What happened in Wisconsin

On Wednesday, a Wisconsin judge unsealed an 88-page report on the state Department of Justice’s (WIDoJ) investigation into a leak of sealed evidence from the politically motivated “John Doe” investigation of Gov. Scott Walker, his supporters, and various conservative groups related to his recall election campaign. The 88-page report is posted here.

The report lacks an executive summary. The pseudonymous Warren Henry summarizes and comments on the report for the Federalist in “Bombshell report: Political persecution of Scott Walker swept up high-level GOP officials.” Matt Kittle summarizes and comments on the report for Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute in “DOJ report: Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe was more sinister than first reported.”

The Wall Street Journal originally broke the story behind the stunning report in an October 2013 editorial and continued to break news on the story in reported editorials such as this one. Journal columnist Kim Strassel devoted a couple of chapters to the story in her book The Intimidation Game. The Journal’s Collin Levy was the Journal’s lead editorial writer in those Pulitzer-worthy Journal editorials. David French turned National Review’s spotlight on the events in the excellent cover story “Wisconsin’s shame: ‘I thought it was a home invasion.'”

The wrongdoing now detailed in the WIDoJ report is of the deeply fascist variety that exceeds my poor powers of denunciation. Suffice it to say that it combines the instruments of tyranny — physical torture omitted — in the service of the suppression of conservatives. The story is shocking almost beyond belief. One might ask where the outrage is, but at this point we should probably ask if anyone is paying attention.

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