Posted on 10/08/2015 9:08:46 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
WAUKESHA, Wis. – It’s a battle for public disclosure, and the state Government Accountability Board is fighting to keep thousands of documents related to its role in the political John Doe investigation in the dark.
Attorneys for conservative plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the GAB on Wednesday argued for their motion to open the records to public inspection. Their motion asks Waukesha County Judge Lee Dreyfus Jr. to lift a protective order that keeps the information under seal.
“This is a matter of great importance about government misconduct,” said Eddie Greim, an attorney for long-time political activist Eric O’Keefe and his Wisconsin Club for Growth.
GAB defense attorney Paul Schwarzenbart argued that the agency is bound by its confidentiality statute and the John Doe secrecy order to not release information related to the investigation.
Kevin Kennedy, director of the campaign finance, elections, and ethics regulator, said the same when asked by Wisconsin Watchdog if the agency had nothing to hide why not release the documents in question.
“You know what the answer to that is,” Kennedy curtly said. “The legislature has put a shroud of secrecy over that. It’s not a question of what we can release; it’s a question of what the legislature says we can release and what the John Doe courts have said we can release.”
Not exactly, Greim argued.
In the GAB lawsuit, the agency has been compelled through discovery to turn over some 42,000 documents to the plaintiffs.
There is nothing in the law that says the targets and subjects of the John Doe probe can’t turn over such documents it receives – in this case via litigation.
“There are things in there, frankly, that do not look good for the GAB,” Greim told the judge.
The law, he said, was not designed to protect the prosecutors, investigators and the GAB. It is to protect the people subjected to the investigation from leaked information in what is supposed to be a secret probe.
Greim said there are “hot documents” that would be very embarrassing to the GAB if made public. One set of closed meeting minutes from June and August 2013 GAB meetings shows board members making accusations about the targets, describing them as ignorant and arrogant in matters involving Wisconsin campaign finance law, Greim said.
It was the GAB and its probe partners at the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office shown to be, at the very least, ignorant about Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws. They based their investigation on a roundly rejected theory that 29 conservative groups illegally coordinated with Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and Senate campaigns during Wisconsin’s bitter recall drives.
Greim said the meeting minutes show what the plaintiffs have long believed, that the GAB intended its investigation to be criminal in nature from the beginning. And that’s the core of the complaint: the GAB overstepped its authority in driving a criminal investigation when it is not authorized by state statute to do so.
The plaintiffs have asked the judge to allow them to make public 181 pages of records that Greim said provide evidence of the GAB’s improper conduct. But they also want the judge to lift his protective order on thousands more records obtained in depositions.
O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth have won this battle before.
In December, Dreyfus modified his protective order to allow the targets to release details of depositions to the public.
Documents released then showed GAB staff continued a zealous campaign finance investigation even after the retired judges who preside over the agency voted to shut it down.
The documents also show that the GAB considered using the state’s John Doe law to investigate key state conservatives and even national figures, including Fox News’ Sean Hannity and WTMJ Milwaukee host Charlie Sykes.
It also was learned that the GAB set up a secret system of Gmail accounts for its staffers and the prosecutors who ran the John Doe.
“(T)eam members should communicate with the understanding that their communications could become public or subject to discovery at some point,” according to documents from an August 2013 meeting.
Court documents and other records already have exposed the GAB funding activities related to the investigation that normally would be the domain of a district attorney’s office.
Dreyfus is further reviewing the motions and the GAB’s response. He could have a ruling by next Wednesday, when a conference call with the parties is scheduled.
Part 258 of 256 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War
SHROUDED IN SECRECY: GAB director Kevin Kennedy blames the Legislature for placing a ‘shroud of secrecy’ on the agency’s investigations. The GAB is trying to keep thousands of court records out of the public eye.
RELATED: John Doe prosecutors get a win, practice legal gymnastics again
More Excuses! GAB ights for its life.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
The irony is thick on this story. A “government accountability” board is fighting to keep its records from the public.
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