The Wisconsin Dept of Justice Is Out of Control

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel and other members of his Department of Justice are apparently unsure of what they are doing. Earlier this week the DOJ announced that there were no violations of Wisconsin laws apparent in clandestine videos provided by discredited conservative activist James O’Keefe and his organization Project Veritas Action.

Covert videos of Democratic activists released in the run-up to last year’s presidential election showed no violations of Wisconsin laws, a review by the attorney general’s office found.

“Based on all the available facts I do not believe there is any basis to conclude that the videos demonstrate or suggest violations of Wisconsin criminal laws,” Assistant Attorney General Roy Korte wrote in a Jan. 31 memo ending the investigation.

The memo was released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week under the state’s open records law.

But as the article pointed out, this is at odds with AG Schimel’s earlier statements issued during the campaign, so I am chalking it up to campaign rhetoric…but here’s the gist of it:

Schimel’s office released a statement in October calling the actions by Democrats on the undercover videos “apparent violations of the law” and saying Schimel was “very concerned” about them.

The Democratic response in the original article…put this in memory for later in this blog:

Democrats criticized Schimel for his handling of the investigation, contending he put politics ahead of the facts.

“Today’s news makes it clear that Attorney General Brad Schimel is either woefully incompetent of the laws he is supposed to enforce or he intentionally used his office for politics,” state Democratic Party spokesman Brandon Weathersby said in a written statement.

“Two weeks before the election, Brad Schimel suggested with no investigation that a private citizen broke election laws — and then for three months sat on the evidence showing this was false. This is beyond partisan politics, this is abuse of power by Schimel,” Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, said by email.

Now keep this all in mind since it occurred before they let AG Schimel out into the wild where he was interviewed by the Wisconsin Radio Network and later in the day the Mark Belling Show, and he took polar opposite stances on the investigation.

First at Wisconsin Radio Network he repeated his department’s position that the investigation was closed:

…Schimel described the investigation as closed in his interview with the Wisconsin Radio Network.

But then there was very vocal pushback from conservatives and the nefarious Mr. O’Keefe who essentially threatened the AG:

That elicited a strong reaction from O’Keefe, who on Thursday released a short video telling Schimel, “We should investigate you and you should lose your job.”

But just hours later:

“It’s not the end of it,” the Republican attorney general said Thursday on “The Mark Belling Show” on WISN-AM (1130).

And to cover his posterior, his office offered this explanation:

Schimel spokesman Johnny Koremenos on Friday said the memo had been released in error and declined to answer other questions.

Well of course he declined to answer questions, there are no defensible answers he could provide for the actions of the Dept. of Justice or AG Schimel.

So what is it? Does AG Schimel have control of his department and knows what they are up to? Or is his assistant Roy Korte a rogue employee who came to an invalid conclusion? And no one in the department looked at Mr. Korte’s memo once it was issue and contradicted it in the months since it was issued? Or is the Wisconsin Department of Justice completely out of control?

And that would be the better scenario than this: Is AG Schimel so unsure of his convictions and enforcing the law that he kowtows to the hoi polloi from the conservative right? That he simply changed his mind because Mark Belling and James O’Keefe pushed on him? That would truly be a frightening turn of events: an attorney without the courage of his convictions.

So what is it: Is Attorney General Brad Schimel an incapable manager or an attorney without a spine?

And before anyone finds fault with my characterization of James O’Keefe and his organization:

O’Keefe made his name in 2009 with videos that brought down the community organizing group ACORN. He later agreed to pay a $100,000 legal settlement to an ACORN employee and in 2010 pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor as part of another undercover operation.