Michael Lutz — a conspicuous critic of the John Doe investigation — dies by apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Here's my post from last October about Lutz:

I'm not surprised that [John Doe prosecutor John] Chisholm declines to answer [Stuart] Taylor's long list of questions, even though Chisholm did speak up in response to Taylor's original attack and seemingly went to some trouble in an effort to to impugn Michael Lutz. Lutz was Taylor's unnamed source for the article that depicted the prosecutor and his office as highly politicized and openly antagonistic to Governor Scott Walker.

The questions standing alone go a long way toward rehabilitating Lutz after the attack on his credibility and they also work to restate and emphasize Lutz's original charges against Chisholm. Taylor observes that Chisholm has generally denied that he had a political agenda, but that he doesn't seem to have denied the specific allegations that Lutz had made. This corresponds to what I wrote when I saw Chisholm's response:

Reading [Taylor's original attack and Chisholm's response], I'm thinking that Taylor raised suspicions that Chisholm and his lawyers and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have not adequately refuted. I want to see a specific statement from Chisholm that goes into the details, something more than expressions of outrage and denials that could be based on Chisholm's belief that he compartmentalized his prosecutorial decisionmaking and his personal political beliefs and husbandly tenderness.

Were there blue fist signs in the office and other expressions of support for unions and antagonism to Walker? What was the extent of participation in the protests? Did Chisholm speak openly about his wife's feelings in the context of the case? Taylor's article created a strong motivation to respond on that level, and neither Chisholm nor his lawyer provided that response.

So I'm pleased to see Taylor taking this approach — with far more detailed questions —and I'll reprint Taylor's questions below:

1. In a September 12 article by Dan Bice, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that Mr. Leib “said Thursday that Lutz had left a message threatening to kill Chisholm and his family in the past year. He did not provide audio of the voice mail.” Was this an accurate and complete report of what Mr. Leib said to Mr. Bice, and of what Mr. Chisholm told Mr. Leib?

2. Mr. Lutz has said in response that while he may have used harsh or even inflammatory words, he never said anything that he intended or that Mr. Chisholm interpreted to be a threat to harm anyone. Does Mr. Chisholm challenge this statement by Mr. Lutz?

3. If Mr. Chisholm does challenge it, how does he explain his failure either to prosecute Mr. Lutz or to report him to appropriate authorities for making a death threat, which would have been a crime?

4. And what, if any, steps did Mr. Chisholm take to protect himself and his family from Mr. Lutz? Armed guards? Moving his family to a safe location? Having Mr. Lutz tailed? Anything at all?

5. Mr. Lutz has explained the alleged death threat roughly as follows: He feared on the basis of one or more phone conversations that his best friend and former police partner, Jon Osowski (also the brother of Mr. Chisholm’s wife) was in trouble, and perhaps suicidal, so that he (Mr. Lutz) requested help in urgent phone calls to the Chisholms, expressing increasing and agitated concern, and possibly saying something that might be twisted out of context as threatening. Finally, Mr. Lutz has said, says, Mr. or Mrs. Chisholm or both went out into the night to help Mr. Osowski. Does Mr. Chisholm deny the accuracy of this account?

6. Mr. Lutz has also said that Mr. Chisholm has played the recording for him and that the two of them “laughed about” the episode the next day. Does Mr. Chisholm deny this?

7. In light of the evidence that is now available, will Mr. Chisholm or Mr. Leib or both retract and apologize for accusing Mr. Lutz of making a death threat?

8. If not, will you repeat that you believe that Mr. Lutz made a genuine death threat, and thereby show that you are not concerned about possible liability for libeling Mr. Lutz?

That ends the set of questions about the "death threat," so the numbering goes back to 1:

1. As far as I know, neither Mr. Chisholm nor anyone else has ever suggested a motive for Mr. Lutz to lie about Mr. Chisholm. Do you maintain that he had a motive to lie and, if so, what was it?

2. Mr. Lutz has said that his motive for making allegations of bias against Mr. Chisholm was and is that “I don’t like what he has done in regard to political speech that he disagrees with.” I am not aware that anyone has challenged the truthfulness of this statement. Do you challenge it?

3. Mr. Lutz has said that at least before this September, he had been friends with John and Colleen Chisholm for more than a decade. Do you deny that?

4. He has added that has visited the Chisholms’ home several times and gone to dinners, after-work functions, and other outings with one or both of them over the years. Do you deny that?

