It seems that in her fight to save her name she wasn't following the letter of the law.
An ethics complaint obtained by NBC News was filed Wednesday 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, an 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."
John Cyr, director of the union that filed the complaint, told NBC News, "It seems obvious to us somebody has improperly accessed [Wooten's] personnel file."
The argument that Palin's people are bringing forward is interesting on its own.
The Palins are claiming that Todd Palin himself turned over the information but that it all came from Divorce proceedings and were not improperly accessed.
This story will no doubt continue to develop.
NBC
UPDATED:
CNN is now covering the story:
"It's apparent to us that the governor or someone on her staff had direct access to his personnel file, as well as his workers' comp file, and those are protected," said John Cyr, executive director of the Alaska Public Safety Employees Association
CNN
TPM has the story and has posted the following in summary:
In other words, the McCain campaign is saying that Todd Palin gathered damaging information on Mike Wooten by looking through his divorce proceedings, then passed it on to an aide to the governor, who later used it to try to have Wooten fired. That may or may not be legal, but it doesn't exactly sound like the kind of ethical, reformist approach to government that Governor Palin claims to stand for.
TPMMuckraker
UPDATED II: Wow..the Rec list! Thank you! So far I've been unable to find any other sources of information about this complaint. I hope that NBC will continue to investigate this story.
Edited to add (Courtesty of SweetLiberty)a link to the actual complaint. PDF of the complaint laid against Palin