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  Date / Time: 10/11/2008 12:37 AM UTC

  Breaking News .....Palin Abused Her Power in Firing of Commissioner
  

  Troopergate report: Palin abused authority By: Kenneth P. Vogel October 11, 2008 10:31 AM EST

  Sarah Palin violated the trust Alaskans placed in her as their governor in how she handled the events surrounding the firing of a state official who had refused to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper, according to a legislative report released Friday night. The long-awaited report into a scandal that’s become known as “Troopergate” found that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, fired the state’s public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, partly because he refused to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, who was locked in a bitter custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann. But the report — commissioned by the Legislature and carried out by an independent investigator — also found that Palin was within her “constitutional and statutory authority” to dismiss Monegan. Meg Stapleton, a spokeswoman for John McCain’s presidential campaign, asserted that the report showed Palin “acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan” and that “the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior.” But Stapleton also blasted the report as “a partisan led inquiry” run by supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama that didn’t prove Palin fired Monegan for refusing to dismiss Wooten, and instead made “a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact.” Still, Democrats, who had been eagerly anticipating the report, immediately seized on it. Aides for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama blasted an e-mail to reporters with an Associated Press report summarizing the top-line findings minutes after the Legislature released the 263-page report soon after 4 p.m. Alaska time — making it after 8 p.m. on the East Coast and increasing the possibility the report would get less coverage in already-planned weekend papers and newscasts. But Palin’s critics in Alaska and in national politics certainly will continue to scour the report for details that could taint the reformer brand that Palin has fashioned for herself. And they’re unlikely to let the matter end with the report, not the least of which because neither Palin nor her husband, Todd, cooperated with the investigator, a retired state prosecutor named Stephen Branchflower. He noted that, though he interviewed 19 people for the report, Todd Palin and nine aides to the governor were subpoenaed but “failed to appear.” He wrote that Gov. Palin was not subpoenaed “out of deference to her position. … However, she was requested to cooperate with the investigation by providing a sworn statement. She has not done so. Governor Palin’s sister Molly McCann was requested by me to give a deposition; she declined through her attorney.” Branchflower asserted that an interview with Palin “would have assisted everyone to better understand her motives and perhaps help explain why she was so apparently intent upon getting Trooper Wooten fired in spite of the fact she knew he had been disciplined following the Administrative Investigation.” Wooten had been suspended for 10 days in 2006 after an administrative investigation found that he threatened to kill Palin and McCann’s father, used a taser on his then-11-year-old stepson, shot a moose without a permit and drove in his cruiser with an open container of beer.     When Palin fired Monegan in July, she initially offered only a vague, platitudinal explanation for his dismissal. She later accused Monegan of not being a team player, and of failing to hire sufficient numbers of troopers or doing enough to reduce rural alcohol abuse — but only after he suggested he was pressured to dismiss Wooten by both Sarah and Todd Palin, as well as members of her staff and the state's attorney general, a Palin appointee. Palin in mid-August admitted that “pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it” and she apologized to Alaskans for what she called “this distraction.” Though Branchflower’s investigation was authorized by a unanimous vote of a bipartisan legislative committee, Palin’s allies have alleged it was politically motivated, and some lawmakers who reviewed the report asserted that it was flawed. Branchflower wrote that “although Walt Monegan’s refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination.” The report dismissed the Palins’ public assertions that they feared Wooten. “I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for Palin’s real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family-related reasons,” Branchflower wrote. Branchflower specifically found that “Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.” That part of the act provides that “each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.” Branchflower also found that Palin improperly allowed her husband to use state resources to pressure Monegan. “The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in ‘official action’ by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation],” Branchflower wrote. He found she “knowingly … permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office and the resources of the Governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired.” The Legislature did not release an entire second volume of Branchflower’s report because he wrote it contains “highly confidential personal information and may not be released or discussed with unauthorized persons by law.”

  • Tags:
  • sarah palin
  • abuse of power
  • guilty
  • impeach
  • recall
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Comments

Syrin 10/13/2008 3:40 AM UTC The 253 page report with 1,000 pages of back up material will be our weekend homework. Check back later this weekend for more in depth reporting on the findings. Meanwhile, we link the blog that broke the story last July as well as a follow up blog, questioning the power Todd Palin was allowed to wield in the governor's office. In a word: VINDICATED Branchflower report link: http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/10/10/16/Branchflowerreport.source.prod_affiliate.7.pdf The original Troopergate blogs: http://www.andrewhalcro.com/why_walt_monegan_got_fired http://www.andrewhalcro.com/shadow_governor

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