5. He has also added that he gave $200 in August for a Chisholm campaign fundraiser. Do you deny that?

6. When Mr. Lutz went into private practice, Mr. Chisholm wrote a memo (of which I have a copy) to him dated July 27, 2011, saying that his service “has been exemplary,” that his “dedication and hard work … have proved to be invaluable,” and that “I am extremely grateful for the service you provided.” Do you deny that?

7. In a previous letter of recommendation (of which I have a copy), in November 2007, Mr. Chisholm wrote that Mr. Lutz had been “one of the best investigators in the Milwaukee police department” and had “removed some of the most dangerous offenders from the streets of Milwaukee” while combining “a remarkable memory with unceasing hard work and courage.” Do you deny that?

8. Mr. Lutz has said that in late 2010 or early 2011, he heard Mr. Chisholm and others in the DA’s office express anger at the newly elected Scott Walker, who Mr. Chisholm said had backed away from an agreement to support statewide stepped pay raises for DA’s and their assistants. Do you deny that?

9. Mr. Lutz has added that Mr. Chisholm complained that Mr. Walker had “lied to my face” about stepped raises. Do you deny saying anything like that?

10. Mr. Lutz said the following in a May 20, 2012 email to an unidentified person, a copy of which he gave me, while saying that it accurately described a conversation he had with Mr. Chisholm in or about March 2011: When “I was a Special Prosecutor in the DA’s office and [Wisconsin Supreme Court] Justice [David] Prosser approached me to do a [pre-election] video spot about how the decision authored by him about the guy who shot me was a very important ruling for Police officers in general, DA Chisholm … stated that he couldn’t allow me to do it and he wants to stay as far away from these Republicans as he can.” Do you deny saying anything like that?

11. In the same email, Mr. Lutz added that Mr. Chisholm “went on to say how he knows that Act 10 would eventually end up in the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court and didn’t want Prosser to decide on the case.” Do you deny saying anything like that?

12. Also in the same email, Mr. Lutz added that roughly eight months after this conversation, Mr. Chisholm’s “liberal block of DA’s, 80% of them, are actively campaigning, emailing, and even verbally bashing Walker at charging conferences.” Do you deny that?

13. Mr. Lutz has said that Mr. Chisholm told him that his wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward, had been repeatedly moved to tears by Gov. Walker’s policies regarding public employee unions. Do you deny saying anything like that?

14. Mr. Lutz has said that Mr. Chisholm told him that his wife “frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved.” Do you deny saying anything like that?

15. Mr. Lutz has said that Mr. Chisholm told him that he felt that it was his “personal duty” to stop Gov. Walker from curbing public employee unions. Do you deny that?

16. Mr. Lutz has said that Mr. Chisholm told him that his wife had joined public demonstrations by one or more unions against Walker’s policies in 2011. Do you deny saying anything like that?

17. Mr. Lutz has said that Mr. Chisholm made most or all of the statements numbered 10 through 16 above while the two of them (and perhaps one or more others) were speaking in Mr. Chisholm’s personal office in or about March 2011. Do you deny that?

18. Mr. Lutz has said that in the first half of 2011 (roughly), many of Mr. Chisholm’s subordinates were very strongly opposed to Walker and his union-curbing policies. Do you deny that?

19. Mr. Lutz has said that a number of subordinates of Mr. Chisholm joined public protests in 2011 against Walker’s policies. Do you deny that?

20. Mr. Lutz has said that some Chisholm subordinates hung images of blue fists on their office walls in 2011. Do you deny that?

21. I believe that Gov. Walker’s Act 10 and perhaps related legislation or policies caused cuts in take-home pay for Mr. Chisholm and his subordinates, as for other unionized public employees, in part by requiring them to pay for previously free or inexpensive health insurance, pensions, and perhaps other benefits. Do you deny that?

22. The cuts in take-home pay for Mr. Chisholm and/or some of his subordinates were roughly 10 percent or more. Do you deny that?

23. One or more of Mr. Chisholm’s subordinates will be entitled under current law to a pension in excess of $1 million each. Do you deny that?

24. Mr. Lutz told me that Mr. Chisholm told him that as a result of Act 10, Colleen Chisholm’s union local disbanded and that she was very upset about this and the effect it would have on members and former members. Do you deny that?

