Thursday, September 15, 2016

Scott Walker dismisses, toys with nosy media

[Updated] Memo to Wisconsin reporters: GOP Wisconsin Gov. and potential 2020 presidential hopeful (or potential President Trump Secretary of Labor) Scott Walker took this position earlier Thursday when asked whether he was raising money for the third-party group which collected millions in dark money to benefit his 2012 recall election: 
Walker won't talk about fundraising for group
It's a pretty logical question, since that fund-raising is at the heart of the massive dump of John Doe records published in The Guardian yesterday and is spread across major Wisconsin media for the second straight day in Milwaukee.

And in Madison

And smaller cities, like La Crosse.


But in fairness, Walker later today did offer up one of his patented, non-responsive, non-denial denial 'answers' when a pesky question, alas, was asked again by some reporter who hadn't seen the 'don't ask' memo and wanted to know if Walker was still helping the third-party group raise money.

"I don't right now," Walker said.
Let me be the first to say, "well played, sir." I see what you did there.

And by the very late afternoon, Walker had refined his bobbing-and-weaving, with an added dash of distracting word salad finger-pointing, according to an AP story in the Eau Claire Herald-Telegram:

Walker didn't acknowledge working with the Club for Growth or even mention its name. Asked why he wouldn't acknowledge having worked closely with it, he said only that he and his supporters were "under attack" in early 2011 after the union restrictions had passed and they thought it was important to get the message out about how the restrictions would help the state. 
"We thought it was appropriate to get the message out about the facts, not talking about advocating for or against, expressly advocating for or against candidates, but getting the message out that the reforms would work and indeed they have and that's what we focused in on," Walker said.
Yeah, diagram that last sentence.

And let me remind folks that Walker has a long history of evasive language, and we've seen his dodge-in-a-one-liner before - - on the very same subject.

Remember when Doe documents, accidentally posted briefly by a federal court, disclosed a $700,000 dark money check donation through the third-party group from the iron mining company whose plan for an open-pit operation was being assisted by Walker and his legislative allies?


(Thanks to The Guardian, we now know the mining company actually put another half-million+ dollars into play).


Anyway, when the mining company's $700,000 donation hit the fan, Walker was asked if he'd played a role in the donation.


Brace yourself for his non-responsive, non-denial denial, as reported by The Journal Sentinel.

"Not to my knowledge."
Maybe this will jog your memory, if not Walker's:



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to see more reporting about who the likely folks are who are actually figuring out these crooked deals and the logistics. Walker is way too stupid to be anything more than the front for all of this.

Boxer said...

You'll notice there is very little in his his body of "knowledge." Unless he uses the term interchangeably with "acknowledgment" In which case it all makes sense.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I wish I were an English teacher. I could have so much fun making my students diagram one of Mr. Walker's non-denial, denial answers...and his word salad.

Anonymous said...

"I don't right now". That can mean a lot of things, like not this minute, or I stopped doing it an hour ago, but I will be doing it later. "Not to my knowledge", same thing. I can't remember what I made for lunch yesterday so no, I don't know. Obviously he has taken many lessons from lawyers of what to say to pointed questions.