I've noticed some people who should know better claiming that bringing up Gov. Palin's troopergate scandal is tantamount to making a victim of or defending her slimeball ex-brother-in-law who allegedly once used a taser on his stepson.
That's awfully foolish. So I thought I'd put together a post explaining why.
The person in question is state trooper Mike Wooten -- Palin's ex-brother-in-law who's embroiled in a bitter custody and divorce battle with Palin's sister.... Regardless, we proceeded on the assumption that Wooten really was a rotten guy because the truth is that it wasn't relevant to the investigation of Palin.
You really should read the whole thing.
But there's even more to the story, on at least two fronts--first, Palin's resistence to an investigation (which we'll look at below), and second, the flakey hiring that followed Monegan's firing. We take up the later first, for its sheer WTF? value.
After Monegan was fired, Palin hired Chuck Kopp, who lasted a full two weeks before stepping down when it turned out he'd lied about a previous sexual harrasment complaint being dismissed. Kopp received a $10,000 payment as part of his severance agreement (PDF here)--$1,000 for every day on the job--while Monegan recieved not a dime. In fact, this payment was, apparently, orginally done in secret, and was brought to light by blogger Andrew Halcro (a former state representative, who recently got his own talk show): "The Hush Money Agreement" and "Hush Money? (Updated)".
Now, even if Troopergate weren't a scandal, one has to ask, what is Palin doing giving a $10,000 severance package to someone who served 10 days who lied to her in the process of getting the job in the first place? And, of course, one has to wonder what kind of vetting process Palin herself uses if she didn't even bother to check out his claim that the sexual harrasment complaint had been dismissed.
Judgment problems, anyone? What, is there a fire sale going on?
On July 24, the Anchorage Daily News reported:
New state Public Safety Commissioner Chuck Kopp never told Gov. Sarah Palin that he received a letter of reprimand from a sexual harassment complaint when he was chief of the Kenai police, the governor's office said today.
The governor learned of the letter when the public did after Kopp's Tuesday press conference, Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said this afternoon.
"The governor is concerned, and she's disappointed," Leighow said.
Leighow wouldn't comment further -- including on whether Palin plans to dismiss Kopp as the state's top cop. There are a lot of rumors going around and the governor wants to deal in facts, she said.
Well, better late than never, I guess. But why wasn't she concerned about facts when she first considered hiring Kopp? Could it be she was just in too much of a hurry to get rid of Walt Monegan? Hopefully, this will be one of many questions that the legislatures investigation will ask, and get answers to.
And speaking of that investigation....
Palin Fighting Investigation
The legislature's investigation is being run by former prosecutor Steve Branchflower. According to the Anchorage Daily News:
Branchflower was an Anchorage prosecutor for 28 years and returned briefly after retirement in 2002 to run the Legislature's newly created Office of Victims' Rights. For much of his time in the Anchorage District Attorney's office, he ran the intake unit, evaluating cases submitted by police and troopers for prosecution. He also occasionally tried cases, generally high-profile murders.
Branchflower has the experience to sift through the evidence and see if there is anything there, [Alaska State Senator Kim] Elton [D-Juneau] said.
The entire article that description came from gives a nice snapshot of the unfolding drama and the growing nasty tone from Palin's administration, Palin reacts to mention of "impeachment". This is trickle-down from the cowardice of the DC Dems. By letting Bush/Cheney quite literally get away with mass murder, even the bare mention of "impeachment" is taken by Republicans everywhere as a sure-fire sign of political extremism, which can fairly be fought against by any means necessary.
Palin heard about the appointment [of Branchflower]Friday and questioned whether the investigation will be fair.
"The project manager, Sen. French, already elevated this by publicly suggesting 'impeachment' before the Senate laid out any rules or an investigator was named," Palin said through spokeswoman Sharon Leighow.
"Publicly elevating this to 'impeachment' raises doubts as to how fair a process some senators may intend for this to be."
So, the appointment of Branchflower--by all appearances a respected lifefime professional prosecutor--is being used as the occassion for a political attack, which cannot help but try to taint him by association. Nice!
At the same time, Palin's administration has launched its own investigation, through the Attorney General's office, which raises the specter of trying to sandbag the legislative investigation, up to and including witness tampering, as aforementioned blogger Andrew Halcro described:
Is Palin tampering with witnesses?
I received two separate emails this morning from two very credible sources that have alledged that the Palin administration is interviewing employees at the Department of Public Safety to find out what they know about the Monegan firing.
Here are the excerpts from those emails:
"The governor has directed the AG to conduct an 'under oath' inquisition of everyone at DPS to find out what they know and what they might tell the special investigator. This is totally out of bounds. I won't say illegal, but some folks I trust say it is illegal use of the AGs office by the governor. Cockerham has been tipped on this one, but I don't know if the folks at DPS are willing to say anything."
"This is quasi public information now, but I thought I would pass it on:
Dept. of Law has been interviewing individuals likely to be questioned by Branchflower.
The interviews by law were conducted before branchflower could interview them and at least one, John Glass, was conducted with attorneys present for the interviewee. I was told they may have even been conducted under oath.
Hollis has been informed. Apparently he is not pleased.
This kind of stuff could be construed as witness tampering." I have sent the following email to Sharon Leighow in Governor Palin's office:
Sharon,
I have heard from several people that the administration is having the Department of Law interview people at DPS to find out what they know before the are interviewed by Branchflower.
Is the Department of Law doing ANY investigating or interviewing potential Branchflower witnesses about the Monegan firing?
Andrew
I'm obviously just starting to scratch the surface here. But just as obviously, McCain had no idea there even was a surface to be scratched. The notion of Palin as a "reformer" is, apparently, as questionable as McCain's own claims--but without his many years of Teflon coating by schmoozing his media base.
As a result, the notion of using her to counter Obama's image as an outside reformer is only as good as McCain's ability to charm the press into ignoring her glaring inconsistencies, even as it has ignored his own. |
