MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel’s campaign pushed back Thursday against a Democratic ad portraying him as soft on child molesters, saying the spot is full of lies.
DAGA Wisconsin People’s Lawyer Project, a group backed by the Democratic Attorneys General Association, launched the ad Tuesday. The spot claims that when Schimel was a Waukesha County prosecutor, he repeatedly cut plea deals with child molesters, blamed underage sexual assault victims for having bad judgment and offered a plea deal in a child pornography case after the defendant’s attorney contributed to his campaign.
Schimel’s campaign said Thursday that he didn’t handle two of the five child molester cases the ad cites, he was describing how the underage victims felt when he made the comment about their judgment and he never reduced the child pornography charge.
His campaign’s attorney sent television stations around the state a letter demanding they stop airing the spot. WISN-TV pulled the ad Thursday morning. Schimel campaign officials said four other stations in Madison, Wausau, La Crosse and Eau Claire also have pulled the ad. The stations didn’t immediately reply to messages seeking comment.
Schimel campaign manager Johnny Koremenos posted an eight-minute video on Facebook railing against the spot, calling it a “lie-filled ad” and an “attempt to distort our attorney general’s stellar record as a front-line prosecutor and a victim advocate.”
Jabbing his finger at the camera and Koremenos accused Schimel’s Democratic challenger, Josh Kaul, of being lazy and “letting some out-of-state organization spend millions of dollars tearing down a wonderful man.” At one point, he suggests that Kaul is hiding from the public and isn’t campaigning, mentioning that Kaul had been seen in downtown Madison wearing blue jeans.
DAGA spokeswoman Lizzie Ulmer said the organization stands by the ad. She produced a copy of a letter DAGA Wisconsin People’s Lawyer Project attorney Matthew O’Neill sent to Wisconsin television stations Thursday.
In the letter, O’Neill concedes that the two child molestation cases in question were handled by a deputy district attorney, but Schimel was the district attorney and in charge of that office while those cases proceeded through the court system. He also pointed to news reports quoting Schimel telling a judge that two underage sexual assault victims felt they had used bad judgment. He concluded by saying the child pornography defendant undeniably received a deal because he pleaded guilty and after the state made its sentencing recommendations, he got only three years in jail for a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
“Your decision to accept this advertisement,” O’Neil wrote, “should remain undisturbed so the citizens of Wisconsin can be fully informed of Mr. Schimel’s own statements and actions on these critical issues.”
Kaul campaign spokeswoman Gillian Drummond called Koremenos’ video “a bizarre attack.”
___
Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter: https://twitter.com/trichmond1
Please read our comment policy before commenting.