Troopergate Update

It's actually hard to keep everything straight with Sarah Palin, but I think the radical extremism, the constant lying, and the abuse of power are the three silos you can pretty much stack everything in. For the moment, let's focus on the abuse of power.

The effort to fire Department of Public Safety chief Walt Monegan has taken a couple of turns. First of all, there is more documentary evidence.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, wrote e-mails that harshly criticized Alaska state troopers for failing to fire her former brother-in-law and ridiculed an internal affairs investigation into his conduct.

The e-mails were shown to The Washington Post by a former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, who was fired by Palin in July. Monegan has given copies of the e-mails to state ethics investigators to support his contention that he was dismissed for failing to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, who at the time was feuding with Palin's family.

"This trooper is still out on the street, in fact he's been promoted," said a Feb. 7, 2007, e-mail sent from Palin's personal Yahoo account and written to give Monegan permission to speak on a violent-crime bill before the state legislature.

"It was a joke, the whole year long 'investigation' of him," the e-mail said. "This is the same trooper who's out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he'd 'never work for that b****', Palin'.)"

She went right to the line of asking Monegan for Wooten's firing, and when he refused, she fired him. There aren't a lot of lines to read between here.

For the record, Monegan says that Palin is lying.

Monegan says he believes that the Governor has not told the truth about what happened.

"I think there are some questions now that, coming to light about how transparent and how honest she wants to be," Monegan said [...]

"You should never use your public office to settle a private score," said Sen. Hollis French. "And that's what the legislature is looking into, to what degree did the Governor's personal family relationship inject or get introduced into her work as Governor."

In case you haven't read what Palin aide Frank Bailey discussed with a police official, on tape, here it is:

Bailey asks the officials why there's been reluctance to fire the brother in law.

"The Palins can't figure out why nothing's going on. And here's the problem that's gonna happen is that, there is a possibility because Wooten is an ex-husband of the governor's sister, and there is a custody situation, there is a strong possibility that the Governor herself may get subpoenaed to talk about all this stuff on the stand. Right in the coming months, which would be, it would be ugly," Bailey says.

"I mean, you know, I don't think anybody wants that. But you know, Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, you know, why on Earth -- why is this guy still representing the department?," he asks.

And then later, a more direct reference to the commissioner Walt Monegan.

"I'm telling you honestly, I mean, she really likes Walt a lot, but on this issue, she feel like she doesn't know why there is absolutely no action for a year on this issue. It's very, very troubling to her and the family," Bailey said.

This is pretty darn clear. Incidentally, Bailey is now refusing to testify in the legislature's investigation.

Meanwhile, the Alaska police union has filed a complaint on behalf of Wooten.

The GOP candidate for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, may be facing yet another ethics investigation back in her home state of Alaska. An ethics complaint obtained by NBC News was filed Wednesday by the police officers union in Alaska, requesting a probe into possible wrongdoing by the governor or her office. It was brought on behalf of state trooper Mike Wooten, an ex-brother-in-law of Palin who is at the center of the "Troopergate" scandal.

The complaint alleges that the governor or her staff may have have improperly disclosed information from Wooten's personnel records. The complaint alleges "criminal penalties may apply."

John Cyr, director of the union that filed the complaint, told NBC News, "It seems obvious to us somebody has improperly accessed [Wooten's] personnel file."

This is but one example of why Roger Simon was absolutely right with his mocking tone today. The press has the responsibility to provide a fuller picture of elected officials and ask tough questions about them. It is not their job, no matter how much they think to the contrary, to lovingly transcribe whatever inside sources feed them. Just not their job. And it's in no way sexist to get to the bottom of these stories, either. Which it seems like they're following through on.