After some legal back and forth, a federal judge in Wisconsin on Thursday re-issued his order halting the secret “John Doe” probe investigating Walker’s 2012 recall election.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa ordered a group of Wisconsin state prosecutors to stop all activities related to the probe, and to destroy any material they had obtained during the investigation. The prosecutors were focused on alleged campaign coordination between Walker’s campaign and outside conservative groups, and Randa’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by one of the group’s being targeted by the investigation, Wisconsin Club for Growth.
The prosecutors have appealed Randa’s ruling, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit on Wednesday stayed the ruling. The higher court offered a way for Randa to reissue the ruling — which he has now done — but also said that the part of Randa’s ruling ordering the prosecutors to destroy collected material will remain stayed “as long as proceedings continue in this court.”
A link to the new Randa ruling would be nice.
ETA: http://host.madison.com/wsj/read-judge-rudolph-randa-s-ruling/pdf_43d31567-cce3-5f73-bffe-1780efd583f4.html
And they’ve already sent in the shredders and HDD-cleaners. Reeks of coverup.
Wow…sounds like his feelings really got hurt that his original ruling was appealed. He doesn’t even make an attempt at hiding his bias on that, or the actual case for that matter.
It looks to me like this is going right back to the 7th District.
I assume the investigators will now appeal to the 7th Circuit to decide if their appeal was frivolous?
Fun fact. The wife of the lawyer defending the Walker campaign used to work for Judge Randa. Also Judge Randa twice cancelled sessions to hear motions regarding the case, and then went ahead and gave his initial ruling without hearing any arguments.
Randa should be investigated for obstruction of justice.