Troopergate Northern Exposure

The problem is not Palin’s direct alleged vendetta on her Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten former brother in law. It is her firing of Alaska’s Director of Public Safety Walt Monegan. Allegedly Monegan was fired by Palin for his refusal to fire State Trooper Mike Wooten.
Go to the “talking points memo” webpage and listen to the recording of a phone call from Frank Bailey, one of Palin’s staff suggesting that Walt Monegan fire Trooper Wooten. The recording begins with an attempt by Palin’s staff member to obtain information about a contract agreement between the police union and the State of Alaska. It is a long telephone call. The alleged pressuring of the Director of Public Safety to fire Trooper Wooten begins in about the middle of the tape.
Looks like enough evidence to convict to me. But, Look who is conducting the investigation, from the Huffington Post: This investigation into Monegan's dismissal has more than its share of subplots as well. The probe into Palin's involvement if any was ordered by a Republican-dominated state legislative council that includes one of the lawmakers under a federal bribery indictment. And Branchflower, the investigator, is a former Anchorage prosecutor whose wife used to work for Monegan at the Anchorage Police Department.
What all this might mean is that “Miss Congeniality” may need to be replaced soon.
Personally I think the Republican Party leadership is a complete failure and we may be looking at the last days of the Republican Party. By the way Jim “go along” Gerlach is thrilled with the choice of Palin.
Jim

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/211769.php
Getting Real About Palin
08.31.08 -- 11:00AM
By Josh Marshall
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. Back in the second week of August, well before Palin became a national political figure, TPMMuckraker was reporting on this story. And as part of the reporting we tried to get a handle on just how bad a guy Wooten was. Most people who are familiar with the ugliness that often spills out of custody and divorce cases know to take accusations arising out of the course of them with a grain of salt unless you know a lot about the people involved. And if you look closely at the case there are numerous reasons to question the picture drawn by the Palin family. 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.
Let's review what happened.
The Palin family had a feud with Wooten prior to her becoming governor. They put together a list of 14 accusations which they took to the state police to investigate -- a list that ranged from the quite serious to the truly absurd. The state police did an investigation, decided that 5 of the charges had some merit and suspended Wooten for ten days -- a suspension later reduced to five days. The Palin's weren't satisfied but there wasn't much they could do.
When Palin became governor they went for another bite at the apple. Palin, her husband and several members of her staff began pressuring Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan -- a respected former Chief of the Anchorage police department -- to can Wooten. Monegan resisted, arguing that the official process regarding Wooten was closed. And there was nothing more that could be done. In fact, during one of the conversations in which Palin's husband Todd was putting on the squeeze, Monegan told Todd Palin, "You can't head hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference."
Eventually, Palin got fed up and fired Monegan from his job. This is an important point. Wooten never got fired. To the best of my knowledge, he's is still on the job. The central bad act was firing the state's top police official because he refused to bend to political pressure from the governor and her family to fire a public employee against whom the governor was pursuing a vendetta -- whether the vendetta was justified or not.
Soon after this, questions were raised in the state about Monegan's firing and he eventually came forward and said he believed he'd been fired for not giving in to pressure to fire Wooten.
After Monegan made his accusations, Palin insisted there was no truth whatsoever to his claims. Nonetheless, a bipartisan committee of the state legislature approved an investigation. In response, Palin asked the Attorney General to start his own investigation which many in the state interpreted as an effort to either keep tabs on or tamper with the legislature's investigation. Again, very questionable judgment in someone who aspires to be first in line to the presidency.
The Attorney General's investigation quickly turned up evidence that Palin's initial denials were false. Multiple members of her staff had raised Wooten's employment with Monegan. Indeed, the state police had a recording of one of her deputies pushing Monegan to fire Wooten. That evidence forced Palin to change her story. Palin said that this was the first she'd heard of it and insisted the deputy wasn't acting at her behest, even though the transcript of the recorded call clearly suggested that he was. (Hear the audio here.)
Read the rest of the article here:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/211769.php
Also check out the Huffington Post. It has a name “Troopergate”:
"Palin Trooper Scandal Could Become Problem"
STEVE QUINN | September 1, 2008 04:30 AM EST |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Troopergate. It's a political he-said, she-said that has dogged Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for nearly two months and is likely to do so for another two months leading to the Nov. 4 presidential election.
The little-known vice presidential candidate faces accusations of firing public safety commissioner Walt Monegan in what amounts to a messy Palin family drama dating to her pre-gubernatorial days. Monegan had refused to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce from Palin's sister.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-trooper-scandal-cou_n_122903.html