[Vision2020] "Troopergate" Inquiry Hangs Over McCain/Palin Campaign

[Tom Hansen]

"Alaska's legislature is spending up to $100,000 'to investigate the 
circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public 
Safety Commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper 
actions by members of the executive branch.'

The investigation is supposed to wrap up by Oct. 31, just days before the 
Nov. 4 general election." 

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>From August 30, 2008 edition of the Anchorage Daily News at:

http://tinyurl.com/59rr9y

--------------------------

'Troopergate' inquiry hangs over campaign

Inquiry: Ex-commissioner brings up undisclosed e-mails that he says 
mentioned trooper.

By LISA DEMER
ldemer at adn.com

Alaska's former commissioner of public safety says Gov. Sarah Palin, John 
McCain's pick to be vice president, personally talked him on two occasions 
about a state trooper who was locked in a bitter custody battle with the 
governor's sister.

In a phone conversation Friday night, Walt Monegan, who was Alaska's top 
cop until Palin fired him July 11, told the Daily News that the governor 
also had e-mailed him two or three times about her ex-brother-in-law, 
Trooper Mike Wooten, though the e-mails didn't mention Wooten by name.

Monegan claims his refusal to fire Wooten was a major reason that Palin 
dismissed him. Wooten had been suspended for five days previously, based 
largely on complaints that Palin's family had initiated before Palin was 
governor.

The events surrounding Monegan's dismissal currently are under 
investigation by the state's legislature. Palin has acknowledged that a 
member of her staff phoned a trooper lieutenant in an effort that could 
have been perceived as pressure to have Wooten dismissed and that her 
husband and other officials also had contacted Monegan about Wooten. 

She has insisted, however, that she did not authorize the phone call and 
was not aware of it. She has said she doesn't believe any of the contacts 
amounted to pressuring Monegan. She suspended one of her aides after the 
recording of his discussions of Wooten with the trooper lieutenant became 
public.

“The Governor did nothing wrong and has nothing to hide," the McCain/Palin 
campaign said in a statement, blaming the issue on the campaign of the 
Democratic nominee, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. "It’s outrageous that the 
Obama campaign is trying to attack her over a family issue. As a reformer 
and a leader on ethics reform, she has been happy to help out in the 
investigation of this matter, because she was never directly involved."

But the trooper controversy has been swirling around Palin for weeks, long 
before Palin was launched Friday into the bright lights of the national 
campaign.

Monegan, however, said that Palin raised the subject of Wooten with him 
herself on two occasions after becoming governor -- once on the phone soon 
after she took office and once in person not long after that.

Monegan also said that the governor's husband, Todd, talked to him several 
times about Wooten and that three top officials in her administration 
contacted him.

Monegan also disclosed for the first time that Palin sent him two or three 
e-mails that referenced her ex-brother-in-law and his status with 
troopers. Monegan declined to provide the e-mails because of the ongoing 
investigation.

Monegan said he believes his firing was directly related to the fact 
Wooten stayed on the job. "It was a significant factor if not the factor," 
Monegan said.

No one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him to vet Palin as a 
candidate, Monegan said. 

Who did they contact? "We don't talk about the vetting process," said 
Maria Comella, Palin's vice president campaign press secretary.

What role Palin played in seeking her ex-brother-in-law's dismissal is the 
governor's first brush with scandal in a political career that has been 
premised on reforming Alaska's corruption plagued Republican party and 
raises questions not only about her willingness to use her office to 
further a personal goal but also about her administrative abilities. 

Palin's replacement for Monegan, Chuck Kopp, was forced to resign just two 
weeks after he was appointed because of a sexual harassment complaint that 
had been filed against him when he was the chief of police in Kenai.

Palin, in a news conference announcing Kopp's resignation July 24, said 
she was unaware that the Kenai city council had reprimanded Kopp as a 
result of the complaint and would not discuss how her staff had vetted 
Kopp before naming him to replace Monegan three days after Monegan was 
fired.

Palin apologized for the chaos that the Monegan dismissal and the Kopp 
resignation had caused. "This has been a tumultuous week in the Department 
of Public Safety, and as your governor, I apologize," she said at the news 
conference.

Alaska's legislature is spending up to $100,000 "to investigate the 
circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public 
Safety Commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper 
actions by members of the executive branch."

The investigation is supposed to wrap up by Oct. 31, just days before the 
Nov. 4 general election. 

Palin will be deposed along with others in the governor's office and 
former administration officials, said state Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat 
and former state prosecutor from Anchorage who is serving as the project 
director for the investigation. The special counsel just this week was 
trying to arrange Palin's deposition, French said.

French said Palin's new role as vice-presidential candidate won't change 
the investigation. 

"I think it raises the profile but it doesn't really change the mission or 
the work," the senator said. 

Before she was governor, Palin pushed for a trooper investigation of 
Wooten over a number of matters, including using a Taser on his stepson, 
illegally shooting a moose, and accusations of driving drunk. At one 
point, Palin and her husband hired a private investigator.

Troopers did investigate, and Wooten was suspended for 10 days, later 
reduced to five. That took care of it, Monegan said. But the Palin 
administration and Todd Palin wouldn't let go, he said.

Palin initially said that, after she took office in December 2006, she 
broached the subject of Wooten with Monegan just once, when they discussed 
her security detail. She said that she told Monegan that Wooten "had 
threatened to kill my dad and bring me down." She said she thought that 
was the end of it.

Monegan said Palin called him on his cell phone one night in January 2007 
about Wooten, but it wasn't related to her security detail. He said he had 
already met with Todd Palin about Wooten, whom he hadn't heard of before, 
and had looked into the family's complaints only to learn they already had 
been investigated. Palin seemed frustrated that nothing more could be 
done, he said.

"For the record, no one ever said fire Wooten. Not the governor. Not Todd. 
Not any of the other staff," Monegan said Friday from Portland. "What they 
said directly was more along the lines of 'This isn't a person that we 
would want to be representing our state troopers.' "

Palin again brought up Wooten in February 2007 as they were walking 
together to wish a state senator a happy birthday, Monegan said. He said 
he told Palin he had to keep her at arm's distance on the matter and she 
agreed.

A Palin political rival, Andrew Halcro, was the first to publicly mention 
the Wooten matter in connection with Monegan. He titled his blog 
post: "Why Walt Monegan got fired: Palin's abuse of power."

"This is a governor who really built her name by stepping on the back of 
sinners — Randy Ruedrich, Greg Renkes, Frank Murkowski," Halcro said in an 
interview Friday, referring to the Republican Party chairman, the former 
attorney general and the former governor. "And now her administration 
seems to be taking the same approach as the people that she criticized."

More of the story came out on July 17, when the Public Safety Employees 
Association, with Wooten’s permission, released the investigative file 
concerning the complaints brought against the trooper by the Palin family 
and others.

The personnel investigation began in April 2005, long before Palin became 
governor and months before her October 2005 announcement that she was 
running. The investigation into Wooten wrapped up in March 2006, before 
she was elected.

Troopers found four instances in which Wooten violated policy, broke the 
law, or both.

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And it's not even Monday yet.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college 
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


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