Palin Talks to Alaska Reporters about Troopergate

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin this weekend disregarded an ethics investigator’s finding that she had abused her executive power as Alaska’s governor and instead embraced a second finding in the report to say that she had been cleared of wrongfully firing her state public safety commissioner.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower’s 263-page report said Palin breached state ethic laws when she, her husband and members of her administration tried to get the ex-husband of her younger sister fired as an Alaska state trooper. A second finding determined that Palin was within her right to fire public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, even if she did so in part because he didn’t bow to pressure to sack the trooper.

In a Saturday conference call with Alaska journalists, Palin said she was “pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there.” She denounced the investigation, calling it “a partisan circus.” The McCain-Palin campaign said that she and her family had good reason to try to get the trooper fired.

A transcript of the brief conference call was posted on the Web site of TV station KTUU. In the call, Palin was asked, “Do you think you did anything wrong at all in this troopergate case?” The governor replied, “Not at all. And I’ll tell you — I think that you’re always going to ruffle feathers if you do what you believe is in the best interests of the people whom you are serving.”

The trouble with the trooper began when Palin’s sister, Molly McCann, divorced Trooper Mike Wooten in 2005, igniting a family feud and child custody fight. Palin’s family filed a complaint with the Alaska State Troopers that launched an internal affairs investigation of Wooten, who was found to have violated state policies when he used a Taser on his stepson, shot a female moose illegally and made statements that were unbecoming of an officer.

Even after Wooten had been suspended without pay for five days, the Palin family continued to work to get Wooten fired, Branchflower said. The ethics report determined that the governor’ actions and failure to rein in her husband amounted to an abuse of power because she was pursuing a personal vendetta rather than serve the public interest.

Branchflower provided an example, one of 18 separate events, that showed the effort continued before and after she became governor. In October 2006, as Palin was on the verge of being elected governor, Todd Palin first raised his complaints about an Alaska state trooper. It was in a conversation with a campaign aide who later took a top job in the Palin administration.

“We were talking about odds and ends,” John Bitney recalled in an interview with the state investigator. Then, Todd Palin changed the subject, saying “There were family problems with the trooper.”

At the time of the conversation, Sarah Palin was on the verge of a win that would catapult her into national spotlight. She had already stunned the state with the defeat of powerful Republican incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski. She was on the verge of beating former two-term Gov. Tony Knowles.

“I said ‘I’ll check it out,’ or ‘let me see what I can do,’” Bitney said. “My recollection of my own sense was, you know, here’s a friend and, if you will, the Governor’s husband, who’s … got a problem.”

Eventually, Todd Palin carried the discussions with Bitney into the Palin administration. The First Gentleman repeated his frustration in numerous visits and phone calls after Bitney became a top aide to Gov. Palin.

“You know, when the First Gentleman comes into your office and says you got a problem, you sort of feel compelled to look into it and see if something can be done,” Bitney said.

Bitney took the matter to Palin chief-of-staff Mike Tibbles, who called state Commissioner of Public Safety Walter Monegan. Tibbles was one of more than a half dozen officials who called Monegan about Wooten to complain.

In each case, Monegan told them that Wooten had been investigated and disciplined for the violations. Because the matter had been settled, Monegan couldn’t reopen the case without running afoul of state personnel rules and would not be likely to prevail under mandatory arbitration rules of the state.

“Such impermissible and repeated contacts create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure,” Branchflower wrote. The report was posted on the Internet Friday night after a bipartisan committee voted unanimously to make it public.

Palin’s representatives have said the family made the contacts because she was afraid of the trooper and was fearful of a “violent” and “rogue” police officer. But Branchflower said that contention was “not bona fide.” He wrote, “In almost every contact with subordinate employees, Mr. Palin’s comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. His comments were always couched in terms that he was a bad trooper, that he was not a good recruiting image for AST, that his discipline amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, that nothing had happened to him following the administrative investigation, and so forth.”

Palin answered Alaska news media questions as she was traveling between campaign events in Pennsylvania. She defended the way her campaign has been conducted in Alaska, according to the KTUU transcript.

Question: “A lot of people have voiced concerns about what they call ‘attacks of good people.’”

Palin: “Well I haven’t heard of any attacks on good people in Alaska from our campaign.”
Question: “What about calling Monegan a rogue?”

Palin: “Rogue isn’t a negative term when you consider that in a cabinet you need a team effort going forward with a governor’s agenda. Our agenda has been to find efficiencies in every department. And make sure that we are serving the people of Alaska.”