Court Orders Prosecutors To Stop Investigating Scott Walker’s Alleged Illegal Coordination

ThinkProgress

In a major victory for Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled early Thursday morning along partisan lines to halt the investigation into whether the newest Republican presidential candidate illegally coordinated with right-wing advocacy groups during his 2012 recall campaign.

Saying they want to “prevent the chilling of otherwise protected speech,” the Court’s four conservative justices ordered that the probe be terminated, and that those working on the case “permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation.” They also emphasize that anyone connected with the alleged crime is not longer obligated to cooperate with investigators.

Though the first John Doe probe into Walker’s campaign resulted in the criminal conviction of several of his staffers, the justices wrote of the new effort: “The special prosecutor’s legal theory is unsupported in either reason or law.” They also scolded prosecutors for investigating “citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing,” and boasted that the ruling will help protect every other Wisconsinite in the future from “tyrannical retribution” and “capricious government prosecution.”

This language echoes how Walker himself has characterized the case — as a “political witch hunt” engineered by Democrats to take him down, despite the fact that multiple district attorneys participating in the case are Republicans.

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http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/07/16/3681277/breaking-court-orders-prosectors-stop-investigating-scott-walkers-alleged-illegal-coordination/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&elqTrack=true&elqTrackId=a29303b5a21944c88d2c678bc27715f8&elqaid=26398&elqat=1