25. The impact of Mr. Walker’s polices on the Chisholms’ finances also included whatever pay Mrs. Chisholm had previously received from her union. Do you deny that?

26. I have reason to believe that Mrs. Chisholm had been receiving more than $20,000 a year in gross compensation from the union. Do you deny that?

27. I have been told that after I published some of Mr. Lutz’s allegations without identifying him, the DA’s office developed a list of people who might be my source. Do you deny that?

28. I have also been told that there were as many as 10 or 12 people on that list. Do you deny that?

29. I have also been told that Mr. Lutz was not on that initial list. Do you deny that?

"The Wisconsin Targets Tell Their Story/After victory in court, conservative activists talk on the record for the first time about their 21-month ordeal."

A must-read in The Wall Street Journal by Collin Levy. (No subscription? Google some text.)

One target did speak up in public in real time— Eric O’Keefe... The director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth knew that violating the gag order put him at personal risk, but he told me then that he had to fight because it was an assault on basic constitutional freedoms and “we have done nothing illegal.”... “I did not want to see the inside of a jail cell,” Mr. O’Keefe says, but “I didn’t want to shirk my duty to confront tyrannical behavior.”...

Now the 60-year-old Mr. O’Keefe is willing to provide more details about his decision. He says he talked it over with his children, and he and his wife, Leslie, discussed “how she should operate if I was arrested for contempt of court.” The maximum penalty in Wisconsin is a $10,000 fine and one year in jail. “She asked if she could bail me out of jail. My position was ‘no.’ ”...

"They were spying on people who were making it tough for them to retain their hold on state government,” Mr. O’Keefe says. “People often ask, ‘What were they investigating?’ That’s the wrong question. It wasn’t the what, it was the who.”

And the “who” happened to be political allies of Scott Walker, who was a political opponent of Messrs. Chisholm and Landgraf. While this story has a happy ending, it still required years of legal expense to fight back and expose the prosecutorial abuses. The targets have been vindicated, but a reckoning for prosecutors and the abusive John Doe machinery is still in order.

"After much soul-searching, I am filing a civil-rights lawsuit on Wednesday against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm."

"I fear his retaliation, given what I know of his methods, but the Chisholm campaign against me that began at dawn on Sept. 14, 2011, requires a legal response to discourage the prosecutor’s continued abuse of his office," writes Cindy Archer in The Wall Street Journal (where you can get past the pay-wall by Googling text for your own link). Read the whole thing to see what happened to Archer.

I was targeted because of my politics — in plain violation of the First Amendment and federal civil-rights statutes.

She doesn't mention whether she's suing in federal or state court, but she's citing federal law as the basis for her claims.

I've read Archer's story before, but the presentation of the facts in this new piece highlights some aspects of the invasion of privacy that I had not noticed. The arrival of government agents at her house "was so unexpected and frightening that I ran down from my bedroom without clothes on." I don't know if that means completely naked. The agents "yelled" at her to get dressed. Let into the house, they "barged into the bathroom where my partner was showering," so a second woman was exposed naked. And, in the search: "My deceased mother’s belongings were strewn across the floor."

These are very sympathetic facts. 

The Supreme Court denies cert. in the John Doe case — O'Keefe v. Chisholm.

SCOTUSblog reports.

ADDED: Here's the post from last month "The Wall Street Journal urges the U.S. Supreme Court to take the free-speech case arising out of Wisconsin's John Doe investigation."

I thought the Supreme Court should take cert., but it's important to see that this case was about a federal court interfering with proceedings in state court, and at this point, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is hearing the state court case. The federal court abstained, and one of the reasons for abstention is that the state court may choose an interpretation of the state statute that would avoid the federal constitutional question. The Supreme Court's denial of cert. doesn't mean that the 7th Circuit got the abstention doctrine right.

"Ronald Rotunda, distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Chapman University in California, called Chisholm’s statements outrageous."

"There is no justification for a prosecutor to do this," Rotunda said. "If you were to write a recipe to chill your political opponents, this would be it. The only different between (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and this guy (Chisholm) is Putin charges his enemies with tax fraud and sends them to Siberia."

"Is Milwaukee County DA interested in pursuing criminal libel prosecutions of his political critics?"

