MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have at least one thing in common: controversy over emails.
While Clinton has been scrutinized for her use of private email for public purposes, Walker’s county executive office once faced questions, and even a criminal investigation, over its use of a private email system to do campaign work on public time. Walker, who served as Milwaukee County Executive from 2002 to 2010, was never charged.
Last week, Walker denounced Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of State.
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Jay Heck, executive director for Common Cause Wisconsin, a nonpartisan good government organization, found Walker’s statement “highly ironic.”
“I was like, ‘Hello? Pot calling the kettle black,’ ” he said.
While he was serving as county executive, two of Walker's staffers, Kelly Rindfleisch and Darlene Wink, were convicted of campaigning on public time because of work they did for Walker’s successful 2010 gubernatorial bid and then-state representative Brett Davis’ campaign for lieutenant governor.
Four other aides were convicted as well, but on charges of money laundering, embezzlement and violating campaign finance laws. Records show Walker’s staff used a separate Wi-Fi system, private email accounts and different laptops in his county office to correspond with campaign aides.
Emails from Rindfleisch showed she used a separate laptop and email “to do things I shouldn’t be doing on my county computer,” she wrote in a February 2010 email.
Another email showed Walker’s former chief of staff, Tom Nardelli, coordinating daily conference calls with Walker’s campaign manager, Keith Gilkes.
Gilkes now serves as chairman of the super PAC supporting Walker’s 2016 presidential bid, Unintimidated PAC, alongside former campaign aide Stephan Thompson. Records show Thompson also coordinated messaging with county staffers using the secret email system.
Walker’s campaign had no comment and referred USA TODAY to a March interview the governor did with TheWeekly Standard before he was a presidential candidate.
In that interview, Walker downplayed the findings from the emails, saying “the craziest news story” to emerge from their release was a letter responding to a request to put up a menorah candle for Hanukkah that ended with “Molotov” instead of “Mazel Tov.”
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In his statement denouncing Clinton, Walker raised the possibility that the former secretary of State had threatened national security and called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to determine whether Clinton broke the law.
“The United States cannot afford to have a commander-in-chief who believes it is worth risking the safety and security of the American people in order to avoid personal accountability and scrutiny,” Walker said.
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Walker probably doesn’t find his statement about Clinton hypocritical because compromising national security is far different than campaign activities on public time.
“I think the press release is more about him trying to get attention as a Republican candidate who will be tough on Hillary Clinton,” Burden said.
The Walker probe ended in 2013. It was one of two John Doe investigations Walker has taken heat for since his election as governor in 2010 (John Doe probes are mechanisms allowed by Wisconsin statute to independently and secretly determine whether a crime has been committed). The second investigation, which looked into whether his 2012 bid to fend off a recall effort collaborated with a pro-Walker group, ended this month after a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling.
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This wasn't Wisconsin’s first scandal involving public officials campaigning on the taxpayers’ dime. In the early 2000s, the Wisconsin State Journal revealed state lawmakers and aides were doing campaign work at Capitol offices in addition to directing donations from lobbyists to certain candidates. The “legislative caucus scandal” resulted in seven convictions.
Gordon Myse, a former member of the Government Accountability Board, a nonpartisan agency that oversees Wisconsin elections and campaign finance laws, said the caucus scandal was "a violation of trust" but said the Walker staff email system was also serious.
How significant the violation in the Walker case is will ultimately be determined by voters, Myse added.
Comparing Clinton’s situation to the case with Walker’s office is like comparing “apples and oranges,” former state attorney general Peg Lautenschlager, a Democrat, said.
“The use of private servers to do government work isn’t all that unusual in some ways,” said Lautenschlager. “Now the technology has changed so you can access your government email on your cellphone or whatever.”
Walker’s case is just the opposite: private email system to do political work on government time, rather than a private server to do government work using personal resources, she said.
“There is nothing iffy about this,” Lautenschlager said. “You can’t do political work on government time. Period, end of story.”
Behr reports for (Appleton, Wis.) Post-Crescent Media. Follow her on Twitter: @madeleinebehr
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