Thursday, March 14, 2013

Republican's Gerrymandering Scandal Deepens

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that the scandal involving the Republicans' unethical gerrymandering just got a whole lot deeper. The Republicans, who have been rather less than cooperative with the federal court, are now suspected of having destroyed an untold amount of digital evidence:
In the two weeks the plaintiffs have had hard drives, forensic examiner Mark Lanterman has determined documents were deleted in June, July and November. He also found some of them contained "wiping" software meant to delete files so that they cannot be recovered.

The internal and external hard drives come from the three computers that legislative aides, lawyers and consultants used to draw the maps. One of the nine hard drives had a stripped screw, dents and scratches and is unreadable.

Lanterman did not tell the court how many documents had been deleted from the hard drives, but a lawyer for the plaintiffs called the number "substantial."
This is on top of the fact that we've learned that the Republicans all had to sign oaths of silence regarding the gerrymandering process:
Included in the documents released Monday was a set of talking points that stressed that those who discussed the maps could eventually be called as a witness in a court case.

"Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room. Ignore the public comments," the talking points also say.
Despite their oaths, their corruption was exposed for all to see.

It will be interesting to see what the forensic investigation yields. If there was indeed tampering of evidence, there could be serious charges involved. Ideally, this case would have already been referred to the FBI for further investigation to see exactly just who was involved with the evidence tampering and have them brought to justice.

Interestingly, Scott Walker has had nothing to say about any of this. But then again, he's probably afraid that any comment he might make would only serve to remind people that Walkergate also involved the destruction of digital evidence. It was Darlene Wink's willingness to testify regarding this that helped her get a plea deal with the DA's Office.

I also couldn't help but notice that not one of the right wing pundits have mentioned the new findings.  Apparently corruption is only OK if a Republican does it.

Lastly, even though it should be so obvious that it needn't be pointed out, the question that should be on everyone's mind is that if the Republican is so wonderful, why do they need to resort to such secrecy, such corruption as to destroying the evidence of their work.  If it was such a good thing, one would think that they would be screaming it from the building tops.

Obviously, the answer is that their agenda is not good for the state or its citizens.  Their agenda only goes to serve their corporate masters, who don't really give a damn about any of us except how much more they can squeeze from us.

9 comments:

  1. The Ghost of Dick Nixon is alive and well in the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Instead of 18 minutes of erased audio tape, Walker, Vos and Priebus have erased hard drives. The cover up of the crime is worse than the original crime.

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    1. I want to apologize to Scott Fitzgerald, Jeff Fitzgerald and their aides for not including them with Walker, Vos and Priebus for not remembering that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

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  2. There was a time when news like this would get national attention right away. Today, not so much. Thanks again for being one of those to get this knowledge out to the people.

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  3. Well of course they deleted documents, wiped and damaged hard drives, that's what criminals do, they destroy evidence. The Wisconsin Republican Party is dominated by a cult of gangsterism which says: Prosecute us if you can.

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    1. You may want to sign this petition asking for Fed investigations into this mess https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/please-investigate-governor-scott-walker-under-racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations-act/mHRg3QgN

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  4. But it is a confounding action. By all reports (and investigations) they didn't do anything illegal- other than that one Milwaukee district. They were just self serving to the limits of the law. Why hide computers, delete hard drives and sign confidentiality agreements if you are acting within your granted constitutional powers? Well, as a general rule one only takes these actions if one has something to hide that IS illegal.

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  5. Someone I suspect has a backup of all these drives.

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  6. It used to be a law in America that when a Judge orders you to do something, that you had to do it. Which USED to mean when a judge tells you to turn ALL files over, it meant to turn ALL filed over. NOT turn all files over that dont make you look bad.

    not quite sure when it changed and when people stopped caring that our politicians ignore court orders.

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    1. Which would imply that there exists a State Supreme Court that practices the tenets of law.

      Is it any wonder that AB 26 to increase monetary costs for FOIA Open Records requests.

      http://thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0228aclu.pdf

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