Asks Eugene Volokh, noting that John Chisholm made a bit of a veiled threat toward Governor Scott Walker: "As to defamatory remarks, I strongly suspect the Iowa criminal code, like Wisconsin’s, has provisions for intentionally making false statements intended to harm the reputation of others." That came in response to Walker's saying that the John Doe investigation "was really about people trying to intimidate people," "They were looking for just about anything," and "it was largely a political witch hunt."

Volokh says that Iowa, in fact, does not have a criminal libel law, but Wisconsin does. Is Chisholm serious?

Is DA Chisholm is trying to signal that he may begin using Wisconsin’s own criminal libel law against political figures — or commentators or journalists — who he claims are lying about him (or other political figures)?

Volokh finds "the use of criminal libel law in political disputes... troubling." I'll say. I mean, that was Walker's point — government using its power to intimidate political opponents — and Chisholm's instinct was to threaten to use government power to intimidate political opponents. Of course, that's a despicable chilling of free speech. In fact, it's chilly enough around here that, on proofread, I wondered whether I ought to be writing "threat" and "threaten."

The Wall Street Journal urges the U.S. Supreme Court to take the free-speech case arising out of Wisconsin's John Doe investigation.

You can get to the editorial here:

On Friday the Justices will consider whether to hear O’Keefe v. Chisholm, a Section 1983 civil-rights lawsuit brought by Wisconsin Club for Growth director Eric O’Keefe against Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm and other prosecutors. The suit charges the prosecutors with a multi-year campaign to silence and intimidate conservative groups whose political speech they don’t like....

The 7th Circuit's decision was based not on the merits but on deference to the ongoing proceedings in state court, which theoretically could have responded to the federal constitutional questions. That is: the Younger abstention doctrine. I discussed the 7th Circuit opinion when it came out last September, saying:

There is an exception to the Younger doctrine, which the plaintiffs tried to use here, that applies when the federal rights claimants show that the prosecutors in state court are proceeding in "bad faith." The question is whether the prosecutors are really attempting to secure a valid conviction or whether they are simply using the legal process to harass the federal court plaintiffs. The 7th Circuit panel found some perplexity in the free speech issues about campaign coordination:

The Supreme Court has yet to determine what “coordination” means. Is the scope of permissible regulation limited to groups that advocate the election of particular candidates, or can government also regulate coordination of contributions and speech about political issues, when the speakers do not expressly advocate any person’s election? What if the speech implies, rather than expresses, a preference for a particular candidate’s election? If regulation of coordination about pure issue advocacy is permissible, how tight must the link be between the politician’s committee and the advocacy group? Uncertainty is a powerful reason to leave this litigation in state court, where it may meet its end as a matter of state law without any need to resolve these constitutional questions.

This is a nudge to the state judge to shut down the investigation, and yet there is something very disturbing about this ambiguity in free speech law and the leeway it gives prosecutors to stall a political group throughout a campaign season. I'd like to see the Supreme Court make this clear....

Back to the WSJ editorial:

Specific injustices aside, the U.S. Justices should also hear the case because it is part of a larger legal effort to subvert their 2010 Citizens United ruling. The game is to use the theory of “coordination,” which allows vast investigations to be instigated on the thinnest evidence, to sweep issue speech back into the regulatory umbrella of campaign-finance law.

The liberal Brennan Center for Justice is pushing regulations coast to coast that would reduce protections for issue speakers and encourage “coordination” probes. The Wisconsin case is an opening for the Court to tell prosecutors and regulators they must tread carefully when rights of free association are involved.

Wisconsin’s prosecutorial machinery has abused the law to silence disfavored political speech. This one is made to order for Supreme Court review.

I agree. The Court needs to take this case. Quite aside from all the substantive problems, the idea of deferring to the state courts is supposed to be based on the ability of the state courts to step up and deal with the substantive problems themselves. The 7th Circuit decision came out 7 months ago. Where's the action from the state courts? If there are indeed free-speech violations, they've been going on for 3 years. It's one thing for federal courts to refrain from jumping into state court proceedings that might do a decent-enough job of enforcing federal rights. But here, these proceedings have worked to suppress political speech for 2 election cycles and beyond. It's quite shocking.

"Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10... was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking."

"The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door. 'I was so afraid,' she says. 'I did not know what to do.'... It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information...."

From "Wisconsin’s Shame: 'I Thought It Was a Home Invasion.'"

"2020 seems doable, and Jackson seems like the low-hanging fruit as Presidents on the currency goes, so I think they probably have a shot."

