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Gov. Walker's Trip To the Northwoods Causes Conflict

Wisconsin.gov

The group One Wisconsin Now is asking the state Ethics Board and the Dane County District Attorney to see whether Governor Scott Walker violated state laws during a trip to the Northwoods in July.

One Wisconsin Now Deputy Director Mike Browne says they have been investigating Walker's use of state airplanes and especially questioned the use when Walker flew to Rhinelander and later filmed a campaign ad in Three Lakes...

"...What we found was on July 17, Governor Walker used a state plane at state taxpayer expense to fly from Madison to Rhinelander in order to film a television commercial for his campaign."

But Walker campaign spokesperson Brian Reisinger says the allegations are political and without merit, and ignored some facts.

In an email response to WXPR, Reisinger said “It’s a shame when a liberal Madison attack group has such a hard time getting the media to cover its false attacks that it must take sham legal action in order to get publicity – several outlets passed on covering this when they learned the facts. Our campaign not only paid for all politically arranged travel in accordance with the law, we went above and beyond, paying more to make sure there was no cost to taxpayers."

The Walker campaign says Gov. Walker took the state plane to Rhinelander to attend an event at Nicolet College for state business. He then drove to Three Lakes as part of his campaign and later took a plane privately charted by the campaign back to Madison.

The Walker campaign says the portion of the day after the visit to Nicolet, which shifted from state business to campaign time, was paid by the campaign, as was the privately charted plane back to Madison. The plane and pilots who dropped Walker off in Rhinelander returned to Madison.

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