Cindy Archer, a former aide to Scott Walker in Milwaukee County and in Madison, announced Wednesday in a Wall Street Journal editorial that she is suing Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm for violating her civil rights.
After much soul-searching, I am filing a civil-rights lawsuit on Wednesday against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. I fear his retaliation, given what I know of his methods, but the Chisholm campaign against me that began at dawn on Sept. 14, 2011, requires a legal response to discourage the prosecutor’s continued abuse of his office.
Archer, who was targeted in the long-running John Doe investigations that readers of RightWisconsin are uniquely familiar with, describes the ordeal she was put through at the hands of Chisholm and investigators.
I was a close adviser to Scott Walker in the county executive’s office and then in the statehouse, but it never occurred to me that my own happiness would be collateral damage in a political vendetta.
 
Nothing could have prepared me for waking up to the shouts of men with battering rams announcing that they were about to break down my door on that morning in 2011. It was so unexpected and frightening that I ran down from my bedroom without clothes on. Panicked by the threatened show of force, I was then humiliated as officers outside the window yelled at me to get dressed and open up. I quickly retrieved clothing and dressed as I unlocked the door.
 
Agents with weapons drawn swarmed through every part of the house. They barged into the bathroom where my partner was showering. I was told to shut up and sit down. The officers rummaged through drawers, cabinets and closets. Their aggressive assault on my home seemed more appropriate for a dangerous criminal, not a longtime public servant with no criminal history.
 
After they left, I surveyed the damage. Drawers and closets had been ransacked. My deceased mother’s belongings were strewn across the floor. Neighbors gathered in small clusters at the end of their driveways and the press arrived in force.
 
Many of these details were described in a blockbuster National Review article earlier this year that described the raids on Archer's home along with two other unidentified targets. Archer then lays out her case as to why she believes she was targeted for a political vendetta.
 
What had prompted the raid? My guess: As an adviser to Gov. Walker, I had played a lead role in drafting and implementing public-employee labor reforms that would propel him to the national stage.
 
The governor’s reforms, commonly referred to as Act 10, prompted angry union protests. The reforms also enraged many politicians, including, as I would later find out, Mr. Chisholm and members of his staff. My ties to Gov. Walker and Act 10 made me a prime target for Mr. Chisholm’s campaign to intimidate anyone close to the governor.
 
In other words, I was targeted because of my politics—in plain violation of the First Amendment and federal civil-rights statutes.
 
Mr. Chisholm had campaigned for Gov. Walker’s Democratic opponent. According to the sworn testimony of Michael Lutz, a former Milwaukee police officer and lawyer who worked in the district attorney’s office in 2011, Mr. Chisholm allowed his deputies, as many as 70 of whom signed a petition to recall the governor, to post pro-union “blue fists” on their office walls and attend anti-Walker rallies during office hours. As Mr. Lutz testified, the Milwaukee County district attorney made it his “duty” to “stop Governor Walker” from succeeding with Act 10.
 
In the months following the raid, I was interrogated by the district attorney’s deputies numerous times on a variety of topics related to the governor’s tenure as Milwaukee county executive, but I was never charged with a crime. I faced seven grueling confrontations that seemed designed simply to intimidate and harass me into providing damaging information about Gov. Walker—though I had none.
 
Archer concludes, "There should be no place in America where powerful law-enforcement officials are allowed to misuse their offices for political purposes."
 
A press release from Archer's attorney, David Rivkin, says the suit also names Milwaukee DA attorneys and investigators Bruce Landgraf, David Budde, David Robles, and Robert Stelter.
 
“This is America, and in America we don’t let the authorities raid people’s homes and treat them like criminals because of their political beliefs and associations,” said Ms. Archer’s counsel, David B. Rivkin, Jr., of the law firm Baker & Hostetler. “That’s why we have a Bill of Rights: to stop things like this John Doe investigation from happening.”
 
This is likely the first of many civil rights lawsuits that could come if the John Doe investigation is shut down by the state Supreme Court. Chisholm overreached, and he may yet pay.