They = a group called Women on 20s who think there should be a woman on at least one denomination of U.S. paper money.

Jackson may be low-hanging fruit...

Jackson had strongly opposed the notion of central banking. Plus, he sought—and signed—the Indian Removal Act, which led to the expulsion of Native Americans from their homes.

But you can't beat something with nothing, so who is the woman supposed to be?

Stuart Taylor Jr. advances his John Doe investigation story by publishing his long list of questions to the prosecutor John Chisholm.

I'm not surprised that Chisholm declines to answer Taylor's long list of questions, even though Chisholm did speak up in response to Taylor's original attack and seemingly went to some trouble in an effort to to impugn Michael Lutz. Lutz was Taylor's unnamed source for the article that depicted the prosecutor and his office as highly politicized and openly antagonistic to Governor Scott Walker.

The questions standing alone go a long way toward rehabilitating Lutz after the attack on his credibility and they also work to restate and emphasize Lutz's original charges against Chisholm. Taylor observes that Chisholm has generally denied that he had a political agenda, but that he doesn't seem to have denied the specific allegations that Lutz had made. This corresponds to what I wrote when I saw Chisholm's response:

Reading [Taylor's original attack and Chisholm's response], I'm thinking that Taylor raised suspicions that Chisholm and his lawyers and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have not adequately refuted. I want to see a specific statement from Chisholm that goes into the details, something more than expressions of outrage and denials that could be based on Chisholm's belief that he compartmentalized his prosecutorial decisionmaking and his personal political beliefs and husbandly tenderness.

Were there blue fist signs in the office and other expressions of support for unions and antagonism to Walker? What was the extent of participation in the protests? Did Chisholm speak openly about his wife's feelings in the context of the case? Taylor's article created a strong motivation to respond on that level, and neither Chisholm nor his lawyer provided that response.

So I'm pleased to see Taylor taking this approach — with far more detailed questions —and I'll reprint Taylor's questions below:

"The man who sued the prosecutors of a secret John Doe investigation into dozens of conservative groups now wants the lead prosecutor investigated..."

"... on charges of feloniously using his office for political persecution and personal reward."

Long-time political activist Eric O’Keefe, a director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, on Monday sent a certified letter to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm demanding that Chisholm ask the Milwaukee County Circuit Court to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the conduct of the DA and his office....

O’Keefe notes that Wisconsin law prohibits a district attorney from using the powers and privileges of his office for the financial benefit of himself, his immediate family members, or an organization with which his immediate family members are associated.

A distric [sic] attorney also is prohibited from using those powers and privileges to obtain an unlawful advantage for third parties, such as political candidates and recall committees; to obtain through official functions for those illegitimate purposes; and from allowing his office to become de facto campaign grounds.

Details at the link. This ties back to the revelations in the Stuart Taylor Jr. article we discussed here,  here and here.

Stuart Taylor Jr. responds to the attack on his source for the story about the political atmosphere in the office of the John Doe prosecutor.

This follows up on something discussed on this blog a week ago in "John Doe prosecutor John Chisholm objects to what Stuart Taylor Jr. said about his anti-Walker vendetta" and "Did Stuart Taylor Jr. misidentify his unnamed source for his article impugning the motives of the John Doe prosecutor?"  In that second post, I'd said:

It's not just that the source (as revealed by [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel] Bice) seems pretty untrustworthy. What bothers me most here is that Taylor would pass him off as a "longtime Chisholm subordinate" and "former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office" if he was a short-time, unpaid, paper-shuffler. Taylor needs to weigh in.

Stuart Taylor now weighs in with "Decorated Wis. cop says he paid dearly for blowing whistle on DA’s crusade against Gov. Walker":

Did Stuart Taylor Jr. misidentify his unnamed source for his article impugning the motives of the John Doe prosecutor?

Here's yesterday's post, "John Doe prosecutor John Chisholm objects to what Stuart Taylor Jr. said about his anti-Walker vendetta." Taylor called his source a "longtime Chisholm subordinate" and "former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office":

Stuart Taylor quotes his unnamed source as saying "it was surprising how almost hyper-partisan [Chisholm] became." And:

Chisholm “had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who were just fanatical about union activities and unionizing. And a lot of them went up and protested. They hung those blue fists on their office walls [to show solidarity with union protestors] … At the same time, if you had some opposing viewpoints that you wished to express, it was absolutely not allowed.”

