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Last Updated: Oct 15, 2008 - 12:33:48 PM |
Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner whom Palin fired after he
refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, submitted a
complaint to the state personnel board on Monday seeking a hearing to
“address reputational harm” caused by Palin.
In the complaint, which appears to set the stage for a lawsuit,
Monegan’s attorney Jeffrey Feldman said Palin’s “inconsistent and
changing explanations” for firing Monegan – including claims that he
was fired for insubordination – have damaged his reputation.
“Mr. Monegan does not challenge the Governor’s right to discharge him
as the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety,” the complaint
said. “But the Governor is not entitled to make untrue and defamatory
statements about her reasons for discharging a cabinet officer.
“Gov. Palin’s public statements accusing Mr. Monegan of serious
misconduct were untrue and they have stigmatized his good name,
severely damaged — and continue to damage — his reputation and impaired
his ability to pursue future professional employment in law enforcement
and related fields. This damage thus implicates his constitutionally
protected liberty interests.”
On Oct. 10, an investigative report released by a bipartisan group of
state lawmakers concluded that Palin abused her authority and broke
state ethics laws by sanctioning a campaign to pressure subordinates,
including Monegan, to fire her former brother-in-law, state trooper
Mike Wooten.
The report found that Palin violated a statute of the Alaska Executive
Branch Ethics Act, which says "each public officer holds office as a
public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial
interest through official action is a violation of that trust."
Reacting to the report in a phone conference with reporters on Oct. 12,
Palin misrepresented the report’s findings.
“Well, I’m very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing,"
Palin said, "any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very
pleased to be cleared of any of that."
Palin’s interpretation of the investigative report left some
journalists scratching their heads. For instance, ABC News political
writer Jake Tapper wrote a blog post that termed Palin’s comments
“flatly false.”
Retaliation?
The “Troopergate” investigation centered on whether Palin, her husband
Todd, and several of her senior aides pressured Public Safety
Commissioner Monegan to fire Wooten, who had gone through a bitter
divorce and custody battle with Palin’s sister. In July, Palin fired
Monegan, who then publicly blamed his dismissal on his refusal to fire
Wooten.
Palin denied that she was retaliating against Monegan and initially
welcomed the legislative inquiry. The investigation was approved
unanimously by the Republican-dominated Legislative Council, which then
hired former prosecutor Steve Branchflower to head the probe.
In his Oct. 10 report, Branchflower said Monegan’s resistance to the
pressure to fire Wooten played a part in Palin's decision to terminate
him as the state's top police official, but that her firing decision
was nonetheless lawful.
However, Branchflower determined that Palin abused her power and
violated state ethics laws by allowing – and participating in – a
campaign, spearheaded by her husband Todd, to pressure state officials
to fire Wooten.
Branchflower’s findings could lead to a possible reprimand or fine from
the state ethics board. Plus, the state legislature could move to
sanction the governor when it reconvenes next year.
Gov. Palin also faces the prospect of lawsuits possibly brought by
Monegan or Wooten or both for damages inflicted on them and their
reputations.
Neither Monegan nor his attorney would say whether a lawsuit would be
filed against the governor.
In the personnel-board complaint, however, Monegan's attorney signaled
that a lawsuit was in the offing, stating that "Mr. Monegan requests
that the board declare, or secure a declaration from the Attorney
General, that Mr. Monegan has exhausted his administrative remedies and
may assert his claim in Superior Court."
For his part, Wooten, the state trooper, is prepared to sue Palin, her
husband, and the state for spending the past three years trying to get
him fired from his job, according to John Cyr, the executive director
of the Public Safety Employees Association, the union that represents
state troopers.
Also, a top Alaska State Trooper official who works with Wooten said
Wooten has told several close associates that he will soon file a
multimillion lawsuit against Palin. The official requested anonymity
because Wooten, who has declined interview requests, did not clear him
to speak about the plans.
