All we have are rumors and innuendo, but this fire has been smoldering ever since she hit the national stage.
First, in today's Huffington Post:
Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.
Now for the rest. In today's Firedoglake.com we have this:
SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin's snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.
Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few "buddies," according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.
Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an addition $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.
Whether the alleged federal investigation into the Palins and SBS prompted her resignation could not be confirmed.
In yesterday's Firedoglake.com we have this:
Update: This just in my inbox, from a source connected sometimes to CNN:
"Here's a quote I got from law enforcement here in Alaska yesterday afternoon regarding Palin "a criminal indictment is pending authorization."
And this:
Alaskan Sarah Palin authority (and occasional BRAD BLOG guest blogger) Shannyn Moore, who originally broke the news at HuffPo today, tells me she believes, with good reason, that there is an "iceberg scandal that's about to break. She's doing damage control."
She says Palin is "resigning as part of damage control" due to a scandal this is "not of a family nature."
"The governor would not be able to continue her job when it comes out," she told me on the phone just now, before adding: "Why would Mark Sanford not resign, but Sarah Palin did? Her family didn't even know about the resignation until they were standing with her by the lake" when she made her announcement.
Yes. It seems another shoe, apparently a big one, will indeed be dropping, likely within the next week or so. Perhaps earlier now that everyone will be poking around up there.
Now this gun has been smoking since the campaign, I would recommend reading this for background.
Village Voice
See page 5 of the article for the fiasco around the sprots complex and her house. Which were strangley built at the same time, in the same place, but the the house was built by Todd's "buddies". Yeah, sure.