The McCain campaign is now accusing fired Alaskan Public Safety Director Walt Monegan of “insubordination”, according to papers filed Monday by would-be President Puti…, sorry – “Palin”.
The Alaskan Daily News reports:
It was Palin’s strongest effort yet to snuff allegations she sacked Monegan because he refused to fire a state trooper involved in an ugly divorce with the governor’s sister.
Along with the papers filed Monday were a slew of e-mails from the governor’s office purporting to show Monegan’s “rogue mentality” as a member of Palin’s Cabinet.
In other words, Walt Monegan did not appropriately toady-the-line, and in a Palin administration we all know what that means. Just like her request on becoming mayor of Wasilla (then pop. 5,000) she asked all of the employees to resign so she could test their loyalty.
In one message, the governor’s budget director, Karen Rehfeld, wrote that she was “stunned and amazed” that Monegan appeared to be working with a powerful state legislator, Anchorage Republican Rep. Kevin Meyer, to seek funding for a project Palin previously had vetoed.
To coincide with Monday’s filing, spokesmen for the Republican national ticket of John McCain and Palin, his vice presidential running mate, held an Anchorage press conference touting the “important new information” they said cleared Palin of misconduct in what has come to be known as Troopergate.
Karen is shocked – shocked, I say!
Monegan, reached Monday at his Chugiak home, said he was dismayed at the attack on his record as Palin’s public safety commissioner.
“In my mind, I’ve always been a team player,” he said.
Which is more than Vladamir Palin can claim, having promised repeatedly to cooperate fully with the Troopergate investigation – being run by two Democrats and three Republicans – prior to the McCain campaign deciding the investigation had been “hijacked for political purposes by the Democrats”.
Last week, a legislative committee voted to issue more than a dozen subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify. Palin won’t get one, but her husband, Todd, will.
Ed O’Callaghan, a spokesman for the McCain-Palin campaign, said Monday the governor is “unlikely to cooperate” with the investigation.
Likely, unlikely – what’s a complete reversal among friends?
The governor’s lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, argues in a 19-page brief that even if the governor had asked Monegan flatly to fire Wooten — which she denies doing — that wouldn’t constitute a violation of the state Ethics Act “because the public generally shares a common interest in public order and safety.”
in other words, if she did fire Monegan for not firing her ex-brother-in-law – not that she did, of course, just as a thought-exercise you understand – even that would be OK…
The filing includes a July 17, 2007, e-mail Palin sent to Monegan in which she complains that a proposal to ban gun sales to people who make death threats wouldn’t stop her former brother-in-law, Wooten, from carrying a gun.
“Amazing,” the e-mail says. “And he’s still a trooper, and he still carries a gun, and he still tells anyone who will listen that he will ‘never work for that b—-‘ (me) because he has such anger and distain (sic) towards my family.”
Yes, it wouldn’t stop the trooper – who has not been convicted of the accusations by the Putin (damn, I keep doing that!) “Palin” family – from carrying a gun.
Monegan, in an interview Monday, said that the papers the governor’s lawyer filed are selective and he’s provided other documentation to the legislative investigator, Steve Branchflower, that will provide a more balanced portrayal of his time as commissioner.
As for why he was fired, Monegan said he believes it was his failure to fire trooper Wooten.
“Sadly, yes, I do,” he said, citing the July 17, 2007, e-mail as the sort of tacit pressure he said he received repeatedly from Palin and her husband.
The boss’ spouse as personal-political hatchetman. Gosh, Vlad would be so proud!
-chris
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