It was the great scandal that wasn’t. An investigation called for by Governor Scott Walker while he was Milwaukee County Executive morphed into a politically-charged, partisan witch hunt led by a Democrat district attorney whose office was bent extracting political blood from the newly elected Republican governor. Walker had asked prosecutors to look into allegations of financial misconduct on the part of some county employees, but Democrats salivated at the chance to destroy Walker’s career.
The investigation was supposed to be secret, with details kept locked securely out of sight of the public thanks to a court order. But mysteriously, leaks happened and reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel were all too ready to run juicy tidbits that bolstered the political spin generated by Democrat political flacks.
On Friday, with little fanfare, prosecutors announced they have found nothing, absolutely nothing, on Walker and are shutting the nearly 3-year old probe down.
But that is not good enough for the Democratic Party’s top spokesman in Wisconsin. Graeme Zielinski, who used to work for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has insisted that Walker is Nixon re-incarnated and that the Governor is as guilty as the most infamous murderer in Wisconsin history. Zielinski’s unhinged ranting unfolded on Twitter where he successfully managed to show just how much Democrats were depending on this fabricated scandal to take out Walker.
“What do @GovWalker and Jeffrey Dahmer have in common?” Zielinski tweeted at one point.
Other provocative tweets included:
“.@GovWalker spent more than Jeffrey Dahmer to beat criminal charges.”
“Now @GovWalker must release the relevant documents to the corruption probe.”
“.@GovWalker has refused to tell the public his role in the crimes convicted. #corrupt“
“Wisconsin has NEVER had a more corrupt governor than Scott Walker. NEVER. .@govwalker @wisgop“
That last one there is a bit ironic since the only Wisconsin governor to be kicked out of office was Democrat William Barstow who was found guilty of fabricating election returns in his 1855 re-election.
Partisan spokesmen and women on both sides of the political aisle are expected to be provocative, but to accuse an opponent of committing a crime when prosecutors concluded – after the most sweeping investigation of a sitting governor – that no crime was committed, well, that’s a bit delusional. To compare that person to a convicted murderer is beyond the pale.
Unfortunately, this is just the latest iteration of Zielinski’s unhinged rants. Just when Democrats like Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep Ron Kind, and others with reputations to protect will decide Zielinski’s outrageous antics have gone too far remains to be seen.
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