Speed Reading the Palin Report

An Official Report of the investigation into Sarah Palin’s conduct regarding behavior surrounding the dismissal of Commissioner Walt Monegan was published today. The entire lengthy report can be found here. In the meantime, I’m going to post some thoughts as I read. This is very stream of consciousness.

Page 11: As of Fall 2005, Palin did not understand the rights of due process and privacy available to troopers who had reports filed against them.

Page 14: Todd Palin “summoned” Walt Monegan, appointed by Gov. Palin as the police chief in the state, to a meeting in the governor’s office. If Hillary Clinton had met with any cabinet member over a personal matter in the Oval Office, it would not have taken so long for impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton to begin.

Page 18: I’m not sure what Mike Wooten did to Sarah Palin’s sister, but whatever it was, he really must have angered everyone in the family. I mean like Godfather-style righteous anger. In addition to filing a complaint against him, the Palins also hired a private investigator. Moreover, after elected, and the investigation had already come back negative, Todd Palin brought in the Commissioner for police in the state, Monegan, and briefed him not only on the concluded investigation, but also on what the PI found. That’s some grudge.

Page 19: Todd Palin says that the entire meeting was because Wooten was not adequately punished with “a few days off” and that he should instead be fired. Monegan thinks the entire episode was a natural outgrowth of anger normally felt after a divorce.

Page 24: Monegan tells Todd Palin that if the charge for illegally shooting a moose will not be charged, because it does not violate the spirit of the law, and because other people, including the Governor’s father and Wooten’s wife, would have to be named as accomplices. Palin stated in return that he only wanted Wooten charged. Gov. Palin called a few days later to complain that the punishment given to Wooten “just didn’t seem right.”

Page 25: Gov. Palin felt that the punishment for Wooten as given was “a slap on the wrist” and wanted him to be punished more.

Page 29: After Gov. Palin and Monegan agreed that none of this discussion should go through her for protocol reasons, her chief of staff Mike Tibble summons Monegan to a meeting concerning only Wooten. David Addington has nothing on Tibbles, except for a more imposing name.

Page 32: Multiple political appointees called Monegan on behalf of Palin, including the Attorney General. I’m also getting the sense that Todd Palin hired someone to follow Wooten around. This is beyond tenacity, this is Inigo Montoya level dedication. “My name is Sarah Palin, you divorced my sister, prepare to die.”

Page 33: The Attorney General refers to both Palins - “them” - as his superior.

Page 35: Palin aide Frank Bailey pulls an Alec Baldwin. He called a trooper demanding that Wooten somehow be fired, unaware the line was being recorded. Gov. Palin herself referred to the tape as a “smoking gun.”

Page 36: Bailey calls the Deputy Commission for Public Safety to complain that Wooten was sitting in a patrol vehicle outside his children’s school while on duty. When told this was note a fire-able offense, Bailey wants to know why Wooten is being “protected” after everything else he had done. Bailey also disclosed that he had received the information from the Palin’s.

Page 39: Monegan probably lost Palin’s confidence when he sent a poster to Palin’s office that featured a trooper, who he did not recognize as Mike Wooten. Oops. In return, Palin cancelled her public appearance with Monegan.

Page 39: A replacement for Monegan was arranged because “Todd is really unhappy with Monegan.” When asked why Monegan was being replaced, Bailey told the eventual replacement that it was partially because of the poster featuring Wooten.

Page 44: Oh my. The replacement for Monegan was hired so quickly by Palin that he was not at all vetted. Fifteen days after he was hired, he had to resign because of a previous allegation of sexual harassment against him that the governor’s office did not know about.

Page 44: The first time the Palins met with their security director, they did not say that Wooten posed a threat; shortly after she was inaugurated, Todd Palin said that Wooten was a threat to their family. Despite this threat, Gov. Palin took actions to reduce her security detail.

Page 45: Todd Palin spent about half his time in the governor’s office, regularly using the conference table. Palin was far more involved in running of the government than the wives of governors who preceded him. Palin contacted multiple state employees regarding Michael Wooten.

Page 47: The Governor’s office wanted the claim of Wooten for workers comp to be denied, and called the insurance company to accomplish that.

Page 53: The Palins began their campaign to get Wooten fired even before Wooten and Sarah Palin’s sister were divorced. The divorce was settled in October 2005. Even the judge in the Wooten divorce trial was astounded by the lengths the family was going to in order to get him fired, noting that it would cut his earning potential and leave less money for child support, even noting that if the family was not making these efforts to get him fired, he might have given more money to the wife. Why did the Palins not quit and declare victory at some point?

Page 55: For the record, Wooten received his discipline, appealed, and the appeal was all resolved between March and September 2006. That means it was over a year after the punishment for Wooten, and over two years after the divorce the Palin even became Governor. Like I said, they can hold a grudge.

Page 55: Todd Palin told the Wasilla Police Chief to not hire Wooten as a police officer.

Page 57: An email from Gov. Palin I am going to have to rewrite character for character from Feb. 7, 2007 to Monegan:

In sharing a few personal examples with you including the trooper who used to be related to me-the one who illegally killed the cow moose out of season, without a tag - he’s still bragging about it in my hometown and after another cop confessed to witnessing the kill, this trooper was “investigated” for over a year and merely given a slap on the wrist….though he’s out there arresting people today for the same crime!. This is the same trooper who shot his 11 -yr-old stepson with a taser gun, was seen drinking in his patrol car, was pulled over for drunk driving but let off by a coworker & brags about the incident to this day….he threatened to kill his estranged wife’s parent, refused to be transferred to rural Alaska and continued to disparage natives in words and tone, he continues to intimidate and harass his ex. - even after being slapped with a restraining order that was lifted when his supervisors intervened…he threatens to be able to always be able to come out on top because he’s “got a badge”, etc. etc. etc.) This trooper is still out on the street, in fact he’s been promoted. It was a joke, the whole year long “investigation” of him - in fact those who passed along the serious information about him to Julia Grimes and Tandesky were threatened with legal action from the trooper’s union for speaking about it. (This is the same trooper who’s out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he’d “never work for that b****, Palin”.)

Anyway - just a personal example of what I’ve personally seen out there and had to live with for two years - and this is what people in the Valley are putting up with (those many residents who know of this trooper time-bomb who’s supposed to be “protecting” them).

Where to begin? Her maverick-style use of a split infinitive? Her curious usage of punctuation? Or, how about that she actually was upset about someone using state authority (the “badge”) to accomplish something that was otherwise untoward. Also, to so cavalierly send a personal email - and then after identifying it was personal in the beginning of the email, to couch the language in random apersonal language. Giving a Vice President this sort of authority and power to enforce laws as they saw fit without reference to the law, or when feeling the law was just wholly inadequate would be very, very dangerous. Part of the greatness of America is repsect for the process, both politically and judicially. Sometmies your side loses a court case; you still comply with the ruling. Sometimes your poltical party loses an election. You don’t go off and rebel because of that.

Page 65: Important conclusion:

The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in “official action” by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation]. She knowingly, as that term is defined in the above cited statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office and the resources of the Governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act. ….

Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act.

Such impermissible and repeated contacts create conflicts of interest for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature.

Page 67: Another conclusion, that the Palins were trying to get Wooten fired for personal reasons, not because of fear.

The rest of the case concerns the dismissal of Monegan and other factors; the dismissal was found to be proper and lawful. The conduct of the governor prior to that dismissal is what was found as an abuse of power.