[img_assist|nid=134162|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=212|height=128]If you're an ordinary Joe criminal... err... allegeged criminal, and you did something illegal and the cops want to bring you in for questioning, no lawyer would ever let you talk-- they'd tell you to plead the fifth. Because in doing so you would risk either incriminating yourself further or telling something that wasn't truthful and putting yourself in further legal jeapardy.
Scott Walker has been called in by the cops for questioning, but he can't plead the fifth. Why? Because Scott Walker is no ordinary Joe: He's the Governor of Wisconsin and that would be an admission of guilt and deliver a mortal blow to his political career, which is already in precarious position with the recall election looming. He also can't take any sort of immunity-- that would be as bad as pleading the fifth. (Immunity isn't a likely scenario anyway-- Walker clearly is the main beneficiary of the illegal activity and it would be implausible for him to get the immunity.)
The calculus that Walker is doing right now is a way out of this mess. His only shot, which is a very long shot, is to establish "plausible deniability" for every potential charge. What his legal team has been doing is looking at everything that it believes the prosecutor has and come up with plausible excuses for every crime they think the prosecutors think that Walker has committed.
Walker also figures that if and when he is charged, he might be able to talk his way out of it by acting completely shocked and incredulous: That the charges are just politics, that he helped the investigation at every step of the way, sat down and talked with the prosecutors, ect, ect. And that he will be vindicated when he has his day in court!
Clearly Darlene Wink is a Scott Walker Kool-Aid drinker and seems to be helping Walker with the absurd narrative that Tim Russell was acting independently and that Walker had no idea that he was coordinating round-the-clock illegal activity in Walker's office.
Of course to blame everything on Tim Russell takes cooperation from Russell. As Dan Bice has floated, the prosecutors seem to be putting alot of pressure on Russell and his partner to testify against Walker. If they can get Russell to cooperate (with the threat of serious jail time) and testify that Walker had any knowledge of the illegal campaign activity in his office, Walker is toast.
But, even without Russell's cooperation, the prosecutors seem to have a lot of evidence against Walker, including the smoking-gun email telling Russell to stop the illegal campaign activity in his office.
In an investigation of this sort, what typically happens is they have a pretty good idea of the crime and who is at the core it, but they start with the outer layers and slowly peel away the layers until they get to the core. That is what seems to be happening here: They started with peripheral Cullen Werwie types, then Darlene Wink types, then Kelly Rindfleish types, then the upper level staffers around Walker.
Now, they want to talk to Walker: Who is almost certainly at the core of all this.
Add new comment