Scott Walker addressed the prank call he received Tuesday from a man impersonating billionaire oil tycoon David Koch. “I take phone calls all the time,” Walker said in response to a reporter’s question about whether Democrats could trust him to negotiate with them in good faith. “The bottom line is, the things I said are things I said publicly all along.”
The next question is who was behind the prank phone call that resulted in a 20-minute recorded conversation with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and a controversy that erupted Wednesday on the Web?
Meet Ian Murphy, 33, of Buffalo, who writes for a site called BuffaloBeast.com and on Tuesday purported to be conservative activist David Koch in an effort to provoke Walker into making embarrassing remarks.
“I joked with [the aide] that my maid Maria threw my phone in the washing machine, and that I’d have her deported but she works for almost nothing,” Murphy said. “So I told them it wasn’t really possible for them to call me back and I better call him.”
“I thought it was so ridiculous, and there was no way I would get through,” he said. But when he called back at the appointed time, “I got right through to Governor Walker.”
Murphy said he conducted the interview from his house that he said he shares with his girlfriend and a roommate, using Skype to record it.