Monday, September 22, 2008

Palin's TrooperGate scandal becomes a complete soap opera

The more you muddy the waters, the dirtier you get. Sarah Palin must need a piping hot shower right about now. Today, Palin's attorneys met with an investigator for the Alaska Personnel Board to broker her cooperation with their probe of the TrooperGate scandal. Palin herself requested that the Board investigate the scandal and insisted she had nothing to hide. Now Palin's lawyers are negotiating her participation in the investigation she requested. Make sense?

Since becoming the VP nominee, Palin has refused to cooperate with the Republican-led state legislature's version of the investigation with the excuse it had become too "politicized."She argued the three-member Personnel Board -- part of her executive branch -- was the proper venue for the investigation.

In another development today, an internal government document obtained by ABC News seems to contradict Palin's most recent explanation for why she fired Walt Monegan, the Public Safety Commissioner. Palin is claiming that she fired Monegan because he had a "rogue mentality" and was bucking her administration's directives. Her lawyer argued that the "last straw" came when Monegan planned an "unauthorized" trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program. The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape. The only problem with that argument is that Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich, authorized the trip, according to an internal travel document from the Department of Public Safety.

Palin's attempts to defy the legislative investigation and limit her participation in the investigation she authorized suggest one thing: Palin has something to hide and is trying to keep things under wrap until after Election Day.




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