Palin attorney responds to trooper report

LA Times/Houston Chronicle:

Lawyers for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin assailed the legislative inquiry released Friday that found the governor abused her authority in a campaign to remove her former brother-in-law as a state trooper, saying the report misconstrues the state ethics law in an attempt to "smear" the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

In a biting response to the report by investigator Stephen Branchflower for Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council, Anchorage attorney Thomas Van Flein and his partners said the ethics law that Branchflower says was violated is intended to address cases in which a public official has a financial interest, not merely a personal one.

"There is no accusation, no finding and no facts that money or financial gain to the governor was involved," Van Flein said in a letter in reference to the decision in July to replace former public safety commissioner Walt Monegan.

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Monegan had resisted pressure from the governor to fire trooper Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a messy divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister. The Palins had complained Wooten had committed behavior inappropriate for a state trooper, including firing a Taser at his stepson, threatening Palin's father and driving his patrol car under the influence of alcohol.

"The report concludes that the governor had legitimate business reasons to remove Monegan. There can be no ethics violation under these circumstances," the attorneys said. "But the partisan nature of the investigation ineluctably compelled Branchflower and (Sen. Judiciary Committee chairman Hollis) French to smear the governor by innuendo, and by presenting incorrect representations of what the law is."

Palin was under no obligation to halt her husband in his campaign to get Wooten fired, the attorneys added, saying that to claim otherwise constitutes a violation of Todd Palin's rights to free speech. "Mr. Palin is free to tell anyone he wants, from the commissioner to the man on the street, about his concerns about Trooper Wooten," the lawyers said.

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This has to be one of the most over blown political controversies of the current campaign. Palin clearly had the right to fire Monegan for no reason at all. He was an "at will" employee of the state. She apparently did not have the right to fire Wooten and she never ordered that he be fired. Clearly she and her family thought he should be and there appears to be ample reasons for those feelings.

The moralizing of the left wing media just reflects their posture in support of the Obama campaign and not a good faith belief that Palin did something wrong. In fact if the situation were reversed they would be defending the action. Many in the media view their job as writing briefs for the election of Obama no matter what the issue.