http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/opinion/an-email-trail-leads-to-gov-walker.html 2016-09-20 10:14:26 An Email Trail Leads to Gov. Walker Evidence of serious campaign-finance violations emerges in Wisconsin. === Anyone looking for more evidence that politicians pay no attention to campaign contribution limits will find it in an astonishing trove of documents leaked to The Guardian, which published The After the recall failed, Reading the emails revealed by The Guardian, it appears that is exactly what the Walker campaign did. In In another, Mr. Walker Memos on checks written to the Wisconsin Club for Growth and other groups said “because Scott Walker asked,” or “to fight the Walker recall.” Mr. Walker wrote personal thank-you notes to the donors. Other documents uncovered by The Guardian show that a top political strategist was arranging TV and radio ad spending for both Mr. Walker’s campaign and the outside groups at the same time. Was it illegal? Mr. Walker, his campaign aides and the outside groups have all denied wrongdoing, saying they were simply fighting for the same cause. In 2015, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority But at least two of the court’s justices who voted to end the inquiry also benefited from millions of dollars spent by some of the same conservative groups backing Mr. Walker, including the Wisconsin Club for Growth, in their own re-election campaigns in recent years. Republican operatives knew that losing the court’s conservative majority would spell the end of Mr. Walker’s right-wing, anti-union agenda. The special prosecutor handling the investigation requested that several justices recuse themselves from the case for this reason, but they refused. Prosecutors Versions of this sad story are playing out across the country, thanks in large part to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, in which a 5-to-4 majority upheld the right of corporations and labor unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections, so long as they remained independent of the candidates. Justice Anthony Kennedy Yet what’s happening in Wisconsin gives the lie to both of these claims. Politicians vacuum up millions of dollars from supposedly independent groups, and it all happens in the dark.