The news has pretty much set in across the state. Three men were arrested, one for sex crimes with children and two for embezzling or stealing money meant for veterans and families of dead soldiers. All three had some sort of relation to Scott Walker with one of them regarded by all who know the Governor as in his inner circle. The financial crimes were many and so legitimate I decided to go look and see where they had their political money. I searched through the campaign finance reports of MANY legislators as well as Walker himself and the Republican Party of Wisconsin and of Milwaukee County. I searched all three last names; “Russell,” “Kavanaugh,” and “Pierick.” I found a $33.50 donation from Timothy Russell, but hardly news worthy. Russell has also given $215 in one of the Party reports that I looked at. Pierick had given $50 to Kramer, an interesting donation that would suggest some sort of connection with the two as that was all he gave to any candidate, ever. At least directly. No, it appeared all three of them kept the money out of politics.
After hours of research I failed to turn up anything of value in the campaign finance department. Or certainly nothing newsworthy. But then I was looking at the Facebook comments and someone suggested Scott Walker had a web site set up with the embezzled funds. Wondering if I missed something I went back and re-scanned all of Scott Walker’s campaign finance reports. I also included “Koch” and “Heritage” just for fun. Still didn’t find anything of value and certainly no in kind contributions from any of those arrested. But then it struck me. Check the reports. So I did and there it was; right on pages 19 and 20 of Tim Russell’s report (you can find all three reports here).
A review of GoDaddy records produced in response to a John Doe Search Warrant show that the $145.28 Godaddy transaction was a payment for the renewal of multiple domain names, all being some variation of scottforgov and scott4gov with “.net,” “.com,” “.info” and “.org” suffixes.
And…
Likewise, the GoDaddy transaction for $58.38 described above was also for renewal of domain names, all being some variation of scott4gov and MilwaukeeCountyExecutiveScottWalkerForGovernor with “.com” and “.info” suffixes.
So basically, for anyone who is wondering, Timothy Russell, who is considered by all who know Scott Walker to be in his inner circle, allegedly embezzled funds. According to Investigator Robert Stelter with the Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office, Timothy then used the money to buy or renew some campaign domain names. And Scott Walker may have dodged the investigation so far but we should at least demand he return this dirty money. These were official campaign sites one is to assume. And Timothy Russell was not listed in any of Walker’s campaign finance report as making an “in-kind” contribution of these domains. So Scott Walker could potentially be guilty of a minor GAB offense for not reporting these domains as an “in-kind” contribution from Russell. Unless the DA’s investigator is wrong (and this is why we have court), these sites were paid for with dirty money stolen from our Veterans. The least Walker could do is pay Russell back. But I guess dirty money runs rampant through his campaign.
Jeremy Ryan
Executive Director
Defending Wisconsin PAC
jryan@defendingwisconsin.org
[Editor's Note: Donations made through this post go to the author, not the website]
Note: Segway Jeremy Ryan has become a full-time member of the protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Formerly a businessman, he gave up his business to join the fight for the middle class in the State of Wisconsin. Through videos and writings he has informed hundreds of thousands of people about what was going on at the Wisconsin State Capitol once the mainstream media had mostly abandoned the protests. His full-time activism is completely funded by the people. If you would like to help out please click here.
