The Trail

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

TROOPER PROBE

Palin 'Unlikely' to Talk to Prosecutor

ANCHORAGE -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is unlikely to meet with a special prosecutor looking into whether she or other state officials improperly pushed to punish a trooper, a spokesman for John McCain's presidential campaign announced Monday.

Since Palin was named McCain's running mate, the campaign has dismissed the state legislature's investigation of her dismissal of the state's director of public safety, saying that Democrats are exploiting the probe for political gain.

McCain campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said that Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with the investigation, which he called "tainted."

Palin's husband, Todd, was subpoenaed in the probe last week. O'Callaghan said he did not know whether Todd Palin would challenge that.

Sarah Palin has said she fired Walter Monegan over disagreements about budget priorities. Monegan says he received repeated e-mails and phone calls from both Palins and her staff expressing dismay over the continued employment of state trooper Mike Wooten, whose divorce from Sarah Palin's sister was ugly.

Todd Palin and 12 other people were subpoenaed Friday by a joint committee, made up of three Republicans and two Democrats, after prosecutor Stephen Branchflower said that someone may have attempted to deny workers' compensation benefits to Wooten.

No subpoena was sought or issued for the governor. When the investigation was announced less than two months ago, Palin said she welcomed it and promised her full cooperation.

The decisive vote in the committee's 3 to 2 decision was cast by Charlie Huggins, a Republican state senator from the Palins' home town of Wasilla. He explained his vote by saying: "I say let's just get the facts on the table; the sooner the better."

After McCain named Palin to the GOP national ticket, her supporters urged lawmakers to turn the Wooten matter over to the three-member State Personnel Board, which is appointed by the governor and charged with handling ethics complaints.

One lawmaker complained earlier this month that state Sen. Hollis French, the Anchorage Democrat overseeing the investigation, appears to be steering the investigation "in a manner that will have maximum partisan political impact on the national and state elections."

French said last night: "The McCain campaign seems to have forgotten that this began with a unanimous vote by eight Republicans and four Democrats to begin an investigation."

-- Karl Vick

PRIORITIES

Palin's List Includes Energy

GOLDEN, Colo. -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin outlined the priorities she would pursue as vice president should the GOP win the election this fall. Speaking before a boisterous crowd of a couple of thousand supporters at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, Palin addressed the unfolding financial crisis on Wall Street, saying Washington has "been asleep at the switch, and ineffective."

"John McCain and I are going to put an end to the mismanagement and abuses in Washington and on Wall Street. It must be the market that the American people and investors everywhere can trust. This is going to be one of the highest priorities of our administration," she added.

Palin then revealed that she and McCain had agreed on three areas that she would focus on if he is elected president: energy, government reform and supporting "families with special needs."

-- Juliet Eilperin

IMMIGRATION

Ad: Democrats Made Reform Fail

The McCain campaign has begun airing a new Spanish-language television commercial in the battleground states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that lays the failure of comprehensive immigration reform at the feet of Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues -- despite the fact that Obama supported the bipartisan John McCain-Edward Kennedy efforts to enact such reforms and voted for their final proposal last year.

"Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants," the ad's announcer says in Spanish in the spot, released Friday. "But are they? The press reports that their efforts were 'poison pills' that made immigration reform fail. The result: No guest-worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his congressional allies: Ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead."

-- Ed O'Keefe