Leaked: damning Scott Walker dark money docs that judge ordered destroyed

Again and again, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker flouted election laws to raise millions from some of the richest executives and biggest corporations in America, illegally laundering the money through the nominally independent, nonprofit Wisconsin Club for Growth -- and now we have all the details, thanks to an enormous leak of documents that a Wisconsin judge ordered destroyed.

The documents come from a failed bid by Wisconsin prosecutors to hold Walker to account. That case went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court before the slim majority of Republican judges on the bench dismissed the case and ordered all documents permanently destroyed. As the documents -- published today in the Guardian -- show, some of those same judges relied on the money laundry that Walker used to get and keep his office to campaign for their own elections.

What's more, the documents reveal that the dark money that Walker raised translated into a tit-for-tat in the form of legislative and executive favors from the Wisconsin government -- for example, NL Industries nearly escaped all punishment for the lead poisoning it induced in the people who lived and worked near its factory, thanks to a law that retroactively immunized them from liability for polluting (NL was only held to account when a court ruled that retroactive immunity was unconstitutional). Harold Simmons, owner of NL Industries, wrote three checks of undisclosed amounts to the Wisconsin Club for Growth -- checks that Scott Walker solicited.

The trove is fascinating, and documented in eye-watering detail by the Guardian's team in a tremendous, deep interactive piece. There's lots of juicy notes, like the fact that Donald Trump gave big when asked by Scott Walker.

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