad Schimel, that widened the scope of the so-called John Doe II investigation into dozens of right-of-center groups and scores of conservatives. Republican lawmakers, conservative talk show hosts, a former employee from the MacIver Institute, average citizens, even churches, were secretly monitored by the dark John Doe. State Department of Justice investigators found hundreds of thousands of John Doe documents in the possession of the GAB long after they were ordered to be turned over to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Government Accountability Board [GAB], the state’s former “nonpartisan” speech cop, proved to be more partisan than originally suspected, the state Department of Justice report found. For reasons that “perhaps may never be fully explained,” GAB held onto thousands of private emails from Wisconsin conservatives in several folders on their servers marked “Opposition Research.” The report’s findings validate what conservatives have long contended was nothing more than a witch-hunt into limited government groups and the governor who was turning conservative ideas into public policy.
No charges can be filed because the hard drive that held the most damning evidence has mysteriously vanished.
And in an all-too familiar occurrence involving allegations of government abuse, a key hard drive believed to contain the court-sealed John Doe documents leaked to The Guardian in October 2016 has suspiciously disappeared – GAB officials with knowledge of the hard drive can’t seem to explain what happened to it. Still, despite a damning report laying out myriad examples of criminal misconduct by government bureaucrats, Schimel, a Republican, says his Department of Justice cannot file criminal charges – chiefly because of disappearing evidence, less-than-cooperative John Doe agents and the “systemic and pervasive mishandling of John Doe evidence (that) likely resulted in circumstances allowing the Guardian leak in the first place.” Such failures prevent prosecutors from proving criminal liability beyond a reasonable doubt, the attorney general wrote, although the report points to a small universe of GAB employees that had access to the leaked documents. They also seemed to have a political ax to grind.
Essentially, this corrupt political operation and abuse of power by leftists in Wisconsin appears to have been a dress rehearsal for the political witch hunt now being engineered in Washington by the FBI and political hack and Democratic operative Robert Mueller.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The law is such an inconvenient thing: Newly released documents in connection with the leftwing Democratic Party political “John Doe” witchhunt in Wisconsin against conservatives have revealed that the prosecutors not only used their power to obtain private and inappropriate information about their political opponents, they continued to do so even after the courts had repeatedly ordered them to cease and desist.
A Wisconsin Attorney General report on the year-long investigation into leaks of sealed John Doe court documents to a liberal British publication in September 2016 finds a rogue agency of partisan bureaucrats bent on a mission “to bring down the (Gov. Scott) Walker campaign and the Governor himself.” The AG report, released Wednesday, details an expanded John Doe probe into a “broad range of Wisconsin Republicans,” a “John Doe III,” according to Attorney General Brad Schimel, that widened the scope of the so-called John Doe II investigation into dozens of right-of-center groups and scores of conservatives. Republican lawmakers, conservative talk show hosts, a former employee from the MacIver Institute, average citizens, even churches, were secretly monitored by the dark John Doe. State Department of Justice investigators found hundreds of thousands of John Doe documents in the possession of the GAB long after they were ordered to be turned over to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Government Accountability Board [GAB], the state’s former “nonpartisan” speech cop, proved to be more partisan than originally suspected, the state Department of Justice report found. For reasons that “perhaps may never be fully explained,” GAB held onto thousands of private emails from Wisconsin conservatives in several folders on their servers marked “Opposition Research.” The report’s findings validate what conservatives have long contended was nothing more than a witch-hunt into limited government groups and the governor who was turning conservative ideas into public policy.
No charges can be filed because the hard drive that held the most damning evidence has mysteriously vanished.