Now, we have the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel Bice purporting to reveal Taylor's source as a former police officer and current criminal defense attorney, who worked as an "unpaid special prosecutor for 5 1/2 months in the county office in 2011 [and] spent most of his time filling out grant applications for the community prosecution program."

"Such respect for state courts is admirable, and 'federalism' is our middle name. But..."

"... the appellate judges are underestimating the harm this probe is doing to the rights of those who've been targeted. Judge Peterson quashed the prosecution's subpoenas way back in February because there was no evidence of a crime, but Milwaukee Democratic District Attorney John Chisholm has appealed and the case is sitting, and sitting, and sitting at the Wisconsin Supreme Court."

The Wall Street Journal editors push the 7th Circuit court to side with Eric O'Keefe and the Club for Growth in their pursuit of a federal court remedy against the John Doe prosecutors.

[T]he targets sit in limbo, forced to spend money on lawyers to defend themselves rather than exercising their First Amendment right to advocate for causes. The Wisconsin Club for Growth's political fundraising has been shut down and it hasn't run a single ad in this election cycle. This is precisely why the Club and director Eric O'Keefe sought relief in federal court.

John Doe prosecutor John Chisholm objects to what Stuart Taylor Jr. said about his anti-Walker vendetta.

Taylor quoted an unnamed source, a former prosecutor, who claims to have heard Chisholm speak of having a "personal duty to stop" Governor Scott Walker:

[The] longtime Chisholm subordinate [says that] Chisholm told him and others that Chisholm’s wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward at St. Francis high school, a public school near Milwaukee... "frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved … She took it personally."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Chisholm "denied... that his two secret probes ... were motivated by a political vendetta arising out of his wife's profession as a public school teacher." I'm not seeing the text of Chisholm's denial — only the newspaper's paraphrase — but to say that the probes weren't "motivated by a political vendetta" (the Sentinel's words) is not to deny that he spoke of his wife's frequent crying and his concern for her in a way that made listener's feel that he had a personal and political mission.

One could talk about one's wife's feelings, express great concern for her pain, and still believe that you were capable of excluding your personal sentiments from your professional decision-making. Rightly or wrongly, you could think you were doing the compartmentalizing that ethics require. Rightly or wrongly, your co-workers might judge you to be failing to compartmentalize. What was true?

Chisholm's lawyer gave the newspaper text that it prints in its (presumably) original form:  "The suggestion that all of those measures were taken in furtherance of John Chisholm's (or his wife's) personal agenda is scurrilous, desperate and just plain cheap." That's just a passionate — some might say desperate — statement of outrage that asserts nothing factual. And note the word "all." That leaves the possibility that some of those measures were part of a personal agenda. Lawyers. You have to watch out for them, and when you have the advantage of seeing their original texts, you have a decent chance to see where they are hedging. The lawyer wants you to notice the very interesting words "scurrilous, desperate and just plain cheap." Refocus on "all," and you'll see how little the lawyer is saying.

Stuart Taylor quotes his unnamed source as saying "it was surprising how almost hyper-partisan [Chisholm] became." And:

Chisholm “had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who were just fanatical about union activities and unionizing. And a lot of them went up and protested. They hung those blue fists on their office walls [to show solidarity with union protestors] … At the same time, if you had some opposing viewpoints that you wished to express, it was absolutely not allowed.”

Taylor got a response from Chisholm's lawyer. He called it "baseless character assault" and "inaccurate in a number of critical ways" — without, Taylor says, specifying what the inaccuracies were. He won't say it was nothing but lies. The hedging is obvious: "inaccurate in a number of critical ways." Which ways?! Were there blue fist signs hanging on the walls? Did people in Chisholm's office participate in the protests? Was there a fanatical, anti-Walker atmosphere in the office? Which part is inaccurate? Was it anti-Walker but not quite "fanatical"? Did some but not "a lot" protest? Were blue fists hung up in the office but not by so many people that it's fair to say "They"? I don't know, and given the pressure to be specific, the generic objection implies that there is something there.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quotes "an attorney with Democratic ties who defended clients caught up in the Doe probe" who says that "he saw no evidence of political bias or union support in their dealings with Chisholm and his office" and that "he didn't observe signs with a blue fist." Would the unnamed defense lawyer even have been in the part of the office where the unnamed former prosecutor saw the blue fists? That the prosecutors behaved in a professional manner in their dealings with the defense lawyers doesn't say much about how they behaved behind the scenes, which is what Taylor's source purports to tell us about. If there really was an anti-Walker vendetta, the prosecutors would have known they had to hide it.

