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TrooperGate Tomorrow

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I wonder if the hate rallies will mind if Steve Branchflower concludes that Sarah Palin and her creepy sidekick "Dude" abused the public trust to pursue a personal vendetta, now that Republican efforts to squelch his investigation have failed?

The Alaska Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by a group of six Republican legislators to shut down the Legislature’s investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin.

The ruling means that Steve Branchflower, the investigator hired by the Legislative Council, will release his report as scheduled on Friday.

I doubt it.

As I understand it, Branchflower presents his report to the legislature at 9AM Alaska time, so an early Friday afternoon document dump for those of us in the East. 

Update: Opinion here.

More on the TrooperGate Cover-Up

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Here’s how Alaska State Representative Les Gara described the latest developments in the TrooperGate cover-up–in which five Republicans sued to stop the bi-partisan legislative investigation and the Attorney General flip-flopped over whether Palin’s staffers have to respond to legislative subpoenas.

It’s silly season up here in the far north, but this week’s moves are aimed at one thing: John McCain’s effort to find cover for being disingenuous. See, before Governor Palin’s nomination for the Republican VP spot, she did the honest thing. She admitted the evidence – of roughly 20 contacts between her staff and husband with Public Safety officials, seeking the firing of Governor Palin’s former brother-in-law – might lead a reasonable person to the conclusion that the she misused her office to fire a state employee. So when Alaska’s Republican-led Legislature called for an investigation, she did the honorable thing and said she and her staff would comply. She denies any wrongdoing.

Things changed on August 29 when Governor Palin was added to the McCain ticket. Since then his handlers have told her she can’t testify. They don’t want the evidence in this case to come out. They don’t want her to testify under oath. They don’t want other witnesses to testify under oath.

So they have engaged in daily maneuvers to attack, as disloyal to the McCain campaign, anyone who wants the investigation to move forward. They’ve now attacked two well respected prosecutors, and perhaps the state’s most highly regarded law enforcement official – the Public Safety Commissioner she hired, and then fired, Walt Monegan.

Every day this week McCain operatives have sung the same tune. Today a guy with an East Coast accent, who knows nothing about Alaska, stood in front of a McCain-Palin banner to lead the attacks against people he doesn’t know. At press conferences on Monday and Tuesday campaign staffer Megan Stapleton spit vitriol to repeat her argument that this investigation is really a "Democratic" attack on Governor Palin.

See, that’s easier than just saying their VP has reneged on her promise to testify. It’s easier than just saying they don’t want anyone testifying before the November election. It’s easier than admitting they are stonewalling a legislative investigation. [my emphasis]

Gara goes on to explain the little details about the Republican majority in the Alaksa legislature that some of us outsiders–particularly in the McCain campaign–seem to be missing. Read more →

Palin’s Advisor Makes the Comparison to the US Attorney Purge Explicit

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If you’ve been watching Sarah Palin’s attempt to cover-up her abuse of power in TrooperGate, it may have reminded you of Bush’s attempt to cover up his US Attorney purge: An executive wants to retaliate against those who have put the rule of law above partisan or personal grudges, so she fires people. And then, when people notice, she starts stone-walling and back-tracking on promises to cooperate.

Kagro X has already made this comparison explicit.

Warning to Democrats Americans: Republicans are fighting this investigation like it was Florida 2000. If you’re harboring any thoughts of taking a hands-off approach, rising above the fray, and then doubling back to investigate it later if she gets elected, think again. At that point we’ll be hearing nothing but how it was "thoroughly investigated" by the Alaska state legislature. The quashing of the subpoenas won’t be mentioned, and all will be forgotten. You know it’s coming.

This is a direct parallel to federal issues playing out as we speak in Washington, with Harriet Miers a no-show once again today on a subpoena that’s now well over a year old.

Turns out, Kagro X isn’t the first one to make such a comparison. One of Sarah Palin’s own personal advisors is.

WSJ broke and CNN did a follow-up story on the warnings Palin’s ethics advisor, Wevley Shea, gave her just as the story that she fired Walt Monegan started to break back in July.

An informal adviser who has counseled Gov. Sarah Palin on ethics issues urged her in July to apologize for her handling of the dismissal of the state’s public safety commissioner and warned that the matter could snowball into a bigger scandal.

He also said, in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that she should fire any aides who had raised concerns with the chief over a state trooper who was involved in a bitter divorce with the governor’s sister.

In an interview with CNN, Shea compares the TrooperGate cover-up (and remember–this is a description coming from one of Palin’s friends!) and the US Attorney purge:

"The problem, in my opinion, is that there has been out-and-out cover-up and misleading statements by staffers in the governor’s office," he said. "And the parallel that I tried to draw is, you know, the problem with the firing or terminating of the U.S. attorneys."

Read more →

Rather than Vetting Palin, McCain Will Orchestrate a Cover-Up of Her Abuse of Power

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"I make [decisions] as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can. Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint." — John McCain

It’s bad enough that a presidential ticket claiming to run on reform is now orchestrating a cover-up of an apparent abuse of power. What’s really stunning is that they’re conducting this cover-up in lieu of actually vetting Sarah Palin.

The Cover-Up

As you’ve no doubt seen, Isikoff and Hosenball report that the McCain campaign is attempting to turn the bipartisan investigation into TrooperGate into a whitewash.

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin’s firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.

In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska’s bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.

[snip]

Coghill, who told NEWSWEEK that he has the backing of Republican Speaker of the House John Harris in his effort to remove French, suggested Friday that the investigation into Palin’s firing of Monegan should be shut down entirely. "If this has been botched up the way it has, there’s a question as to whether it should continue," Coghill told NEWSWEEK. 

[snip]

Coghill told NEWSWEEK that he decided to write his letter to strip French of his position on his own-without any coaxing by McCain campaign officials.

But a top McCain campaign official acknowledged that the GOP lawyer had given the campaign a "heads up" about his letter and that the McCain campaign approved of the effort to remove French.

"An investigation that was supposed to be non-partisan has become a political circus and has gotten out of control," said Taylor Griffin, a top communications aide dispatched from McCain campaign headquarters to Alaska this week to monitor the investigation and related matters.

And, as I pointed out the other day, since Palin got named the VP candidate, seven people have not so mysteriously changed their minds about cooperating with the investigation; there will be a vote among the Republican-dominated committee conducting the investigation on Tuesday to decide whether or not to subpoena these seven witnesses.

Read more →