Palin Abused Authority As Governor

When Sarah Palin was chosen by John McCain to be his running-mate, she was already the subject of an investigation by the Alaska Legislature. She had been accused of abusing the authority of the governor's office to get revenge in a personal matter. She used her authority as governor to press state officials to fire her brother-in-law (a state trooper) after a particularly nasty divorce. She even fired the state's Public Safety Commissioner when he refused to fire the trooper.

When the investigation started, Palin promised she would cooperate with it. But after she was chosen by McCain to be his vice-presidential candidate, all that changed. Instead of cooperating with the investigation, the McCain/Palin campaign did everything it could to stop or delay the investigation.

They began to accuse the bi-partisan investigation as politically-inspired by supporters of Barack Obama. They brought in out-of-state lawyers to fight the investigation. They even went to the Alaskan Supreme Court in an attempt to derail the investigation. But none of that worked.

Friday evening, the investigative report was released and unanimously adopted by the bi-partisan Legislative Council. The report says Governor Palin violated state ethics laws that prohibit any public official from using his/her office to pursue a personal agenda. The report states, "Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda."

Palin has claimed to be a "maverick" fighting the old-style party politics. It doesn't look like that is true. Her actions look to me just like the old-style Republican "gotcha" politics.

Repubs Try To Hide Palin's Ethics Problems

There seems to have been a change of heart among Alaska Republicans about the "Troopergate" investigation of Governor Sarah Palin. Palin is accused of firing Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan because he wouldn't go along with her request to fire her brother-in-law after a particularly nasty divorce. Basically, the governor is accused of using her public office to settle personal or family vendettas.

Before McCain picked Palin as his running-mate, there was nearly unanimous and bipartisan feeling that the scandal should be investigated by a committee of the Alaskan Senate. That has now changed.

Five Republicans who are not on the senate investigating committee has now filed suit in court to stop the investigation, or at least get it delayed until after the election. All of a sudden they think the investigation is "unlawful, biased, partial and partisan."

This comes after a key aide to Palin refused to testify last week, claiming the committee didn't have the juristiction to conduct the investigation. This was an obvious delaying tactic, as no one doubted the committee's authority before Palin was picked by McCain as his running-mate.

There is some evidence that there is right-wing pressure from outside of Alaska to stop the investigation. A Texas legal group called the Liberty Legal Institute, a notorious group known for defending right-wing fundamentalist attempts to set aside constitutional guarantees, has entered the fray to help Palin fight the investigation.

Ed O'Callaghan, spokesman for the McCain campaign, is now calling the investigation "tainted". I don't know how he has reached that conclusion, since the only thing that has changed is that Palin is now the Republican candidate for Veep. The committee has done nothing that would taint the investigation.

As Patti Higgins, chairwoman of the Alaska Democratic Party, says, "Rather than cooperating with the investigation, the Republican presidential campaign is doing everything it can to stall and smear." Why are the right-wingers and the McCain campaign so afraid of this investigation?

Obviously, they either know or fear that she is guilty of the ethics charge, and they don't want the campaign to have to bear the burden of that guilt. All of this could have been avoided if McCain had just done a little vetting before making his pick.

But McCain made the pick without thinking it through, and now he must live with the consequences. Are these the kind of ill-thought-out decisions he would make as president?

Palin's Ethics Case Getting Messy (And Weird)

Most people probably know by now that John Sidney McCain's choice of a running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is being investigated by the Alaskan Legislature for ethics violations. She has been accused of trying to pressure the Commissioner of Public Safety into firing a state trooper -- her ex-brother in law. The Commissioner said he was fired by the governor because he wouldn't fire the trooper.

Evidently there was a messy divorce and Palin's family was upset with the trooper. The current question is whether she used her executive position to try and get even with the trooper. Last week, Palin hired an attorney to represent her in the matter. An attorney that could be reimbursed by the state for up to $95,000.

Yesterday, a Palin aide was scheduled to testify before the legislature anout the matter. But at the last minute, his attorney cancelled his appearance. The attorney said it was because they weren't sure the legislature had the juristiction to investigate. He thinks the matter should be heard instead by the state Personnel Board.

This is where the whole thing gets downright weird. Evidently the governor was starting to get worried by the legislature's investigation. So she filed charges against herself with the state's Personnel Board. Now her attorney is saying the legislature should stop it's investigation because the matter is before the Personnel Board.

Obviously, the governor thinks she has a better chance with the Personnel Board than the legislature, and she may be right. A state board is much more likely to be intimidated by a sitting governor (who probably has the authority to remove them from office).

Meanwhile, the ex-Commissioner showed the Washington Post several e-mails from the governor to him. He says it is proof of the governor's misuse of her executive powers.

This thing is really starting to get messy, and may well turn out to be a big embarrassment for the Republican ticket of McCain/Palin.