The Sentinel quotes another defense attorney, one who allows his name to be used, who also says he didn't see the union signs, but "he might have missed them." And "I never saw any blue fists but I saw a lot of red faces," which is funny, but I'm not sure what it means. Was he saying that the prosecutors seemed unprofessionally inflamed by a mission?

Reading these 2 articles this morning, I'm thinking that Taylor raised suspicions that Chisholm and his lawyers and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have not adequately refuted. I want to see a specific statement from Chisholm that goes into the details, something more than expressions of outrage and denials that could be based on Chisholm's belief that he compartmentalized his prosecutorial decisionmaking and his personal political beliefs and husbandly tenderness.

Were there blue fist signs in the office and other expressions of support for unions and antagonism to Walker? What was the extent of participation in the protests? Did Chisholm speak openly about his wife's feelings in the context of the case? Taylor's article created a strong motivation to respond on that level, and neither Chisholm nor his lawyer provided that response.

UPDATE: The MJS purports to reveal the source, discussed in a new post.

The press ignored the Scott Walker/John Doe story "when 2 judges ruled against the prosecutors' theory of the case," and now it "broadcasts that theory as if it were a fact, not a discredited accusation."

Write the editors of The Wall Street Journal, noting the "breathless page-one stories" about Walker's "criminal scheme" to coordinate campaign activities that didn't make it clear that all we were reading was "a prosecutorial theory floated to justify a secret grand-jury fishing expedition," that the documents were coming out as a result of a thus-far-successful civil-rights case against the prosecutors, and that "the two judges who have looked closely at the evidence have found no violations of law."

To the contrary, both judges have ruled that the prosecutors' theory of illegal campaign coordination is faulty and itself a violation of the defendants' right to free political speech. The document dump amounts to prosecutors losing in court but then having the press treat the prosecutors' claims as if they were the gospel truth.

Much more detail at the link. The details are complicated enough that you might feel tempted to forgive the press for jumping on the spicy "criminal scheme" business and not bothering to explain all the surrounding legalistic material, but I'll bet what determines whether you succumb to that temptation is whether you oppose Walker or not. And, of course, there is every reason to suspect that the press chose its presentation because it opposes Walker and snapped at the opportunity to try to bring him down.

[T]he document dump is serving a political purpose that prosecutors have intended from the start—to tarnish Mr. Walker as he seeks re-election.... This is typical of the behavior of Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm and Assistant DAs Bruce Landgraf and David Robles from the beginning. The Democrats hired [special prosecutor Francis] Schmitz, a nominal Republican, as special prosecutor to put a nonpartisan gloss on an investigation that the DAs realized would be seen for the political prosecution it was.

ADDED: My link may cause you to hit a pay wall. I really don't know why the WSJ wants to keep this editorial from having the effect the editors' words show they want. Anyway, try googling some text I've quoted and go in through the link you get that way.

Federal district judge halts the John Doe investigation into conservative groups and the Scott Walker recall campaign.

Here's the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel News report:

In his 26-page decision [PDF], U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa in Milwaukee told prosecutors to immediately stop the long-running, five-county probe into possible illegal coordination between Walker's campaign, the Wisconsin Club for Growth and a host of others during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections.

"The (Wisconsin Club for Growth and its treasurer) have found a way to circumvent campaign finance laws, and that circumvention should not and cannot be condemned or restricted. Instead, it should be recognized as promoting political speech, an activity that is 'ingrained in our culture,'" Randa wrote, quoting from a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

"Circumvent" is a funny word there. The assumption should be that we are free except to the extent that the government has validly restricted us. A bigger question is whether the campaign finance statutory law that we do have is valid, given free speech rights.

"'John Doe' Target Demands Wisconsin Prosecutors End Retaliatory Probe or Face Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit."

A press release:

Washington, D.C. (January 15, 2014)—Eric O’Keefe, who has been identified in media reports as a target of a secret “John Doe” investigation in Wisconsin, today demanded that state prosecutors end their action against him or face a federal civil rights action. O’Keefe is director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which was also targeted for alleged unlawful “coordination” with Governor Scott Walker’s campaign for fiscal reforms.