The child Scott Walker left behind?

During the 2012 gubernatorial recall election the Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative ran a story alleging Gov. Scott Walker fathered a child in the late 1980s while he was still a student at Marquette University.

Bernadette Gillick was a college freshman in 1988 when she first met Scott Walker. It was spring semester, and she had just transferred to Marquette University. She was assigned a room in O’Donnell Hall (then a women’s dormitory), which she shared with her new roommate, Ruth (not her real name). Ruth was dating Scott Walker, who was 20 at the time, and, according to Bernadette, Ruth was deeply in love with him.

Midway through that spring semester, Bernadette alleges, Ruth found out she was pregnant. She informed her boyfriend, Scott, and initially he was supportive. Yet that support changed to callous indifference for his girlfriend’s predicament after Scott informed his parents of the pregnancy.

Bernadette reports that at this point Scott began denying that he was the father of the baby, and when Ruth said she was considering an abortion, he claimed he didn’t care, as he wasn’t the father anyway.

Bernadette remembers being present when Ruth was dealing with the wrath of Scott’s mother, who allegedly admonished Ruth for trying to “ruin [her son’s] reputation.”

“I supported her [Ruth] as he [Scott] went from encouraging her to get an abortion, to telling me it was in my best interest to keep my mouth shut, to denying that he was the father and having his own mother call her and tell her to stop erroneously accusing her son of paternity,” Bernadette recounts.

It was a “horrible time” for her friend. “Her life was changed tremendously and she took the high road in the face of incredible adversarial conditions. Imagine her being 18 years old and pregnant, walking around Marquette’s Jesuit Catholic campus with her boyfriend denying he was the father,” says Bernadette.

All this was taking place while Walker was running for student body president and serving as chair of the Marquette chapter of Students for Life.

According to Bernadette, Walker finally had to concede after the birth and paternity test, but “he hid everything he could and had little to do with the child.”

After consulting with her family, Ruth decided against an abortion. Bernadette was with Ruth in the hospital for the birth of her child later that year (and says Walker was not present), and later stood up as a bridesmaid in Ruth’s 1992 marriage to another man.

Why did Bernadette come forward with this story?

Dr. Bernadette Gillick is now a highly esteemed college professor and researcher at the Gillick Pediatric Research Lab at the University of Minnesota, specializing in brain plasticity and neurorehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy. Through her attorney, Mike Fargione, she issued a statement: “It is rare that you will ever hear from me on issues of politics… but I’m asking you to consider what I have to share …”

Bernadette recounts how, in the run up to the 2012 Wisconsin recall election, she watched a televised debate between Scott Walker and Tom Barrett. As Walker talked about his “lifelong integrity” her anger grew. This was a man who had abandoned his pregnant young girlfriend — completely turned his back on her at the most fragile point in her life. She notes his “now-convenient ‘pro-life’ proclamations” after burying his past “indiscretion.”

At the time WMC Coop ran their story, it was criticized by some as being purely speculative and having absolutely no basis in reality. However, in a followup story WMC Coop stuck to their guns and did not back down one bit from their original story, noting that their source Dr. Bernadette Gillick had hired and attorney and was prepared to defend the veracity of her account.

While I didn’t post about WMC Coop’s story back in 2012 and I can’t say with 100% certainty that the rumors of Scott Walker love child are true, I think it’s a story that merits further discussion and scrutiny, given the fact that Gov. Walker is running for president and based on information that’s been brought to my attention that may bolster the veracity of these claims (but more on that in a later blog post).

I know that some reports indicate the reporting of a Scott Walker love is absolutely not true, but based on my conversation with the author of the original report on WMC Coop, the individuals (mother & child) in their report are not the same individuals as the information I’ve obtained. As I noted above, I’ll have more on this story if and when I’m able to definitively confirm or debunk the veracity of the information that was provided to me.

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10 thoughts on “The child Scott Walker left behind?

  1. “Scott Walker’s insidious agnosticism”

    ““I don’t know.”

