Alaska probe seeks subpoenas for 13
ANCHORAGE -- A joint legislative committee Friday voted to subpoena the husband of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and a dozen others as part of its probe into whether the Alaska governor abused her power when she fired the head of the state police.
Committee members said they agreed before the meeting not to subpoena the governor herself, though no one said why.
At issue in the investigation is whether Palin, her husband Todd or her aides acted improperly when governor sacked Public Safety Director Walt Monegan in July after he refused to dismiss Palin's former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, a state trooper whom the governor said had threatened her family. The trooper has denied making such threats.
The question, essentially, is whether Palin injected the power of the state into a family feud. The investigative report is due Oct. 10 — well in time to become grist for the presidential campaign.
In a reflection of how the case has assumed national significance, the committee room in a downtown office building was packed with reporters and television cameras. And, while Republicans and Democrats once were unanimous that the investigation should go forward quickly, today two GOP lawmakers sought to delay issuing the subpoenas until after the November election.
The Palin administration, which initially cooperated with the investigation, stopped doing so after GOP presidential nominee John McCain picked Palin as his running mate. An investigator hired by the legislature in August, former prosecutor Stephen Branchflower, told lawmakers that several state officials had canceled sworn interviews with him in recent days on the advice of the assistant attorney general, who works for a Palin appointee.
In a letter released Thursday, Assistant Attorney General Michael Barhill said he would go to court to block the subpoenas, because, he argued, the investigation was being conducted unfairly.
Sen. Gene Therriault, a Republican on the joint committee, said: "To the general public in Alaska, the view has gone up that this investigation has taken on an increasing political flavor, and it's unsettling to them," he said.
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