Sorry to do another Palin diary, but this seems to be of some importance. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin asks review of Monegan firing case. The Governor has now filed an ethics complaint against herself to the state's three-person Personnel Board, where ssych complaints are usually confidential, but Palin has asked that this be open. Technically, the complaint was sent to the Attorney General, Talis Colberg (about whom more in a moment), and Palin's lawyer, Thomas van Flein,
also asked the state Legislature to drop its own investigation into the Monegan matter. He says the Personnel Board has jurisdiction over ethics.
Senator Hollis French of Anchorage, who is overseeing the investigation by an independent lawyer hired by the legislature refused the request. French is himself a former state prosecutor.
There are some important things to remember about what is happening, which I will try to briefly explain below the fold.
First, the legislature took action to initiate the investigation in July.
Second, van Flein has said he was hired by Palin several weeks ago, and a piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer states that the hiring was through the Law Department, headed by the Attorney General, on August 21.
Third, the first we heard of anything from van Flein was after Palin was chosen by McCain.
Fourth, van Flein sought documents from the legislature's investigator, Stephen Branchflower, that Sen. French rejected.
Fifth, van Flein demanded that the legislature drop its investigation on the grounds that the Personnel Board had jurisdiction. French rejected the request on two grounds, tht the legislature had its own jurisdiction, and that there was no ethics complaint pending against Palin.
Sixth, van Flein yesterday on behalf of the Governor sent the paperwork to the Attorney General to open an ethics complaint.
Seventh, Palin is clearly avoiding being interviewed by Branchflower, as you can see here. French has offered to fly the investigator anywhere necessary to accomodate Palin and complete the interview, but van Flein is refusing to guarantee to make her available during September. French is on record as saying the investigation is likely to be damaging to the governor. Ans van Flein?
Van Flein said the investigation is "bad timing" in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Now remember the following
- the Attorney General is NOT elected. This person was appointed by Palin, and is someone she knows from Wasilla.
- When the legislature announced its investigation, Palin directed AG Colberg to do his own investigation and report to her, meanwhile denying that she or her staff had done anything improper or tried to pressure Walt Monegan, then head of Public Safety, to fire her former brother in law, Trooper Wooten.
- When it became clear that there was evidence (eg, the tape) demonstrating the falseness of Palin's position, she said it was the first she was hearing of the actions of her staff (strong management skills, right?) and that she herself had done nothing, although Monegan says he has emails directly from her.
- The investigation by Branchflower is scheduled to be completed and given to the legislature on OCtober 31, four days before the election.
It is clear that the Republicans are worried that a release of the Branchflower report would be damaging to Palin, and are playing stall-ball, exactly as we have seen from the crrent national administration, attempting to run out the clock so that no information will be made public in a fahsion timely enough that it could be used by Democrats and/or influence the election in any fashion. I would note that the Clinton team tried a similar tactic with respect to the lawsuit filed by Paula Jones, but were unable to do so as a court ordered the President's deposition. And it is hard to see how Republicans can say with a straight face that the rigors and demands of a vice presidential campaign are any more interfering of a three-hour or so deposition than were the responsibilities of the oval office.
I do not know how much attention the traditional media is willing to focus on what Palin, her team, and the McCain team (because Tucker Eskew is now heavily involved in the process) are doing to avoid being held accountable. I do think that if the Governor thinks she did nothing wrong, she should be more than willing to accomodate the needs of an examination NOT UNDER HER CONTROL as would be one by a personnel board she appointed (conflict of interest, command influence anyone?) - if she has nothing to hide, I would think she would welcome an expedited process to clear her name.
Of what is Sarah Palin afraid that she is trying to stall or prevent the legislative inquiry from proceeding?
I suspect that there may be two more arrows left in van Flein's quiver. One would be to seek an injunction from a friendly judge to stop the legislative inquiry on the grounds of the ethics complaint being the proper forum,. And the other, if that is either not done or if it fails, is to still refuse to talk with Branchflower and hope to win sympathy by trying to spin the media coverage. The Anchorage Daily News will not be spun on this, and I suspect given their status as the largest paper in Alaska, how they act is likely to strongly influence much of the rest of the traditional media.
Further, we now have ABC actively seeking information on Palin. We have the NY Times editorially castigating McCain's selection of her. We have an ever increasing number of media outlets doing further digging on their own, and even an increasing number of conservative opinion makers not drinking the koolaid and raising serious questions about Palin's selection, or flatly stating that she lacks the requisite background and experience to be a heartbeat away.
In the meantime, Palin and her lawyer look more and more like Bush and his lawyers - trying to game the system.
Peace.