Alaska Politics Blog : Palins' lawyer responds

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Contributors

Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad covers Alaska issues, including the congressional delegation, from Washington, D.C., for McClatchy Newspapers. Before joining the bureau in 2007, she spent seven years as a reporter at the Miami Herald, where she covered politics, government and the state legislature. E-mail Erika at ebolstad@adn.com.

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

Don Hunter

Don Hunter covers Anchorage city government and politics. He is a longtime ADN reporter and editor and wrote for the Anchorage Times. E-mail Don at dhunter@adn.com

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

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Palins' lawyer responds

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: October 10, 2008 - 7:35 pm

Comments (0) |

This, from Anchorage lawyer Thomas Van Flein:

This investigation started because Monegan claimed he was "fired" for supposedly not firing a dangerous cop. Branchflower now concludes that was a false allegation and instead he noted that there were legitimate reasons to remove Monegan as Commissioner. The Governor has been fully factually vindicated as we have maintained she would be. But the partisan nature of this investigation ineluctably compelled Branchflower and Sen. French to nevertheless smear the Governor by innuendo, and by presenting incorrect representations of what the law is.

Branchflower was given '100,000 reasons' to find "something" -- so he came up with an alleged Ethics Act violation. He came up with a headline that the Governor "abused her power." He utterly failed to define that term. Every prior reported Ethics Act violation involved financial motives and financial "potential gain, or the avoidance of a potential loss"...

Here, there is no accusation, no finding, and no facts that money or financial gain to the Governor was involved in the decision to replace Monegan. Further, the report concludes that the Governor had legitimate business reasons to remove Monegan. There can be no ethics violation under these circumstances.

Full response here.

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