ADN’s political blog is reporting that the governor’s office is refusing to release the deposition Sarah Palin gave to the Alaska Personnel Board.  Apparently Palin views the matter as over and done with, and wants to put it behind her.  She’s also refusing to release Todd’s deposition and a host of other related material.

Her promise to make the personnel board’s findings public, she says, didn’t apply to material which was not explicitly in the final report.  That promise notwithstanding, what does Sarah have to gain by refusing to make her testimony public?  Much of her side of the story has already been made public in the news media, and I don’t anticipate that her answers to the personnel board were substantially different than the ones we’ve heard, so she probably doesn’t have to worry about charges of her story changing.  Furthermore, the personnel board cleared her of wrongdoing, so nothing she or Todd said in the depositions can be that damaging, can it?  I’m baffled.

I will say this: the question of whether Sarah Palin acted improperly in
a) trying to get Trooper Wooten fired, and/or
b) in removing Walt Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety
completely aside, the one thing I’m taking away from this case so far as an Alaskan is that our governor, whose chief talking point in the campaign was that Alaska’s government should be transparent and accountable to the people, didn’t mean what she said.  

More than anything else, I’m disappointed.

According to the evidence and a recent report, Sarah Palin knowingly allowed her husband to act with retalitive and unethical behavior to further a personal agenda against Palin’s former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten. From the TrooperGate Report:

[Sarah Palin] knowingly, as that term is defined in the above cited statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office and the resources of the Governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act.” [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 65-6]

Report and quote via TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime.

An investigation by the Alaska legislature has concluded that Governor Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law fired.

From the New York Times:

A 263-page report released Friday by lawmakers in Alaska found that Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had herself exerted pressure to get Trooper Michael Wooten dismissed, as well as allowed her husband and subordinates to press for his firing, largely as a result of his temperament and past disciplinary problems.

“Such impermissible and repeated contacts,” the report states, “create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of that displeasure.” The report concludes that the action was a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

What now lies ahead is not fully known at this point. Ms. Palin could be censured by the Legislature, but that is unlikely.

Ms. Palin, who had been elected governor in 2006, was tapped as Senator John McCain’s running mate in late August, about a month after an inquiry was opened into her firing of Mr. Monegan. Her political ascendancy took what was essentially a state personnel matter and elevated it into a national issue, one that has been simmering in the background of an increasingly heated presidential race.

In the report, the independent investigator, Stephen E. Branchflower, a former prosecutor in Anchorage, said that Ms. Palin wrongfully allowed her husband, Todd, to use state resources as part of the effort to have Trooper Wooten dismissed.

The report says she knowingly “permitted Todd Palin to use the governor’s office and the resources of the governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired.”

The following is an excerpt from a CNN article (read whole article, click here):

A former ethics adviser to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin warned in July that firing her public safety commissioner would become a “grave concern” for her administration.

Wevley Shea, a former U.S. attorney and fellow Republican, urged Palin to apologize to former Commissioner Walt Monegan and fire anyone on her staff who discussed her former brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten, with the commissioner.

“Your ‘political advisers’ have given you poor counsel; the situation is now grave,” Shea wrote in a July 24 letter to the governor. “I recommend the following action ‘now’ to restore your credibility and Alaska’s bright future with you.”

….”As early as October 2005, more than a year before Palin became governor, a judge hearing the divorce case warned her relatives against trying to get Wooten fired, according to court records.

Superior Court Judge John Suddock said the family appeared to be putting Wooten’s job at risk at a time when he would be required to pay child support and warned them “not to slay the goose that lays the golden egg.”

And in his final divorce decree the following January, Suddock warned against the “disparagement” of Wooten by his ex-wife’s family and said it could lead him to transfer custody of their children if it continued.”

Here is Local Alaskan news video on the incident:

Local Alaskan TV news segment concerning Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin’s investigation by state authorities after allegations of abuse of power in wrongful termination lawsuit:

Also, read this local Alaskan news article (Click here) explaining why Governor Palin is under investigation,

And click here to read a good blog post explaining more details about this pending litigation, scheduled to be decided in October.