Blanchard, the Dane County DA, wants ALL the prosecutions and intimates that the State's 71 other DA's are either crooked or incompetent.
And the Milwaukee JS buys it wholesale.
Blanchard said the worst "loophole" in the 75-page bill, which is on a fast track in the Legislature, is the plan to allow legislators or other state officials to be prosecuted in their home counties. Only if a local prosecutor declined would a neighboring district attorney, or the attorney general, have the right to prosecute.
"The attempt here to limit venue would create an entirely new form of immunity that would protect only one type of potential criminal defendant: state public officials who allegedly abused their positions," Blanchard told senators.
What Blanchard is revealing is not a 'failure' in the bill, but rather Blanchard's somewhat twisted understanding of the function of a DA--that is, one which is highly politicized. In other words, Blanchard is projecting his own standards and methodology.
But we knew Blanchard is a political animal, not a prosecutor with principles.
Mark Gundrum, the bill's author, has it exactly correct:
"Does (Blanchard) consider himself the only district attorney who could prosecute wrongdoing?"
Evidently the answer is "Yes."
You're missing one aspect of this. If Blanchard becomes the sole prosecutor for the state on election and ethics issues, he'll need (drum roll) more money. Even better - state money!
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect; Blanchard wants to continue both of his pet purges; the Republican Party from the state and those 'Rats who refuse to bow to Madistan from the 'Rat party.
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