The governor’s reforms, commonly referred to as Act 10, prompted angry union protests. The reforms also enraged many politicians, including, as I would later find out, Mr. Chisholm and members of his staff. My ties to Gov. Walker and Act 10 made me a prime target for Mr. Chisholm’s campaign to intimidate anyone close to the governor.

In other words, I was targeted because of my politics—in plain violation of the First Amendment and federal civil-rights statutes.

Mr. Chisholm had campaigned for Gov. Walker’s Democratic opponent. According to the sworn testimony of Michael Lutz, a former Milwaukee police officer and lawyer who worked in the district attorney’s office in 2011, Mr. Chisholm allowed his deputies, as many as 70 of whom signed a petition to recall the governor, to post pro-union “blue fists” on their office walls and attend anti-Walker rallies during office hours. As Mr. Lutz testified, the Milwaukee County district attorney made it his “duty” to “stop Governor Walker” from succeeding with Act 10.

In the months following the raid, I was interrogated by the district attorney’s deputies numerous times on a variety of topics related to the governor’s tenure as Milwaukee county executive, but I was never charged with a crime. I faced seven grueling confrontations that seemed designed simply to intimidate and harass me into providing damaging information about Gov. Walker—though I had none.