No Surprises From Palin, McCain Team Says

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The Republican Campaign

After accepting the GOP nomination in St. Paul, Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, tour around the country.

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But that image was almost immediately clouded by reports that she has been involved in a dispute with her former brother-in-law, an Alaska state trooper whom her sister divorced. Allegations that Palin tried to have him dismissed from the force and that she fired the state public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, because he would not fire the trooper have made her the subject of a state ethics investigation.

Also Monday, it was revealed that Palin has hired a private attorney to represent her in the investigation. Her decision signals a shift to a more combative posture, which may delay the inquiry scheduled to produce a report a week before the election.

McCain advisers said that after talking to Palin, they decided to issue the statement about Bristol's pregnancy in the wake of repeated inquiries from reporters after liberal blogs raised questions about whether Bristol Palin is Trig's mother. The statement Monday appeared designed to rebut that rumor by offering a timeline that, if accurate, would have made it impossible for Bristol Palin to have delivered a baby in April.

Senior adviser Steve Schmidt condemned the rumors as "disturbing, nasty smears," while acknowledging that their existence had persuaded the campaign to reveal the pregnancy. "It's a private family matter. Life happens in families," he said.

Gov. Palin, who is scheduled to speak at the convention Wednesday night, arrived here Monday but made no public appearances. She declined, through a spokesman, requests for an interview.

Bristol Palin attended high school in Wasilla, where her mother grew up. But it was widely reported by town residents that while the Palins continued to live on Lucille Lake in Wasilla, she had moved to the home of an aunt in Anchorage and was attending high school there.

Along with her siblings, Bristol Palin was on the stage holding her brother Trig when McCain introduced their mother last Friday in Dayton, Ohio.

She took part in the six-hour bus trip the two families then made to Pittsburgh, stopping at a shop for Ohio State Buckeyes paraphernalia. She has not been seen at the rallies McCain and Palin have since held.

In Wasilla, a young woman who answered the door at the home of Levi Johnston said, "Any comment will have to come from the campaign."

Alaskan political insiders said versions of the rumors that Palin had faked a pregnancy to cover up her daughter's pregnancy began making the rounds a few months ago. They were dismissed after accounts emerged from people who said they had seen the governor showing signs that she was carrying a child, and of private assurances to fellow patients from the physician who delivered Trig.

Palin has told reporters she was in Houston on a business trip a month before her due date when she felt contractions and leaked amniotic fluid. After consulting with her doctor, she and her husband flew through Dallas and Seattle to Anchorage, then drove 45 miles north to the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, where she delivered after labor was induced. The new mother was back at work three days later, and announced that her fifth child was born with Down syndrome.

Vick reported from Wasilla. Staff writers Dan Balz and Juliet Eilperin in St. Paul and Robert Barnes in Philadelphia contributed to this report.