Fed District Court enjoins Wisconsin “John Doe” anti-conservative investigation
on May 06, 2014
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You can find background on the anti-conservative "John Doe" secret investigation in our prior posts.
The gist of the investigation is to try to find unlawful coordination between Gov. Scott Walker's campaign and various conservative activist groups. As part of the investigation, the subpoenas and secrecy provisions have effective frozen conservative activists out of the political process.
- Secret probe of conservatives makes Wisconsin ground zero in First Amendment war
- Big defeat for anti-conservative Wisconsin “John Doe” probe
- Wisconsin “John Doe” target goes on offense, threatens federal suit
-
Suit against Wisconsin “John Doe” star chamber investigators can move forward
The John Doe investigation into conservatives is dead. In a monumental victory for targeted conservatives, Judge Rudolph Randa on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction to stop the politically charged probe, ruling in favor of conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and his Wisconsin Club for growth. ’Keefe and the club in February filed a civil rights lawsuit against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, two of his assistant DAs, John Doe Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz, and a shadowy investigator contracted by the Government Accountability Board. “The Defendants must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation,” wrote Randa, federal judge for the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Randa further ordered that the plaintiffs in the civil rights case “and others” are “hereby relieved of any and every duty under Wisconsin law to cooperate further with Defendants‘ investigation.” “Any attempt to obtain compliance by any Defendant or John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson is grounds for a contempt finding by this Court,” he ordered in the 26-page ruling.An interesting aspect of the ruling was the reliance on the Supreme Court's McCutcheon case, in holding that the investigation was an attempt to interfere with the targets first amendment rights:
