For guys who ordered pre-dawn raids using battering rams, the John Doe prosecutors turn out to be awfully touchy … in fact, so thin-skinned that they actually let the mask slip.

Milwaukee DA John Chisholm was apparently so unhinged by recent criticism that he actually suggested Saturday that Governor Scott Walker be criminally charged with defamation for criticizing him.

So, no, Chisholm really doesn’t get the First Amendment thing, does he?

And so much for the notion of prosecutorial restraint and Chisholm’s non-political motivations.

Normally, prosecutors running a secret investigation that imposes gag orders on subjects avoid public comment. But obviously, they have been feeling the heat — legally, politically. Maybe that’s not surprising, because they’ve had a very bad week. No, make that a bad year.

Not only have the Doe prosecutors been slapped down in both state and federal courts, their tactics were exposed to a national audience in this vivid National Review account.  Then Scott Walker — the ultimate target of their lengthy investigation — had the temerity to talk about it during an appearance on a Des Moines radio talk show:

I said even if you’re a liberal Democrat, you should look at (the raids) and be frightened to think that if the government can do that against people of one political persuasion, they can do it against anybody, and more often than not we need protection against the government itself,” Walker told the radio station.

“As (the National Review) pointed out, there were real questions about the constitutionality of much of what they did, but it was really about people trying to intimidate people…” Walker said.

“They were looking for just about anything. As I pointed out at the time, it was largely a political witch hunt.”

This was apparently too much for the architects of the secret probe. Chisholm’s complaint that Walker’s comments were “defamatory” is pretty rich when you think of what Walker and his fellow conservatives have been accused of by Chisholm and Co. (‘John Doe prosecutors allege Scott Walker at center of ‘criminal scheme'”)

Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz, whose sensibilities were also offended, also called on Walker to agree to let him dump much of the information he had seized in the “secret” probe onto the public record.

Let’s start with Chisholm’s snippy response:

As to defamatory remarks, I strongly suspect the Iowa criminal code, like Wisconsin’s, has provisions for intentionally making false statements intended to harm the reputation of others,” Chisholm said in a statement Saturday responding to Walker’s comments.

In other words: “This is NOT a witch hunt and anybody who says it is should be burned at the stake.”

But the DAs reference to criminal law was revealing. Chisholm doesn’t like what Walker said, and his first instinct was to think it might be a crime? No wonder the guy ordered up the battering rams for a case involving conservative political advocacy. There appears to be a pattern here.

Chisholm also complained that the National Review article (and presumably editorials in the Wall Street Journal, talk radio and other media) constitutes a campaign of “false propaganda.” This also from a prosecutor who apparently considered search warrants and subpoenas for members of the media — Sean Hannity and me. There appears to be a pattern here too.

Schmitz, the figurehead leader of the probe also complained that he was offended. Then, the prosecutor who presided over a probe that made it illegal for his targets to publicly defend themselves, asked Walker to support a public release of information that he had gathered under the cover of the John Doe’s secrecy orders.

“I invite the governor to join me in seeking judicial approval to lawfully release information now under seal which would be responsive to the allegations that have been made,” his statement said. “Such information, when lawfully released, will show that these recent allegations are patently false.”

This would, of course, allow Schmitz and Chisholm dump the Doe secrets onto the public record (as they have done in the past), attempting to score a win in the court of public opinion after losing in a court of law.

Final note here: Compare the John Chisholm who is now lashing out at Scott Walker and suggesting he be criminally charged for his criticisms of Chisholm, with this description by his former aide and friend Michael Lutz.

Chisholm added, according to that prosecutor, that “he felt that it was his personal duty to stop Walker from treating people like this.”…

Still, Chisholm’s private displays of partisan animus stunned the former prosecutor. “I admired him [Chisholm] greatly up until this whole thing started,” the former prosecutor said. “But once this whole matter came up, it was surprising how almost hyper-partisan he became … It was amazing … to see this complete change.”

No we all get to see it.

Authored by Charlie Sykes.