Head Of Organization Targeted In John Doe Probe Calls For Prosecutor’s Firing

In the wake of the state Supreme Court’s ruling ending the John Doe investigation into Gov. Scott Walker’s 2012 campaign, the director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth is calling on Walker to remove Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm from office for abuse of power.

Speaking on WTMJ’s Charlie Sykes show this morning, Eric O’Keefe said Chisholm should be fired for leading the probe into the Club for Growth’s campaign fundraising activities during Walker’s recall election .

“John Chisholm should not be permitted to serve out his term in office,” O’Keefe said. “I’ve learned enough that I have an obligation, a moral obligation to pursue this. I can only imagine the kind of injustices these people impose on the citizens of Milwaukee and elsewhere, given what they did to us.”

O’Keefe said he and other targets of the probe will attach a copy of the Supreme Court’s opinion to a petition to the governor detailing Chisholm’s alleged abuses, including seizing personal documents and interrogating O’Keefe and others.

He said the petition will also include allegations that Chisholm signed off on the early release of dangerous criminals, some of whom ended up killing people in Milwaukee.

But a critic of the court’s ruling, Brendan Fischer of the Center for Media and Democracy, said firing Chisholm sends the wrong message.

“The implication of this would be that prosecutors shouldn’t go after powerful people in the state,” he said.

Fischer said Chisholm was simply trying to enforce a law that was on the books barring coordination between outside groups and the governor’s campaign. That law was found to be unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court ruling Thursday.

Fischer said he believes there are grounds for appealing the state Supreme Court’s decision ending the probe.

Francis Schmitz, the special prosecutor in the John Doe probe, has said he is considering whether or not to appeal. According to Fischer, an appeal could be based on whether two of the justices who voted to end the probe should have recused themselves because they had received large campaign contributions from the groups that were targets of the investigation.

Wisconsin’s recusal rules for judge don’t require judges to sit out cases that involve parties who have contributed to their campaigns, but Fischer said a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling includes language that suggests that judges should consider whether they can be unbiased when presiding over cases that involve campaign contributors. He said that’s especially clear in this case because, together, Justices Michael Gabelman and David Prosser received more than $6 million in support from the Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Both groups were targets of John Doe.

Correction: The original version of this story said that Eric O’ Keefe had appeared on a radio show hosted by Larry Sykes. The show is actually hosted by Charlie Sykes.