The Wisconsin Elections Commission announced Friday that it would hold a statewide recount of the presidential vote. The move was in response to petitions from two candidates, the Green Party s Jill Stein and independent Rocky Roque De La Fuente.Federal law requires that all recounts be finished 35 days after the election, which is Dec. 13. One or both of the candidates will be required to pay for the recount. We have assembled an internal team to direct the recount, we have been in close consultation with our county clerk partners, and have arranged for legal representation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice,  said Wisconsin Elections Commission Director Mike Haas in a statement.  NPRHillary Clinton s camp finally made a public announcement that they were jumping into the recount effort, after admonishing Trump for the mere suggestion that he may not accept the result of the election. After a period of public silence about the results of the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton s top campaign lawyer said the campaign will play a role in the Wisconsin recount initiated Friday by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The Clinton campaign will follow the same approach in Michigan and Pennsylvania if the third-party hopeful pursues recounts in those states. Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves, but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,  Marc Elias, Clinton s general counsel, wrote Saturday on Medium.   PoliticoWisconsin Elections Commission Director Mike Haas played a role in the Wisconsin  John Doe  affair, one of the most disgusting, strong-arm events against conservatives by Democrat government officials in the history of the United States.The Wisconsin John Doe affair is one of the more shameful episodes in modern American political history, in which a hyper-partisan Democrat district attorney weaponized the Wisconsin legal system against innocent families as part of a vicious and unhinged political crusade against conservatives. An assembly line of rubber-stamped search warrants and subpoenas, early-morning raids, threats from police officers to keep quiet, wanton property seizure:  I no longer feel safe,  one victim said,  and I don t think I ever will. The victims received such treatment simply because they dared to hold political opinions offensive to Wisconsin Democrats.Watch here to see the horrifying truth about what happened with the attack on conservatives in the WI John Doe case that WI Elections Commissions Director Mike Haas was involved in:Injecting a measure of sanity into the whole sleazy affair, the Wisconsin Supreme Court last year ordered the investigation halted and the seized evidence destroyed. It is utterly clear, wrote Justice Gableman,  that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing.  Later they would amend the order slightly: instead of destroying the evidence, it was to be sealed and turned over to the court.The court order was entirely reasonable. After they shockingly abused the investigatory apparatus of the Wisconsin state government, the John Doe squad s evidence could reasonably be considered corrupted.It is clear that someone involved in the John Doe investigation, incensed that a court had slapped down his or her gross abuse of state power, decided to disobey a court order and attempt one final time to destroy Walker s political career. It will not work, of course Walker appears to have done nothing actionable but the leak is nonetheless troubling, chiefly because it underscores yet again the persistent lawlessness of much of American liberalism.This is not an aberration. Much of modern American liberalism s tactics rest upon a vicious set of double standards and abuses of government power. The IRS s targeting of political opponents; its maltreatment of conservative advocacy groups; the targeting of conservative politicians; the proposals to persecute climate-change skeptics; the tactical lawsuits to punish pro-life advocacy it is all of a piece, all meant to silence conservative voices and stymie conservative political efforts.  The FederalistPerhaps recent revelations of partisanship by staff at the  nonpartisan  state Government Accountability Board should come as no surprise.At least not if you know from where those staffers come.The Wall Street Journal and Wisconsin Watchdog have reported on former GAB staff counsel Shane Falk s partisan emails related to the political John Doe investigation into dozens of conservative groups and the campaign of Gov. Scott Walker. That investigation, it is becoming increasingly clear, was driven in large part by the accountability board, Wisconsin s finance, election, and ethics law regulator. Falk was a big player at the agency and in the political probe.Falk, who in 2008 urged the GAB to find ways to  get around the constitutional right to free speech, once served as the Democratic appointee on the state elections board, the GAB s predecessor.Haas, long before he began working for the GAB in 2008, was an aide for then-Assembly Speaker Thomas A. Loftus, D-Sun Prairie, in 1989. And Haas was at the center of campaign finance controversy that pre-dated the so-called  Caucus Scandal more than a decade later and the more recent unconstitutional John Doe probe the state Supreme Court has ordered shut down.In September 1989, Wisconsin GOP chairman Donald K. Stitt accused Loftus of  subsidizing  his campaign for governor with state funds.By adding one of his campaign staffers as a part-time office worker, Loftus  has got his campaign hirelings feeding at the trough,  Stitt said, as quoted in a brief in the Sept. 20, 1989, edition of the Milwaukee Sentinel.The staffer in question? Haas, a Sun Prairie native and the future arbiter of Wisconsin election law.A Loftus spokeswoman at the time denied the charge, insisting Haas would work part-time as a  legitimate  aide to Loftus and  be off the public payroll  when he works for Loftus  campaign.A similar allegation led to a six-month sentence on a felony conviction in 2012 for former Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch at the hands of John Doe prosecutors, led by a Democratic Milwaukee County district attorney.Rindfleisch, who is soon to conclude her sentence, was charged with  misconduct in office  for doing contracted campaign work for a candidate for lieutenant governor. She, like many other former aides and allies of Walker, was targeted in an ever-expanding secret John Doe investigation. Haas was not.As conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes pointed out in a 2003 investigative piecefor the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Loftus led a Democratic Caucus staff that devoted their time to political campaigns.Such activities were treated as felonies when prosecutors  in another secret John Doe  went after lawmakers like Loftus  Republican successor, former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen.As Sykes wrote, a 1986 memo  proudly recounted how legislative staffers had run campaigns, helped raise money, written political commercials, developed campaign literature, operated  spy  phone banks, provided writing and research, orchestrated campaign swings, helped with mailings, and traveled to local districts to make campaign phone calls and go door-to door for candidates. The memo also makes clear that members of individual legislators  staffs played integral roles in the re-election campaigns of the incumbents,  Sykes wrote. One of our best assets in the incumbent campaigns was each legislator s staff,  the memo boasted.Haas  political work for Loftus, however, was missing from the GAB s press release in December 2012 when he was named elections division administrator.GAB director Kevin Kennedy simply noted that Haas joined the agency in 2008 as one of two staff attorneys who advised the board on legal matters. In the release, Kennedy praised Haas  legal advice and management skills in the agency s  successful processing of nearly 2 million recall petition signatures  in the bitter recall campaigns of 2012.Haas told the publication that working on Democratic campaigns for governor, president and Congress and then running for the Assembly seat  exorcised partisanship and any future run for office  out of my system. I turned out to be a better nonpartisan administrator than a politician,  Haas told the publication.Kennedy, at the time, said he knew of Haas  partisan past, but added that  everybody has a past. As elections administrator, Haas did not have the kind of involvement in the John Doe probe that others have. But the partisan backgrounds of GAB administrators and key staff members raise questions about their ability to remain nonpartisan amid revelations of partisan conduct.Late last month the Wall Street Journal s editorial board reported that GAB staff, including Kennedy, worked with John Doe special prosecutor Francis Schmitz and the Milwaukee County District Attorney s Office (run by a partisan Democrat) to  subpoena and intimidate the major conservative players in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Watchdog 