Alaska lawmakers: McCain campaign stalling Troopergate probe
Published Thursday, September 25, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The McCain-Palin campaign is "moving on many fronts" to stall an investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused the power of her office by firing her public safety commissioner, the Alaska lawmakers claimed in a court filing Thursday.
The filing is in response to a lawsuit by five Republican state legislators seeking to halt the investigation into whether Palin abused her power when she fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan this summer. The legislators call the investigation by the Legislative Council biased, a violation of due process and a violation of the separation of powers between Alaska's legislative and executive branches.
They want a judge to order the Legislative Council to cease investigating Palin or remove the leaders of the probe: Sen. Hollis French, the Democratic project manager of the investigation; Democratic Sen. Kim Elton, the Legislative Council investigator; and Stephen Branchflower, the retired attorney the council hired as the independent investigator.
Palin had agreed to cooperate with the investigation until she became Sen. John McCain's running mate. Then, through the McCain campaign, she claimed that French, Elton and Branchflower were manipulating the report to be a potentially damaging "October surprise" before Election Day.
The attorney defending French, Elton, Branchflower and the Legislative Council said in the response filed Wednesday that the suit is one of several tactics the McCain campaign is using to stall the investigation.
"The McCain campaign and its supporters, having apparently convinced themselves that the facts would cause serious damage to the Republican ticket if publicly known before the national election, are now moving on many fronts - including this one - to slow and stop Mr. Branchflower's fact-finding inquiry and to prevent his issuance of the report authorized by the Legislative Council," said the response filed by defense attorney Peter Maassen.
McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin did not address the stalling allegation, saying Palin is cooperating with a separate investigation by the Alaska State Personnel Board.
"Governor Palin looks forward to a fair and complete review of the facts insulated from the taint of partisan politics," Griffin said in an e-mailed statement.
Maassen says the Legislature has broad fact-finding power and this probe falls well within its scope, and asks Anchorage Judge Stephanie Joannnides to dismiss the lawsuit.
The filing did not name other stalling tactics the campaign was using, though McCain officials have held regular news conferences denouncing the investigation. Also, several witnesses under subpoena, including Palin's husband, have refused to cooperate. That means Branchflower will not be able to talk to key people, though he still plans to complete a report by Oct. 10.
Palin fired Monegan in July. Weeks later, it emerged that Palin, her husband, Todd, and several high-level staffers had contacted Monegan about state trooper Mike Wooten, who had gone through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister before Palin became governor. While Monegan says no one from the administration ever told him directly to fire Wooten, he says their repeated contacts made it clear they wanted Wooten gone.
Palin maintains she fired Monegan over budget disagreements.
Community Discussion
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There is no crime there at all. Monegan quit, and the trooper jerk still has his job, even after threatening Palin's father's life in writing. What a bunch of doofuses. It will end up that the whole thing was either unfounded or backwards wrong. Our reps are going to look stupid before this is over.
How could she abuse her power? She installed him into the position, she should have the power to remove him! The point of being the one in charge is that you can do that.
What's next, are the Democrats in Juneau going to say the last two elections were done wrong, so Tony Knowles should still be Governor?
LOL ohhh nose-miner...thanks for reminding me why I canceled my subscription...
And she doesn't have to have a reason to fire anyone. The voters elected her to make those types of decisions.
get this: even after I unsubscribed, and told the NM solicitor to LOSE MY NUMBER, they called back later and asked for my wife LOL...
Cover-up! Bad policy and straight out of the Karl Rove tactics manual. I don't plan to vote for those using such tactics.
Palin should have just let the original investigation finish and weathered whatever storm it brought instead of cooperating with McCain's new found enthusiasm for dirty politics and getting voters disgusted with them both.
I love the way Palin whines about states' rights when it comes to environmental policy but when it comes to covering up her mistakes in Alaska suddenly intrusion by outside entities is quite alright and very welcome. I have to wonder if next year's edition of Webster's dictionary will just carry a picture of Palin as the definition of "two-faced".
This is disgusting--that the McCain campaign is controlling what goes on here--one more reason not to vote for him or Kelly.
so kingfisher, you belittle the DNM and cancell your subscription .... yet you still surf the online edition. Interesting. Too cheap to actually buy a copy from the rack?
I dont understand a couple things here.
the headline says alaska lawmakers say the mccain campaign is stalling... but I dont see any reference to alaska lawmakers. additionally, that would imply that a majority of them share the opinion.
The only reference to alaska lawmakers in the story is actually of the opposite opinion - they call it biased and unfair.
It would be more appropriate to identify the legislative council, or simply "investigators", rather than put incorrect words in the mouths of all legislators.
Also, this paragraph is a journalistic abortion:
"Palin had agreed to cooperate with the investigation until she became Sen. John McCain's running mate. Then, through the McCain campaign, she claimed that French, Elton and Branchflower were manipulating the report to be a potentially damaging "October surprise" before Election Day."
It's a mix and match of quotes that implicate the wrong quote to the wrong person!
Implying palin called it an "october surprise" when it was french (I believe) who said it, changes the context significantly. Since when do unbiased investigators promise damaging results?
The AP is a great source of news, but that doesn't mean that a writer who has never been to alaska and doesn't apparently know all the facts or care to, should take precedence over local reporting and insight.
It isn't about her firing him it is about whether she was trying to presser him into firing a guy that probably should have been fired.
Two wrongs do make it right! and the end does justifies the means!
Mit, so that makes it OK for cops to plant guns or drugs on people as long as they "know" they are bad? It's the same thing, no matter how you look at it. As soon as we look the other way when someone's due process rights are violated because "the end justifies the means," then none of our rights are safe. We the people must hold the government accountable, and that means following the law.
