An Alaska state legislative investigator found yesterday that Gov. Sarah Palin abused executive power when she and her husband engaged in a campaign to oust her former brother-in-law from the state police force.
The 263-page report released in Anchorage also found that while Palin was well within her right to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, his dismissal came in part because he refused to remove her sister's ex-husband from the Alaska State Troopers.
Investigator Stephen Branchflower found evidence that Palin actively joined her husband, Todd, in pursuing a personal vendetta against the trooper and that she used state employees to try to settle a score in a bitter family feud.
"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: To get Trooper Michael Wooten fired," said the report released by a bipartisan legislative committee.
The office of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has told a state public employee union that if it wants to gain access to previously undisclosed emails from the Palin's office they’re going to have to pony up some serious cash.
Palin's office wants $88,000 to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request filed recently by the state's Public Safety Employees Association, the union that represents the governor former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, an Alaska state trooper, who was involved in a bitter divorce and child custody suit with Palin's sister.
The union alleges Palin’s office illegally accessed the trooper's personnel and workers compensation file and disseminated confidential information to a top Alaska state trooper official in an attempt to get Wooten fired.
In August, the union filed an ethics complaint against Palin alleging unauthorized access to Wooten's personnel files.
John Cyr, the director of the PSEA, also filed a FOIA request for emails after an audio recording surfaced in July that showed Palin's director of state boards and commissions, Frank Bailey, telephoned police Lt. Rodney Dial last February to inquire about union issues involving state troopers and outlined disparaging details about Wooten's finances and personal behavior that appear to have come from his personnel file.
The husband of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will ignore a subpoena and refuse to testify tomorrow in an abuse-of-power investigation into his wife, the Republican candidate for vice president.
Todd Palin had been subpoenaed to appear before Alaska lawmakers to testify about whether Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was fired because he refused to dismiss a state trooper who had gone through a bitter divorce with Sarah Palin's sister.
McCain-Palin spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said Thursday that Todd Palin no longer believes the Legislature's investigation is legitimate. She initially welcomed the investigation but now opposes since Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate.
ABC News has exclusively learned that Alaska Senator Hollis French will announce today that he is moving up the release date of his investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired. The results of the investigation were originally scheduled for release Oct. 31 but will now come almost three weeks earlier, according to sources.
~*skip*~
The Alaska state senator running an investigation of Gov. Palin had accused the McCain campaign of using stall tactics to prevent him from releasing his final report by Oct. 31, four days before the November election.
"It's likely to be damaging to the Governor's administration," said Senator Hollis French, a Democrat, appointed the project manager for a bi-partisan State Senate Legislative Counsel Committee investigation.
"I now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure [to fire Wooten] could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it," she said.
We're sorry, Madame Governor, that's not enough. The people of the Valley and Alaska deserve a better explanation that answers more questions that it raises.
Palin's awareness of this pressure from staff comes directly after the discovery of a taped telephone conversation between the governor's director of boards and commissions, Frank Bailey, and AST Lt. Rodney Dial. During that conversation, Bailey pressures Dial to take action against Wooten. Bailey backs up the governor and says she knew nothing of his contact with the AST.
Unless there's evidence to the contrary, we're forced to believe this. At the same time, Palin is asking us to also believe this of the other staffers who have done the same. One or two such contacts is an anomaly, about "two dozen" is a pattern. Aside from the serious implications of using her public office to satisfy a personal family vendetta, we’re troubled with the continuing revelations stemming from the Wooten fiasco. Here are two questions our governor needs to answer:
* If there was no direction from Palin's office for staff to pressure the Department of Public Safety, is it just coincidence that Tibbles, Bailey and others acted independently and without provocation from the administration?
* If Bailey acted independent of Palin's wishes with his contact with DPS about Wooten, why is he still a part of the administration?
Even without the Palin controversy this is a difficult time for Alaska politics. The recent conviction and indictments of state lawmakers, including charges against U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, have shaken the public's trust in our elected representation to its core. Now we have to wonder if we can trust our governor as well.
From the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (Wasilla, Alaska)
Excerpt:
Gov. Sarah Palin admits some members of her staff made contact with the Department of Public Safety about Palmer-based Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten.
In a press conference Wednesday, Palin said that some members of her staff made about "two dozen" contacts to DPS about Wooten, who is involved in a child custody battle with Palin’s sister. The Wooten situation is also at the center of an investigation by state lawmakers about whether the governor used her position improperly to urge the Department of Public Safety to fire the trooper.
Wooten became a central figure recently after Palin ousted former DPS Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan said after his firing that he felt pressured by the Palin family and some in her administration to fire Wooten.
"I now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it," Palin said Wednesday.
In an e-mail to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sent Thursday afternoon, Palin reiterated that she did not direct anyone on her staff to contact the Department of Public Safety.
"It is my assumption that some of the calls placed to the department may have been made because of personal concern for the well-being of my family," Palin said.
Comics
