Troopergate findings: Sarah Palin ‘abused her power’
Your off-topic post for this week centres around Sarah Palin (surprise, surprise!). The report came in last night from the panel investigating the firing of Walter Monegan - the Alaskan Safety Comissioner who refused to fire Sarah Palin’s former brother-in-law, Trooper Michael Wooten, and who seemed to lose his own job as a result. The investigation has found Palin guilty of abusing her authority as Governor. The bottom line (my bolding):
“Finding Number One:
For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides
“The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”
Finding Number Two:
I find that, although Walt Monegan’s refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.”
Now, this may seem like a contradiction - was Sarah Palin in the right or wrong? As a commentator on the Mudflats blog says, it helps to flip around the two findings. Which conclude, in a nutshell:
That even though Sarah Palin’s decision to fire Walt Monegan was motivated at least in part by his ‘failure’ to get rid of Mike Wooten, she was actually within her rights to fire him. That in itself wasn’t a violation of public trust or abuse of power.
But the panel found that Palin DID abuse her position as Governor by taking official action (hundreds of phone calls, emails, and conversations with government officials) to try to get other people to take action against Wooten. And official action to benefit a private interest is an ethics violation.
Rachel Maddow covers the story as it broke last night:
And interviews Walt Monegan following the report’s findings:
And here’s more on HuffPo.
Such a shame that this story dropped on a Friday; but hopefully it might go some way to overshadow the Bill Ayers non-story.
Tags: alaska, michael wooten, msnbc, mudflats, rachel maddow, Sarah Palin, steve branchflower, troopergate, walter monegan