Palins Repeatedly Pressed Case Against Trooper ANCHORAGE — The 2007 state fair was days away when Alaska’s public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, took another call about one of his troopers, Michael Wooten. This time, the director of Gov. Sarah Palin’s Anchorage office was on the line. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/us/10trooper.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin the former public safety commissioner, and his special assistant, Kim Peterson, both said they received phone calls from Todd Palin, right, about Mr. Wooten’s behavior.
As Mr. Monegan recalls it, the aide said the governor had heard that TrooperWooten was assigned to work the kickoff to the fair in late August. If so, Mr. Monegan should do something about it, because Ms. Palin was also planning to attend and did not want him nearby. Somewhat bewildered, Mr. Monegan soon determined that Trooper Wooten had indeed volunteered for duty at the fairgrounds — in full costume as “Safety Bear,” the troopers’ child-friendly mascot. Two years earlier, the trooper and the governor’s sister had been embroiled in a nasty divorce and child-custody battle that had hardened the Palin family against him. To Mr. Monegan and several top aides, the state fair episode was yet another example of a fixation that the governor and her husband, Todd, had with Trooper Wooten and the most granular details of his life. “I thought to myself, ‘Man, do they have a heavy-duty network and focus on this guy,’ ” Mr. Monegan said. “You’d call that an obsession.” On July 11, Ms. Palin fired Mr. Monegan, setting off a politically charged scandal that has become vastly more so since Ms. Palin became the Republican vice-presidential nominee. By now, the outlines of the matter have been widely reported. Mr. Monegan believes he was ousted because he would not bow to pressure to dismiss Trooper Wooten. The Alaska Legislature is investigating the firing and whether the governor abused the powers of her office to pursue a personal vendetta. Its report is due Friday. Ms. Palin has denied that anyone told Mr. Monegan to dismiss Trooper Wooten, or that the commissioner’s ouster had anything to do with him. But an examination of the case, based on interviews with Mr. Monegan and several top aides, indicates that, to a far greater degree than was previously known, the governor, her husband and her administration pressed the commissioner and his staff to get Trooper Wooten off the force, though without directly ordering it. In all, the commissioner and his aides were contacted about Trooper Wooten three dozen times over 19 months by the governor, her husband and seven administration officials, interviews and documents show. “To all of us, it was a campaign to get rid of him as a trooper and, at the very least, to smear the guy and give him a desk job somewhere,” said Kim Peterson, Mr. Monegan’s special assistant, who like several other aides spoke publicly about the matter for the first time. Ms. Peterson, a 31-year veteran of state government who retired 10 days before Mr. Monegan’s firing, said she received about a dozen calls herself. “It was very clear that someone from the governor’s office wanted him watched,” she said. Nor did that interest end with Mr. Monegan, the examination shows. His successor, Chuck Kopp, recalled that in an exploratory phone call and then a job interview, Ms. Palin’s aides mentioned the governor’s concerns about Trooper Wooten. None of the 280 other troopers were discussed, Mr. Kopp said. Personnel Politics Immediately after Mr. Monegan’s firing, Ms. Palin said her intent was to change the department’s direction. (She declined to be interviewed for this article.) She has since offered a variety of explanations for his ouster, most recently accusing him of insubordination and opposing her fiscal reforms. As evidence, she has contended, among other things, that Mr. Monegan arranged two unauthorized lobbying trips to Washington. But according to interviews and records obtained by The New York Times, the governor’s office authorized both trips. As for Trooper Wooten, Ms. Palin has said she and others were simply lodging legitimate complaints to the appropriate authorities about a trooper with a disciplinary record who was a danger to her family and to the public. In one instance, she said he made a death threat against her father in 2005, an accusation that the trooper has denied. Ms. Palin initially said she welcomed an investigation into Mr. Monegan’s ouster. But she has since declined to cooperate with the bipartisan inquiry, which Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign says has been “hijacked” by Democratic lawmakers. Ms. Palin has pledged to cooperate with a separate inquiry, by the state’s Personnel Board. 1 2 3 Next Page --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
