There is smoking gun paperwork which catches Walker dead to rights.
I don't see it that way.
And understand, I'm neither a Republican nor a Scott Walker fanboy; likewise, I'm neither a Democrat nor a union labor fanboy. And I don't live in Wisconsin.
I'm just an interested party with no real dog in this fight.
What I see, when I read the Response linked to in the OP article, is a lot of evidence that points to a lot of people around Walker having broken the law (and from what I've read elsewhere some of those people have already been found guilty of breaking laws, or are currently awaiting trial, or have plead to bargains, or have provided testimony in exchange for immunity - so I make no mistake - there has been a lot of lawbreaking going on in respect to getting Scott Walker elected).
But when it comes to Walker himself there are one or two emails that seem to indicate that he is somehow personally involved but I don't actually see any "smoking gun" that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or even beyond a preponderance of the evidence (evidence which of course we haven't seen in full at this point which is why the special prosecutor is trying to subpoena Walker's records)).
It seems like the special prosecutor's case keeps going back to the following:
Wis. Stat. § 11.10 said:
"Any committee which is organized or acts with the cooperation of or upon consultation with a candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate, or which acts in concert with or at the request or suggestion of a candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate is deemed a subcommittee of the candidate's personal campaign committee."
I think that at best, at the moment, we're looking at them building a "guilt by association" type case against Walker, essentially charging that lawbreaking by fundraising/electioneering organizations associated with the Walker campaign, due to the statute cited above, are tantamount to lawbreaking by the candidate himself, OR, some kind of "ignorance of the law is no excuse" type case where a handful of scattered incidents of actual, though potentially inadvertent, wrongdoing on Walkers part are woven into some elaborate conspiratorial tapestry.
Now, I think that those are the "worst case scenario" type cases that can currently be built against Walker, but by virtue of the fact that such cases can be built the special prosecutor is looking for a subpoena that will allow him to break Walker's records wide open in hope that when he does so all kinds of skeletons will fall out of the closet and evidence will come to light that actually is a "smoking gun" implicating Walker in any manner of deliberate and concerted wrongdoing.
As far as political motivation is concerned, of course it's a major factor here.
I don't think that Francis Schmitz's (the special prosecutor) behavior is politically motivated.
The guy is a career U.S. Army officer who was advanced by the Bush administration as a candidate for U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee. So I'd guess that he's probably either as middle-of-the-road as a political figure can get or even may lean slightly to the right.
But I would suspect that there's probably some professional motivation for pushing as hard as possible (tumbling a Governor and successfully prosecuting him as a criminal is probably a pretty big deal in the world of criminal prosecutors, maybe one step below impeaching a president).
But I do think that there are probably a bunch of folks beneath Schmitz, probably in his office as well as the folks who built the case up to the point where it was appointed a special prosecutor who are 100% politically motivated.
Last thing I'll add, because I see that a couple of papers seem to jump on it like it's the next best thing to an admission of guilt by Walker, is that I personally don't see Walker funneling money into his criminal defense fund as anything even close to an admission.
First of all, if you're attacked then you defend yourself. Especially so if you're innocent.
Second, if you're a politician, you defend against efforts to allow someone else authority to dig around in your papers. That's basic 4th Amendment stuff. If the court asked my to turn over my personal financial records, communications, and "papers" more generally I'd fight them too, even if I knew there was nothing in there that would establish my guilt in any sort of crime.
The court certainly has the right to ask (subpoena) that material, but I have a right, maybe even an obligation, to fight them.