Walkergate: From Cooperative To Cornered

Tuesday was supposed to be a big day in Walkergate, the John Doe investigation into Walker, his campaign and his county staff who was doing his campaign work.

Tuesday was supposed to be the day of Darlene Wink's sentencing.

But it's not going to be:

The prosecution and defense have jointly asked for a delay in the sentencing of Darlene Wink, a former aide to Gov. Scott Walker who was charged as part of an on-going John Doe investigation. She was to be sentenced tomorrow.

Wink, director of constituent services for Walker while he was Milwaukee Co. executive, earlier agreed to assist prosecutors in the ongoing probe in exchange for her cooperation. She pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors counts of doing campaign work while being paid by taxpayers as Walker’s aide.

Circuit Judge Daniel Konkol was to have sentenced Wink on Tuesday but delayed the sentencing at the request of the lawyers. He told both lawyers to appear in court Tuesday when a new date is expected to be set.

There's really only two or three reasons why this has happened.

One is that Wink has chosen not to be cooperative with the Walkergate investigators, which would set her up for much bigger legal problems as the DA reinstates the original charges, and then some.

Another possibility is that she has indeed been cooperative, but the District Attorney is concerned that her cooperativeness will end the moment her hands are slapped and she gets convicted on the much less severe charges.

The last possible scenario, and the one I think is most likely, is that she has been very cooperative, but the investigators have found much more for her to be cooperative about. Things like whatever they found in the missing computers or the Dumpster'O'Fun.

But what choice does Wink really have? It's either cooperate or be be cornered by her already pleading guilty and not having yet been sentenced.

However, Scott Walker apparently is choosing to take another path.

When Walkergate first started picking up steam at the beginning of this year, Walker would dismiss his role in it, claiming that he had been told that he was not a target in the investigation, but that he was being cooperative with investigators in their pursuit of justice.

Even after he started his Legal Cooperation Fund, he was saying he did so in order to be even more cooperative:

But Walker spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said late Friday that the fund was set up "under the guidance of the GAB."

"We reiterate that Gov. Walker has been told that he is not a target of this investigation," Matthews said.

However, there was a shift in tone, at least among his apologists, when it was revealed that Walker has spent over $100,000 making sure his campaign was "compliant" and that he spent more than another $100,000 - with almost half of that coming from his own pocket, before the legal cooperation fund - to ensure his cooperativeness. Yeah, that's a whole lotta complying and cooperating.

His apologists started hammering on the point that the money doesn't have to be about him, but could go for the defense of an agent.

While this is technically true, it doesn't hold water. You see, not one of his agents, which is legally defined as a member of his campaign, has been charged with any crimes related to Walkergate.

In the last few days, Tom Barrett, Walker's recall opponent, and the Democratic Party have been hitting Walker pretty hard about this, questioning the fund's purpose if he's not part of the investigation and if no campaign staff have been charged with a crime.

They just might be onto something, too.

Walker is starting to show that he is feeling a lot of pressure, like someone who has been cornered. For example, look at his response from Monday, in this Fox6Milwaukee report about the recent push regarding the fund:

The Democratic Party filed a request with the GAB to release all of its communication with Walker.

“I don’t think they’re going to do anything because there’s no merit to it. It’s nothing more than a cheap political stunt. We see it routinely. There’s no merit to it, and it’s not even worth discussing any more than that,” Walker said.

No talk of not being charged. No talk of cooperating or complying. Now suddenly it's "not worth discussing."

Remember, part of any John Doe investigation is that the parties involved with it are not allowed to talk about it. The fact that Walker is now clamming up when he used to by quite chatty with things would fit in with the rumor going around that Walker has met with the DA and his investigators in the past week.

Now, that doesn't mean that Walker has been indicted, or even that he ever will be. It's impossible to say that with any certainty until it happens, since Walker wouldn't ever admit it, even as he's wearing handcuffs and Chisholm's office is as tight as a drum, despite of the smear job that Walker's apologists would try to get people to believe that it's leaking information.

Furthermore, if Walker was indicted, it would be a matter of public record, and that news would be all over the state long before I could get to write about it.  Even the right wing media would have to report that.

But if what Walker says is true, and he is not a target, and no one from his campaign has been charged with a crime. Who is the legal defense for then?

Most of the people charged and/or convicted so far - Darlene Wink, Tim Russell, Kelly Rindfleisch and Keven Kavanaugh - were his county staff. To claim that they were agents in order to use funds to protect them would be admitting that they were working on his campaign illegally.

So, does anyone pose enough danger to Walker, that it might make him consider illegally using his legal defense fund, knowing the risk that would go along with it?

Tim Russell and Scott Walker 

We know that Tim Russell is named in every single charge pending, even though he himself has only been charged with embezzling from a veterans fund. Russell could conceivably charged with any number of other crimes from illegally campaigning to child sex crimes.

Russell was also a top lieutenant for Walker's campaigns throughout the years and would have enough damage to cause a lot of problems for Walker if he chose to turn state witness.

And we know that Walker and Russell have been very close friends for two decades.

But is all that enough to make Walker risk everything?  Would Walker take the chance of violating the rules regarding the legal defense fund to help out someone like Russell - or Brian Pierick or Darlene Wink or Kelly Rindfleisch?  Regardless of what the crime might be?  How much would their silence be worth to a power-hungry person like Walker?

Time will tell.  But if a person is feeling cornered, who knows what they will do?