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Blogs Eric Reads
Palin’s Troopergate Defense Debunked
An ABC News investigation pokes some big holes in Palin and the McCain campaign’s latest explanation for the firing of ex-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan:
An internal government document obtained by ABC News appears to contradict Sarah Palin’s most recent explanation for why she fired her public safety chief, the move which prompted the now-contested state probe into “Troopergate.”
Fighting back against allegations she may have fired her then-Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, for refusing to go along with a personal vendetta, Palin on Monday argued in a legal filing that she fired Monegan because he had a “rogue mentality” and was bucking her administration’s directives.
“The last straw,” her lawyer argued, came when he planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program. The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.
The McCain-Palin campaign echoed the charge in a press release it distributed Monday, concurrent with Palin’s legal filing. “Mr. Monegan persisted in planning to make the unauthorized lobbying trip to D.C.,” the release stated.
But the governor’s staff authorized the trip, according to an internal travel document from the Department of Public Safety, released Friday in response to an open records request.
She just can’t help herself. The lies come too easily. It’s almost a good thing that her husband and staff are ignoring subpoenas and regusing to testify since they would almost certainly perjure themselves.
Fired Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner: Palin Is Lying
Former Alaska Public Safety Commissoner Walt Monegan comes out and says it:
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Walt Monegan, the former Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner, said he was dismissed because he refused to fire the Governor’s former brother-in-law, a state trooper.
“I believe I was fired because of, primarily the reason of her former brother-in-law,” Monegan said. “I think that my unwillingness to take special action against her former brother-in-law was not well received.”
Monegan says he believes that the Governor has not told the truth about what happened.
“I think there are some questions now that, coming to light about how transparent and how honest she wants to be,” Monegan said.
Update: In other Troopergate news, Alaska’s police officer’s union has filed an ethics complaint against the Governor’s office.
An ethics complaint obtained by NBC News was filed yesterday by the police officers’ union in Alaska, requesting a probe into possible wrongdoing by the governor or her office. It was brought on behalf of state trooper, Mike Wooten, the ex-brother in law of Palin, who is at the center of the “Troopergate” scandal.
The complaint alleges that the governor or her staff may have have improperly disclosed information from Wooten’s personnel records. The complaint alleges “criminal penalties may apply.”
“It seems obvious to us somebody has improperly accessed [Wooten's] personnel file,” John Cyr, director of the union that filed the complaint, told NBC News.