And in an all-too familiar occurrence involving allegations of government abuse, a key hard drive believed to contain the court-sealed John Doe documents leaked to The Guardian in October 2016 has suspiciously disappeared – GAB officials with knowledge of the hard drive can’t seem to explain what happened to it. Still, despite a damning report laying out myriad examples of criminal misconduct by government bureaucrats, Schimel, a Republican, says his Department of Justice cannot file criminal charges – chiefly because of disappearing evidence, less-than-cooperative John Doe agents and the “systemic and pervasive mishandling of John Doe evidence (that) likely resulted in circumstances allowing the Guardian leak in the first place.” Such failures prevent prosecutors from proving criminal liability beyond a reasonable doubt, the attorney general wrote, although the report points to a small universe of GAB employees that had access to the leaked documents. They also seemed to have a political ax to grind.
Essentially, this corrupt political operation and abuse of power by leftists in Wisconsin appears to have been a dress rehearsal for the political witch hunt now being engineered in Washington by the FBI and political hack and Democratic operative Robert Mueller.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Casablanca….
https://youtu.be/nM_A4Skusro
(0:48)
Big brother is definitely watching!
Wouldn’t a judge in this case be able to put those responsible for securing the hard drive in question into jail on contempt? I assume this is temporary stay but I have heard that theoretically a judge may keep you indefinately.
Chris: No charges have been brought, so no judge is as yet involved. And for a prosecutor to bring charges when he or she doesn’t have sufficient evidence, with the intent to have the judge bring contempt charges, would be as corrupt and as inappropriate.
Ah – I understand the full circumstance
What do you expect? It would be so much harder to be above the law if you don’t illegally spy!
This is what characterizes the left, the requisite moral vacuum that assures, ‘the ends justify the means.’
Still amazes me how this wasn’t national news carried by the big networks for months and months. WI was big news when there were protests and politicians pulling stunts to run and hide in other states. But that was portrayed as Democrats winning. When there is actual news about some of the worst misconduct in American history, the media is silent.
This is a great example of the Obama era. Corruption at all levels of government unseen in modern history and a complicit media that colluded with the DNC to hide the truth and promote DNC propaganda.
Just think, without the internet, we would never have known. Explains the Democrats recent efforts to seize control of the internet and embrace of censorship on websites doesn’t it?
Wodun:
At dinner tonight I laid out for a Democrat friend what is likely to happen related to the “Russian collusion” / Mueller investigation. Mueller, Rosenstein, McCabe and now interviewing agent Strozk are all compromised and corrupted FBI officials as it relates to 1. The Hillary email investigation and the 2. Uranium One situation and the 3. The fictional Trump “Pee pee” dossier that the entire Russian collusion investigation seems totally based on and appears why FISA warrants were allowed. Forget about the fruit, the tree itself is poisoned.
His comment? I never heard of any of that, what are you talking about? (He tells me that he is informed.)
That is what we are dealing with, half of the population is in total ignorance of actual facts as they relate to what IMO is about to come down in Washington. Why? Because he consumes the “Paper of record” NYT’s, MSNBC and the like.
Its coming.
And its going to hit many over the head like a sledge hammer to the point that they will cry “abuse of power!”, but it will be justice. And if Hillary had won no one would be the wiser, and that was the operating plan. Then came Trump.
Its coming.
To my point:
Todays NYT’s front page story:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/10/us/politics/trump-and-russia.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=g-artboard%20g-artboard-v3&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Nothing about how corrupt the FBI has been operating in all of this. Nothing about Mueller, nothing about McCabe, nothing about Rosenstein, nothing about ST. Comey, nothing about Strozk, does not exist in the Liberal / leftist / Democrat universe.
All of these corrupt and fraudulent FBI actions have tainted any investigation into any Russian collusion or anything else.
” Laurie
December 9, 2017 at 1:54 pm
This is what characterizes the left, the requisite moral vacuum that assures, ‘the ends justify the means.’”
You have caught my sentiments exactly. There is no doubt that there are those on the right who blur the lines of morality but the extent to which the left does it is disheartening. As BZ writes “elections show the results of doing this stuff”. Not a direct quote, but paraphrased.
highly enlightening blast-from-the-past:
Victor Davis Hanson:
“Rise of the ‘Therapeutic Mindset'”
November 2009
https://youtu.be/vKA_utj0NJ4
(19:34)