French, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican who has been critical of Palin’s recent behavior, that the Alaska Legislature must decide whether to impose fines or pursue contempt charges that could lead to Todd Palin's arrest.
“The full Senate will decide what action to take,” an aide to French said. “Provisions in the statute range from fines to arrest. But that will be at the discretion of the legislative committee.”
However, the Alaska Senate does not convene until January, meaning that the issue of the subpoenas will likely spill over into the start of a new administration in Washington.
Report Still Planned
Despite the obstructions from Palin and her advisers, counsel Branchflower still believes he has enough evidence to proceed with his plan to release a report by Oct. 10, according to people involved with the investigation.
These people said Branchflower has documentary evidence and information from witnesses showing that individuals in Palin’s camp may have illegally tried to deny trooper Wooten worker’s compensation benefits for a back injury that he suffered last year when he slipped on icy pavement while pulling a body from a wrecked automobile.
They added that it is considered likely that Wooten will file a civil suit against Palin and members of her administration after Branchflower’s report is issued, a situation reminiscent of civil lawsuits that dogged President Bill Clinton from his days as Arkansas governor after he moved to the White House.
While Palin denies that she fired Monegan because he balked at firing Wooten, some of the newly available evidence confirms Palin’s obsession with her ex-brother-in-law who she claimed had threatened physical harm to her family during heated arguments about the divorce.
Palin sent an e-mail to Monegan on July 17, 2007, with a copy to Attorney General Talis Colberg, regarding proposed handgun legislation that would bar weapon sales to people who had made violent threats.
“The first thought that hit me,” Palin wrote, “about people not being able to buy guns when they’re threatening to kill someone went to my ex brother-in-law, the trooper, who threatened to kill my dad yet was not even reprimanded by his bosses and still to this day carries a gun, of course. …
“We can’t have double standards. Remember when that death threat was reported, and follow-on threats from Mike [Wooten] that he was going ‘to bring Sarah and her family down’ - instead of any reprimand WE were told by trooper union personnel that we’d be sued if we talked about those threats.
“Amazing. And he’s still a trooper, and he still carries a gun, and he still tells anyone who will listen that he will never work for that b*tch (me) because he has such anger and distain [sic] toward my family.
“So consistency is needed here. No one’s above the law. If the law needs to be changed to not allow access to guns for people threatening to kill someone, it must be applied to everyone.”
At the time, Palin was unaware that Alaska state troopers had already conducted an internal investigation into more than three dozen complaints that she and her family had filed against Wooten and that he had been suspended for five days.
Personnel File
The contents of that disciplinary investigation were sealed in Wooten’s personnel file until February 2008, when he was required to release it to his ex-wife’s attorney as part of a custody hearing.
Though that information was not public record – and was never introduced into the court record – Palin apparently learned about its contents from her sister. The campaign to get Wooten fired gained momentum.
In February 2008, Palin’s director of state boards and commissions, Frank Bailey, pressed police Lt. Rodney Dial about why Wooten had not been dismissed.
On July 11, 2008, Palin abruptly fired public safety commissioner Monegan, who then went public with his account of the mounting campaign against Wooten from the governor’s family and staff.
Though Palin vehemently denied that she was involved in the pressure campaign, a review by the Attorney General’s office found that half a dozen state officials had made about two dozen phone calls regarding Wooten.
The 14-member Legislative Council, with 10 Republican members, voted unanimously in July to launch an investigation, which Palin said she “would never prohibit or be less than enthusiastic about.”
“Let's deal with the facts and you do that via an investigation,” Palin said in July.
However, in early September after McCain plucked her from obscurity to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, Palin’s response to the investigation changed into outright resistance.
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