Wisconsin Ethics Commission records taken in John Doe leak probe

MADISON – The state Department of Justice seized material from the Ethics Commission this month as part of its investigation into the leak of material damaging to Gov. Scott Walker, records show.

The development is the latest sign GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel is seeking to uncover who leaked records from the investigation to the Guardian U.S.

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Last week, state agents reviewed documents in the clerk’s office of the state Supreme Court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported.

Weeks earlier, on Feb. 1, Department of Justice agents collected documents from the Ethics Commission, according to emails released this week under the state’s open records law.

“We plan to be over approximately 11 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday) morning to retrieve the materials as discussed,” then-Deputy Solicitor General Daniel Lennington wrote to top Ethics Commission officials on Jan. 31.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and other prosecutors in 2012 began investigating whether Walker’s campaign illegally worked with conservative groups on recall elections. The state Supreme Court shut down the investigation in 2015, finding nothing illegal had occurred.

Last year, the Guardian U.S. posted more than 1,300 pages of leaked documents, including ones showing that Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature approved a 2013 measure aimed at retroactively shielding paint makers from liability after a billionaire owner of a lead producer contributed $750,000 to a political group that provided crucial support to Republicans in recall elections.

Schimel this year launched an investigation to find out who leaked those records. He has ruled out investigating earlier leaks that helped conservatives.

The state Government Accountability Board assisted Chisholm with the investigation of Walker’s campaign. Walker and GOP lawmakers dissolved that agency last year, in large part because of the investigation of Walker’s campaign, and handed many of its duties over to the newly created Ethics Commission.

It’s unclear what material the Department of Justice took from the Ethics Commission as part of the leak investigation. It was kept in a locked file cabinet, according to an email that Brian Bell, the commission’s administrator, sent to Lennington just before the Department of Justice visited the commission.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge David Wambach is in charge of any remaining issues connected to the probe of Walker’s campaign. The same judge is involved with the leak investigation, according to Schimel and records that have become public.

Wambach issued an order on Jan. 30 related to the leak investigation, but the order has not been made public. In Department of Justice emails, it is referred to as an “order granting access.”

State Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson has questioned how Schimel can conduct the leak investigation with the assistance of Wambach when he represented Wambach in legal challenges over how the probe of Walker’s campaign was conducted. Schimel has not addressed those questions.

Lennington was deputy solicitor general when the material was gathered from the Ethics Commission. He has since become senior counsel at the Department of Justice, another top job.

Patrick Marley can be reached at patrick.marley@jrn.com and twitter.com/patrickdmarley.