    Thus proclaimed Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential hopeful, when asked by The Post’s Dan Balz and Robert Costa on Saturday whether President Obama is a Christian.
    Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital. He joined the Post as a political reporter in 2000. View Archive

    This is not a matter of conjecture. The correct answer is yes: Obama is Christian, and he frequently speaks about it in public. Balz and Costa presented Walker with this information to give him a second chance to answer.

    But even when prompted with the facts, Walker — in Washington for the National Governors Association meeting — persisted, saying, “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” and, “I’ve never asked him that,” and, “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that.”

    This is an intriguing standard. I’ve never had a conversation with Walker about whether he’s a cannibal, a eunuch, a sleeper cell for the Islamic State, a sufferer of irritable bowel syndrome or a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. By Walker’s logic, it would be fair for me to let stand the possibility that he just might be any of those — simply because I have no personal and direct refutation from him.

    …”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-we-dont-know-about-scott-walker/2015/02/23/626e738a-bba8-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html?postshare=8241424750214331

  2. Didn’t some in the media say that she was confusing the governor with another man named Scott Walker? I seem to recall something about that.

    1. Mase, I’m not a lawyer, but if Dr. Gillick was wrong about this, Gov. Walker could have and most certainly would have sued her for libel and defamation of character. The only reason I can think of that that he didn’t, was because he knew the suit would have opened him up to a paternity test.

      1. One has to wonder about that. To be honest though, did any major news outlets run with this story back then? I remember this story was on some blogs and such, but I’m not sure if it ever made any of the major local papers, etc.

        1. By “major” outlets, do you mean those controlled by the oligarchs? Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s owned by Journal Communications, soon to be Scripps which is publicly traded on the NYSE. Mike Grebe (Bradley Foundation $300 – $500 million) is Walker’s campaign manager See http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/walkers-key-advisers-kept-campaign-on-track-b99390304z1-282825711.html

          Do a search on billionaire David Einhorn and his family, along with Scott Walker. The Einhorns helped Mike Grebe put up billboards in African-American neighborhoods to try and intimidate those folks into not voting. The son, David Einhorn, tried to buy the Mets. It’s not just the Koch brothers who either directly or through a proxy own JRN stock and control what gets published/front-paged. JS reporters are by in large union, but to keep their jobs, they have to publish what their editors allow. It’s the same way for all the media. GE owns NBC and GE wants those criminal trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership to get fast-tracked.

          Dan Bice JS reporter knocked down the story, so there was reporting about it at the time.

          I subscribe to the JS, still think they do a lot of fine work, but they’ve evolved into all-Walker-all-the-time, because it helps them sell subscriptions and drive traffic.

    2. @MaseMan – Dan Bice from the MJS looked for evidence of this story on CCAP. While he couldn’t find our governor on there (Scott K. Walker), he did find a family action pertaining to someone named Scott A. Walker. However, that CCAP entry has nothing to do with this story. The Scott A. Walker case involves a different woman (not Dr. Gillick’s roommate). A family action case such as the one between “Ruth” and Scott K. Walker wouldn’t show up on CCAP. Bice’s accusation that Dr. Gillick was mixing up stories shows sloppy investigating, is insulting to Dr. Gillick and the wcmc staff who investigated this story, and is without merit. If it wasn’t sloppy journalism, then he threw out a red herring intentionally (for what purpose, we might ask), which is even worse.

  3. @John Casper – According to Dr. Gillick’s account, a paternity test was done. That’s presumably why she was able to come forward. She is fully protected by the truth.

  4. “During the 2012 gubernatorial recall election the Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative ran a story alleging Gov. Scott Walker fathered an illegitimate child in the late 1980s while he was still a student at Marquette University.” — For the record, WCMC ran Dr. Gillick’s story alleging that Gov. Scott Walker fathered a child while a student at Marquette. WCMC didn’t use the term “illegitimate child.”

  5. So let me get this straight. Credible witness claims Walker fathered a kid and pressured the mother to have an abortion which she didn’t do and the state media ignores it. Yet a zero credibility witness claims Burke was fired days before the election and they all print it. JC, I cannot imagine why you would give the MJS a dime. And on another note, how could any woman sleep with Scott Walker? Ewwwww.

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