"Trooper Wooten intends to sue Gov. Palin, her husband, and some people
in her administration for slander defamation of character, and civil
rights violations,” the official said. “His attorneys are considering
filing in state and federal court."
The lawsuits could cause additional problems for Palin if Alaska’s
taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for any settlements.
There’s also the prospect that if the McCain-Palin ticket prevails in
the presidential election, civil lawsuits from the “Troopergate” affair
could dog Palin as Vice President, the way litigation followed
President Bill Clinton from Arkansas to the White House.
Criticizing Monegan
Some of Palin’s new legal difficulties can be traced back to Sept. 2,
just a day before she accepted the GOP nomination, when she took the
unusual step of filing an ethics complaint against herself.
The move was a bid to shift the investigation to the state personnel
board whose three members are appointed by the governor and an attempt
to force Branchflower to abandon his investigation.
Palin followed that maneuver with filings claiming that she fired
Monegan because he has a “rogue mentality” and committed acts of
“outright insubordination.” However, that became the groundwork for
Monegan’s complaint to the same personnel board.
“Governor Palin attempted to support these allegations with selected
documents to make it appear ... as if there was a factual basis for the
assertions,” Monegan’s complaint said.
“The allegations were untrue, however. Mr. Monegan was very much a team
player. At no time did he have or exhibit a ‘rogue mentality,’ nor did
he commit any acts of insubordination during the period of time he
served as Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety.”
Last week, Palin was confronted by a television reporter during a
conference call about the use of the word “rogue” to describe Monegan.
She responded by trying to redefine the word “rogue,” saying, “Rogue
isn’t a negative term when you consider that in a cabinet you need a
team effort going forward with a governor’s agenda.”
Monegan asked the personnel board to convene a hearing so he can clear
his name and “redress reputational harm by publicly proving that he was
not a rogue employee or grossly insubordinate, as the Governor has
alleged, and that he was not terminated as Commissioner of the
Department of Public Safety for those reasons.”
Monegan’s attorney included more than 60 pages of documents to support
his position, including e-mails that show a trip Monegan took to
Washington to seek federal funding for a program to curb sexual
assaults was not a case of “insubordination” as the McCain-Palin
campaign has claimed.
According to the e-mails, Monegan and Palin coordinated the trip over
an eight-month period.
Monegan’s personnel complaint also sheds more light on his interactions
with Todd Palin. Monegan said he warned the governor’s husband that the
pressure to fire Wooten opened the state to a lawsuit from Wooten.
"Because Trooper Wooten had already been investigated and disciplined
for the conduct raised by Todd Palin, in the absence of new information
or new allegations, re-disciplining him for the same conduct was
legally impermissible,” according to the complaint’s supporting
documents.
“Firing him for the conduct for which he had already been disciplined
by Mr. Monegan's predecessor would almost certainly guarantee that
Trooper Wooten would sue the State and that he likely would prevail."
Monegan described Todd Palin as “displeased” with this response,
leading the governor’s husband to suggest that criminal charges be
filed against Wooten for illegally using his then-wife's hunting permit
to kill a moose.
Monegan, a former police chief in Anchorage, advised Todd Palin that
the idea had several drawbacks. Not only had the incident occurred more
than three years earlier, Monegan said, but a prosecutor also would
have to pursue charges against the governor’s sister “who had willingly
allowed Trooper Wooten to take the moose on her permit.”
Further, Monegan explained, “the governor's parents had participated in
butchering and consuming an animal they knew to have been illegally
taken, [so] Trooper Wooten might not be the only person a prosecutor
would want to hold accountable. Todd Palin reacted very negatively to
that assessment and insisted that Trooper Wooten, and only Trooper
Wooten should be charged."
In a related development, Wooten’s representative Cyr said the Public
Safety Employees Union will amend a pending ethics complaint against
Palin to add the “claim that the governor improperly and illegally
tried to get Mike Wooten fired."
The union’s original complaint accused Palin of improperly accessing
Wooten’s personnel files.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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