When you are a corrupt Republican justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court voting to halt a legal investigation into possible criminal activity by your state’s Republican governor, it’s probably not a good idea to bring up Watergate.
Yet that’s exactly what Justice David Prosser had the audacity to do concurring with the legally appalling decision Justice Michael Gableman wrote for the right-wing majority on Wisconsin’s court in a case that ethically they should not even have ruled on.
The decision shuts down a John Doe investigation and prevents prosecutors from investigating a suspected “criminal scheme” involving millions of dollars in hidden campaign contributions benefitting Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies.
Corruption is a strong word, but it’s fully justified by the nationally embarrassing legal actions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Perhaps nothing illustrates that better than an actual comparison of what really happened in the Watergate investigation that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency and the Wisconsin court’s brazen decision to stop prosecutors from investigating Walker.
How, you may ask, could Prosser possibly draw a parallel between the successful pursuit of a corrupt president in Watergate and the Wisconsin decision to halt a criminal investigation involving Walker?
By totally ignoring the whole lesson of Watergate—namely, that no politician in America should be above the law.
That was the unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ordering Nixon to turn over to prosecutors damning tapes recorded in the Oval Office of the president and his aides discussing how to cover up their crimes.
Prosser didn’t compare the bipartisan John Doe prosecutors to the Watergate prosecutors. Unbelievably, Prosser compared prosecutors to Nixon’s Watergate burglars breaking into the offices of the president’s political opponents.
Gableman criticized FBI raids on Walker associates conducted legally with search warrants as “pre-dawn, armed, paramilitary-style raids.” Prosser, concurring with Gableman, said the subpoenas were evidence “so extensive that they make the fruits of the legendary Watergate break-in look insignificant by comparison.”
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It’s legally embarrassing that four justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court would sign onto an opinion that fails to recognize the difference between a burglary by criminals and an FBI raid to seize evidence with a legally executed search warrant approved by a judge.
Republicans never object to police breaking down the doors of drug houses. Law enforcement uses exactly the same tactics against white-collar criminals to seize evidence that is stored in computers or files prosecutors fear might be destroyed.
Four Justices Had Obvious Conflicts of Interest
The white-collar crime investigated in the John Doe may be difficult for the public to understand but it’s an important one. Prosecutors were investigating possible violations of campaign finance law that make it illegal for a candidate to coordinate with outside independent groups supporting him.
It’s important because a candidate’s donors must be publicly identified and obey contribution limits. Donors to outside groups can remain anonymous and contribute millions of dollars without any limits.
That makes it possible for wealthy companies and individuals who want governmental favors to literally buy their own governors and legislators without any public record of the corruption.
And, guess what, those outside political groups also can buy state Supreme Court justices. That’s what makes the decision by Gableman and the other three Republican justices on the court so brazenly unethical.
The major outside groups challenging the John Doe investigation into their possible illegal activities coordinated with Walker’s campaign were Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.
And guess what? Those two groups, along with a few others, spent about $10 million to elect the four-member Republican majority to the court. Together the two groups spent $2.3 million to elect Gableman, $2.6 million to elect Prosser, $2.6 million to elect Justice Annette Ziegler and $850,000 to elect Justice Patience Roggensack, according to public records.
That should have been enough for all four justices to recuse themselves from participating in a case involving parties that had paid for their elections because of the obvious conflict of interest.
Francis Schmitz, the special John Doe prosecutor, himself a Republican, specifically asked Gableman and Prosser to recuse themselves from the case and they refused.
Then, surprise, surprise, all four justices decided their campaign funders were right and prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to collect any evidence of criminal activity by Walker and those groups.
If you think it’s outrageous that four bought-and-paid-for justices would participate in a case brought by groups financing their elections, the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with you. That’s why the decision should be appealed.
In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a West Virginia Supreme Court decision saying there was “a probability of bias” because a state Supreme Court justice refused to recuse himself after a coal company CEO spent $3 million to elect that justice, who then ruled in his favor.
That West Virginia Supreme Court justice was nothing but a petty criminal. It costs at least $10 million to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
