Alaska investigator Steve Branchflower's report on the Sarah Palin abuse of power case was made public Friday. The Governor may or may not be censured, but the report makes clear she and "the first dude" abused their positions in going after their former brother-in-law. The following are verbatim excerpts from Steve Branchflower's report:
"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act. "
"Such impermissible and repeated contacts 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 such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature. "
"Governor Palin has stated publicly that she and her family feared Trooper Wooten. Yet the evidence presented has been inconsistent with such claims of fear. The testimony from Trooper Wheeler, who was part of her security detail from the start, was that shortly after elected to office, she ordered a substantial reduction in manpower in her personal protection detail ... an act that is inconsistent with a desire to avoid harm from Trooper Wooten or others."
"It is noteworthy that in almost every contact with the subordinate employees, Mr. Palin's comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. His comments were always couched in terms that he was a bad Trooper, that he was not a good recruiting image for the AST, that his discipline amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, that nothing had happened to him following the administrative investigation, and so forth... "
"I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons."---o0o---
2 comments:
Imagine if this woman had access to the NSA wiretapping system. Ugh.
She would make Nixon's abuses of the FBI and NSA files look like child's play. It's ironic, I guess, that John McCain's out-of-left-field Veep choice will inevitably be cited beginning November 5th as one of the root causes that sank his campaignn.
CNews reports actuarial statistics that at least by a second term, the odds of Palin becoming President are at least one in four.
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