Saturday, October 11, 2008

Troopergate Investigation Concludes Palin 'Unlawfully Abused Powers'


Not Just Unethical..... She Broke The Law!!!

"I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110 (a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act," Branchflower wrote in the report.


The Troopergate Investigation Report has concluded that Sarah Palin, the first-term Governor of Alaska, abused the powers of her office in a vendetta against a State employee. See more from the UK's Telegraph.

The Telegraph also offers a breakdown of the major findings:

FINDING ONE
Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. That states: "Each public officer holds office as a public trust and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest though official action is a violation of that trust."

The most damaging finding. Stephen Branchflower, the investigator appointed by Alaska legislators, concluded that the Governor abused her power by conducting a campaign to have her former brother-in-law Mike Wooten fired as a state trooper, or by failing to prevent her husband Todd from doing so. He deemed this an effort to secure "a personal interest" under the Ethics Act, through her position.

FINDING TWO
Public safety commissioner Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Wooten was not the only reason Mrs Palin dismissed him, but was "likely a contributing factor". Nonetheless, the Governor has authority to sack executive branch department heads, and acted within that.

Technically a plus for Mrs Palin, but reveals she bears grudges. Mrs Palin can hire and fire her department chiefs as she wishes, so long as she acts "in good faith". She said she dismissed Mr Monegan because of a budget dispute but he said he believed he was sacked because he resisted pressure to oust Trooper Wooten.

FINDING THREE
A worker compensation claim by Mr Wooten was correctly handled and he received the benefits to which he was entitled.

An all clear for Mrs Palin. Her husband, Todd, had circulated pictures of the trooper driving a snowmobile while he was supposed to be on sick leave and receiving benefits for a bad back sustained at work - implying he was feigning the condition. The Palins denied interfering in his benefit claim and the inquiry did not disagree.

FINDING FOUR
Alaska's Attorney General, who was the conduit for requests for information from the executive branch, failed "to substantially comply" with the investigator's request to Mrs Palin to answer by email questions from the inquiry.

An implicit criticism of her refusal to cooperate. Gov Palin initially welcomed the investigation, saying she and her staff would co-operate fully and had nothing to hide in her dismissal of Mr Monegan. But after she was chosen as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, she withdrew her co-operation, saying the investigation had become a partisan witchhunt. The legislature authorised subpoenas on several of her aides to force them to testify but did not issue one against Mrs Palin. Investigator Stephen Branchflower offered to travel anywhere in the US to meet Mrs Palin or to accept answers from her by email, but the suggestion was ignored.


See the Troopergate Investigative Report Here (pdf)

This looks like the final verdict on John McCain's judgement and fitness to be President - He does not have the judgement nor the fitness for the top job in the land. Sarah Palin could conceivably be censured or impeached for her actions, but it does not appear that any action will be taken to punish her, at least not right now.

She will argue that this investigation was a witch hunt by Democrats, but this is a bold faced lie. The investigation was already ongoing when she was chosen to be John McCain's running mate. Palin welcomed the investigation when it got started, claiming that she would be vindicated. She also promised that she would cooperate fully. As for this being a partisan witchhunt... it's a complete lie, and she knows it. The effort to launch the investigation was bi-partisan. In fact, the panel that decided to investigate had more Republicans than Democrats. It was not until she was chosen to be John McCain's running mate that she began making all of the false claims about a witch hunt, and decided not to cooperate.

She is unfit to serve as VP... I don't see how she could be allowed to even compete for the job at this point. But the McCain camp will gloss over this over the next few weeks. She was already unqualified in terms of her background... now she's morally and ethically unfit. I don't care how the McCain camp tries to sweep this under the rug.

See a more detailed breakdown of the findings from The DailyKos

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Related Links

TIME looks at the Troopergate Report from another angle

See Report from the New York Times

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm living in a third world country that is just starting to develop economically - while most of my country men were poor - i was fortunate to be in a well off family and attended exclusive, westernised schools...as such i was exposed to a lot of American culture growing up and loved American music (thank you for 70's rock) hollywood movies and admired your innovators and industrial titans...America was heaven compared to the dump that was my country back then...and now it seems to me that a vast DUMB majority is taking over America...D-uh.."Obama uses big words that i cant understand'....D-uh 'Palin is a dumb stupid bimbo..lets make her VP'..D-uh 'fear mongering Republicans can always scare me silly and make me wet myself'...come on ppl...enough...how could you give us Bush for 8 years...he's not smart enough to be the head of some banana republic in Africa let alone the most powerful nation in the history of mankind??...YOU NEED SMART, INTELLECTUALLY SOUND PEOPLE TO LEAD YOU...my country has been a shit hole mainly because we had Bush like buffoons leading us for decades..only now with decent, clever and brainy leaders have we emerged out of virtual hell....If McCain and (Shudder) Palin are elected America is finished and you're gonna take the rest of the world with you..have some mercy Americans..we need to live our lives like you ppl prior to Bush...when the Roman or Byzantine Empires failed..they didnt take the rest of the world with the...in a globalised world..America will..(e.g Your Financial crisis)...wake up ppl..do the right thing for your great countries and the worlds sake...dont make it 'O'er the land of the free
And the home of the DUMB

Truthiz said...

First: A show of hands of everyone who was really surprised by this news?__

_Nobody?!

I thought not :)

Second: Not only is Palin absolutely UNfit and totally UNqualified to be Governor of ANY state, let alone serve as VP or (God forbid) President!__but John McCain has shown himself to be absolutely UNfit to serve in the U.S. Senate, to say nothing of serving as President!

November 4th will tell the REAL story about America_and Americans_today.

As Anon said_the World is waiting!

rikyrah said...

of course it was illegal..was there any doubt?

Brian said...

Annoying to see how they are sweeping this under the rug as if nothing happened. I have yet to see a cable news story on this.

If this had been Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, or Joe Biden (where anything remotely close to this happened) we wouldn't hear the end of it on the major news networks.

It's also aggravating to see how she continues to question Obama's character, when this report has rebuked her in her own State.

rikyrah said...

AI,

let's be absolutely, positively honest right here.


IFFFFF

the press had done its fucking job,

this race would be over, because she would have been exposed as the lying unqualified incompetent that she is.

let's be honest here.