Why don't we just wait 39 more days and then have a nice civil investigation. According to Senator Lord Obama that is when the new president will have to deal with the problems facing our nation.
The notorious Alaska Three......Stevens, Young and Palin will need to be handed their sentences before the end of the year. Otherwise there is no chance for a presidential pardon.
She didn't have to pressure him to fire the guy, she just tells him to. No questions asked, he was appointed by her, he does her bidding. That's why this is just a waste of time, if she wanted the trooper fired he would have been. And then Monegan could just say, "she made me do it". He can't say that though because it isn't true.
As I said before this is all just sour grapes. Look at all the people that crawled out of the dark to get their names in the headlines after she was nominated. What did they really have to say, nothing but sour grapes and conjecture.
Does anyone else feel the slant in this article??? The article did not address the fact that the Attorney [Tamara Cook] for the Legislature said it would be out of the scope of the powers of the counsel to investigate the Governor and would be illegal to do so. You can verify this by going to gavel-to-gavel's website and looking up the Leg. Counsel meeting on July 28th of this year.
Does that give another perspective to this? If Leg. Counsel is investigating the Governor illegally is Palin stalling or is she just being honorable in the face of a nasty smear campaign?
This is typical Lame Stream Media copy probably written at the behest of Axlerod and the Obama Chicago Political Mud Slinging Machine... I wonder how many votes Obama expects to get from the Cemeteries ? Chicago SLIME Politicians always get the dead person vote!!! LOL!!
Typical scum-bag Barack Hussein Obama offal. No surprise there. LOL
AP's Matt Volz is at it again - we can always count on him to do his best to make Sarah look bad. Where are the facts to back up your headline, Matt? The allegation that the "campaign" is stalling is hogwash! John Coghill was the first person to call foul and request Hollis French's removal because of French's obvious bias. And John Coghill is too reputable and honest to do the bidding of ANY politician! More recently, a group of private citizens have sued to stop the biased "investigation."
ScottyBerg, you do realize that troopers cannot just be fired at the governor's will don't you?
After refusing to take another job that Palin offered him, Monegan decided not to accept it and quit. He has even said that he was not pressured in firing Wooten. Stephen Branchflower, the retired attorney the council hired as the independent investigator wife, an Anchorage Police Lieutenant, use to work as a LT for Monegan when he was Police Chief in ANC. Branchflower was vocal in her support for Monegan. Seems to be a conflict of interest with the independent investigator tied so closely to Monegan... SO much for his Independent thinking. This article sounds like it should be on the Opinion page rather than listed as a news article.. Not sure if the DNM would know the difference..
Simple truth is, even if Palin thought Monegan smelled like cheese, ... that would have been enough to legally fire him. If she thought he looked like a hippie Mark Twain, she could fire him for that reason. She even has the right NOT to have to disclose the reasons as to why she fired him. And let's talk about that, ... she didn't fire him, he quit in light of his reassignment offer.
What is so hard for people to understand? We elected her, by an overwhelming majority at that. In this particular case, when an employee is an at-will appointment by the Governor, ... she doesn't have to answer to anyone when hiring or firing political appointees. Period!
Now, you may feel that you deserve an answer and you may think she is hiding something by stalling the investigation, but you have to concede, she has done nothing wrong under the letter of the law. Sorry if that ticks you off, but that is fact.
Non-lemming......you make a mistake when you say Palin doesn't have to answer to anyone when hiring or firing. She...and any governor....has to answer to her ultimate boss: us. If not then we have morphed from a democracy into a monarchy.
A question for dnm and any/all AK media:
Who are the "five legislators" who filed the suit to stop the investigation?
I haven't read/heard every story, but at least a few dmn and adn stories have written extensively about the matter without identifying the "five."
At the risk of being called cheap by slyfox, I'm thinking about not renewing my subscription to the DNM. It appears our lovable local rag is using only AP commentators for "the" Alaskan news. Why? Lack of funds or talent? I remember at one point they had a reporter imbedded with our local soldiers in Iraq, but they can't get a local reporter to Anchorage or Juneau? Perhaps they want to give their local reporters cover while at the same time throwing Gov. Palin under the bus. I've been trying to figure out the motivation, but the only thing I can think of is that they are doing it to appease the oil companies who are big DNM advertisers and also little upset with Gov. Palin. So I guess in the case of Gov. Palin, my friends in Ester finally have something in common with my friends at BP and Exxon. Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Just a theory.
mit:
"It isn't about her firing him it is about whether she was trying to presser him into firing a guy that probably should have been fired."
Monagan already said that "he was not told by Palin's administration to fire the trooper."
End of the probe right there.
Nah, LD, I won't call ya cheap .... you had a valid point instead of just an irate rant :-)
I also agree they should stick a local reporter down in Juneau.
chelly, 6:52 pm-
So, who holds the cops accountable? Who makes sure they follow the law?
Answer: The cops.
Except they don't. That's the problem.
And is anybody sure they don't plant stuff on occasion? Plenty of us are all too well aware lots and lots of cops lie and do other Bad Things--and get away with it at other peoples' expense.
Wooten just ended up in the spotlight. But my experiences--and those of many others--tell me that his attitude is not uncommon among cops here in Alaska.
chelly anybody can be fired, grow up. I've been around along time, you are foolish to think that's not true. The union (if they have one) could fight it, but they better have a really good reason. And he would still be out of a job no matter what. No ones job is sacred.
Hey Alaska,
How does it feel to have the fed. repubs running your state?
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