Wall Street Journal hits Scott Walker again on Doe deal-making

The first statement, issued by Walker's campaign, appeared to deal only with the federal lawsuit, not the Doe probe being run at the state level.

"Neither Governor Walker nor his campaign committee are parties to the federal lawsuit," the campaign statement said. "This means they have no legal standing to reach a settlement or deal in their lawsuit."

That prompted the new editorial, which appeared on the Journal's website Friday.

"Sorry, that's disingenuous," the editorial said of Walker's initial response. "The 'federal lawsuit' is one brought by Mr. Walker's political allies in federal court against prosecutors who are conducting a state John Doe probe into allegedly illegal campaign coordination. Our editorial concerned Mr. Walker's willingness to settle with prosecutors over his role in the state John Doe probe. The worry is that he might settle to help his re-election campaign while throwing his allies over the side."

The same day, Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "I'm certainly not going to undermine people who share my same beliefs, and I'm certainly not going to undermine anyone's First Amendment rights. I'm frankly kind of shocked for anyone to suggest that."