Palin: Troopergate not going away
Posted: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 9:19 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Sarah Palin
Per NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, at Palin’s joint event tonight with McCain in Michigan, Palin will take her first questions from town hall participants -- the first time she has done this since being selected as McCain’s running mate. As for Palin taking questions from the traveling press corps, well, that still hasn’t happened yet. In fact, the DNC has unveiled a new clock counting the days, hours, and minutes since McCain’s last press conference (34 days) and the time between Palin was picked and her first press conference (18 days and counting).
The Palin-appointed Alaska attorney general said "state employees would refuse to honor subpoenas in the case." "In a letter to state Sen. Hollis French, the Democrat overseeing the investigation, Republican Attorney General Talis Colberg asked that the subpoenas be withdrawn. He also said the employees would refuse to appear unless either the full state Senate or the entire Legislature votes to compel their testimony."
Moreover, some GOP allies of Palin in Alaska are trying to help suspend or shut down the legislative role in the trooper investigation. “Five Republican state lawmakers on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to halt an inquiry into Gov. Sarah Palin’s dismissal of her public safety commissioner, arguing that the Legislature has exceeded its authority by conducting a ‘McCarthyistic investigation.’”
Newsweek's Isikoff, reporting from Alaska, notes how seriously the McCain folks are taking the trooper investigation. "A former top Justice Department prosecutor now working for John McCain's presidential campaign has been helping to direct an aggressive legal strategy aimed at shutting down a pre-election ethics investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The growing role of Edward O'Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, illustrates just how seriously the McCain campaign is taking the so-called ‘troopergate’ inquiry into Palin's firing last summer of Walt Monegan, Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner.”
“O'Callaghan emerged publicly for the first time this week when he told reporters at a McCain campaign press conference, in Anchorage, that Palin is ‘unlikely to cooperate’ with an Alaskan legislative inquiry into Monegan's firing because it had been ‘tainted’ by politics. That new stand appeared to directly contradict a previous vow, expressed by her official gubernatorial spokesman on July 28, that Palin ‘will fully cooperate’ with an investigation into the matter."
Back to the facts... "McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, Alaska's governor, say her state's production of one-fifth of the country's domestic energy supply is an important credential to put them in the White House. Their figure is inflated," the AP reports. "The most recent figures show Alaska produced 3.4 percent of the nation's total energy output in 2005. The state's largest contribution to that figure was its oil production, which runs about 14 percent of the U.S. total. Alaska contributes about 2 percent of the nation's natural gas production. It produces negligible amounts of coal and renewable energy, and has no nuclear energy. The only way to get close to the 20 percent figure is to look at Alaska's proven oil reserves, the amount they have determined to be underground and available under current conditions, which amount to 18 percent of the U.S. total."
Page Six: "Hockey mom Sarah Palin not only wore lipstick to the Republican National Convention, the vice-presidential candidate wore a shantung silk Valentino jacket worth $2,500. Insiders tell Page Six Palin has a secretive circle of stylists who dress her for events. For her big speech in St. Paul, where she accepted the GOP's vice-presidential nod, this fashion-conscious team encouraged the Alaska governor to splurge on a $2,500 jacket from Saks Fifth Avenue designed by Valentino Garavani. ... Presidential nominee John McCain's wife, Cindy, recently took some heat after Vanity Fair itemized the cost of her wardrobe during her RNC speech with Laura Bush to a whopping $300,000 worth of designer wear and diamonds."
