AG Schimel Asks US Supreme Court Not To Hear John Doe 2 Case

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear a case that seeks to revive an investigation involving conservative groups and Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ended the investigation known as John Doe 2 last year, ruling that Wisconsin law permitted the kind of coordination that prosecutors were looking into between Walker’s campaign and conservative groups that keep their donors secret.

Prosecutors, led by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, asked the U.S. Supreme Court in April to hear an appeal that would revive John Doe 2. They argued that Wisconsin Justices misinterpreted landmark campaign finance rulings when they halted the investigation and permitted near-unfettered coordination in the process.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel told the U.S. Supreme Court that John Doe 2 had failed at every level in the Wisconsin court system and the state Legislature had since codified those rulings into law. He also noted that lawmakers voted to prohibit John Doe investigations into campaign finance violations.

“The people of Wisconsin thus made as clear as they possibly could that they wish to put this unfortunate chapter behind them,” Schimel wrote in a filing made public Monday.

He called the petition to revive the case “an effort by a few prosecutors to continue to use a John Doe procedure that is no longer available under state law.”

Prosecutors are also asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and current Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman should have recused themselves from the John Doe 2 ruling because both received significant help in their judicial campaigns from some of the groups under investigation in the case. Schimel wrote that this was not an issue for the federal courts to decide, saying that the decision issued by Prosser and Gableman came years after their elections.