More Accusations Raised Against Milwaukee U.S. Attorney

By Scott Horton

Milwaukee’s Shepard Express newspaper has raised further charges of politically motivated prosecution against U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic. Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion chastising Biskupic over a politically charged prosecution brought against a state employee named Georgia Thompson. The prosecution seems to have been carefully timed to play against the election cycle, was highly publicized, and was used as an essential part of the electoral campaign by a Republican gubernatorial candidate. The Court of Appeals concluded that the prosecution has been baseless from the start, and – in a highly unusual move – ordered the immediate release of the defendant and directly overturned her conviction. Other documents coming out suggest strongly that Biskupic was among the U.S. attorneys on the chopping block for failure to bolster the Republican voter suppression project. The Thompson prosecution, it appears, was pursued to bail him out. Now Shepard Express is raising questions about other actions brought by Biskupic and by his failure to pursue corruption cases which involve Republicans:

Now Biskupic is at it again. He has indicted Dennis Troha for illegally channeling donations to Doyle. Once again, the political target of Biskupic is being tried in the press, on the front pages of the Journal Sentinel, which has already decided that Doyle is corrupt and just needs the right case—or perhaps the right prosecutor—to prove it.

The real question is why Biskupic hasn’t investigated Troha family contributions of tens of thousands of dollars to U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan and President Bush. Rep. Ryan received more than $50,000 in campaign contributions from the Troha family. The only difference is that Paul Ryan actually introduced special-interest legislation for Troha, signed by Bush, that substantially increased the value of Troha’s business. Ryan provided a clear quid pro quo and he should be investigated and perhaps indicted. Ryan, of course, denied he knew this was happening; however, when a congressman introduces special-interest legislation for a major contributor, what is he thinking about? If Biskupic is really trying to ferret out corruption, why isn’t he investigating Ryan, where there is actually a smoking gun of corruption? But, wait a second, isn’t Paul Ryan a Republican?