Wagner Spin On Walker Aide's Charging Omits One Major Fact

WTMJ radio conservative talker and GOP activist Jeff Wagner said today that "inquiring minds want to know" why Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm took 13 months during the Walker/John Doe probe to bring child enticement charges yesterday against the partner of former Walker aide and GOP operative Tim Russell.

Wagner is an attorney, and former assistant US prosecutor, yet did not mention a known, salient fact about the way the John Doe probe has been handled:

Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen declined Chisholm's request for technical assistance - - later supplied by the feds - - and the child enticement charging complaint discloses that substantial electronic forensics were needed to substantiate and bring the charges by sifting through hundreds of emails and texts.

It's fair to assume that some portion of the time-line is due to Van Hollen having balked.

Chisholm mentioned at his news conference yesterday that Van Hollen had refused to provide requested assistance.

Wagner, as a former prosecutor, is surely aware of the technical challenges presented by these cases.

He discussed the Chisholm news conference on the air immediately after Wagner's station covered it, live, but in the unfolding story about the charges, the talker at his oddly-named "The Department of Justice" radio show (Wagner lost his 1994 campaign for Attorney General to incumbent Jim Doyle, 53-46%, so never ran the real Department of Justice) has been more the spinmeister than legal eagle.