This Can't Be Good

Stephen Branchflower's report to the Alaska legislature accusing Sarah Palin of abuse of power (and of not cooperating with the investigation) is here. More after I read it.

MORE:

Talk about a frame-up: Page 8 contains four findings; the first two are relevant:

Finding Number One

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

"The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."

Finding Number Two

I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

Uh, read that last sentence again? If it was lawful, why waste megabytes? As Beldar says, the

263-page piece of political circus . . . actually explicitly refutes itself on its single most key page! . . .Branchflower reads the Ethics Act to prohibit any governmental action or decision made for justifiable reasons benefiting the State if that action or decision might also make a public official happy for any other reason. That would mean, of course, that governors must never act or decide in a way that makes them personally happy as a citizen, or as a wife or mother or daughter, and that they could only take actions or make decisions which left them feeling neutral or upset. This an incredibly shoddy tower of supposition, and a ridiculous misreading of the law.

Further, the report never addresses Monegan's late-August admission:

"For the record, no one ever said fire Wooten. Not the governor. Not Todd. Not any of the other staff," Monegan said Friday from Portland. "What they said directly was more along the lines of 'This isn't a person that we would want to be representing our state troopers.'"

Jules Crittenden calls the scandal "a hasp and a hinge or two shy of a gate." Agreed--but the report shows that seasonal witch burning (a specialty of the MSM) isn't confined to the lower 48.

MORE & MORE:

Beldar in the same post:

The Branchflower Report is a series of guesses and insupportable conclusions drawn by exactly one guy, and it hasn't been approved or adopted or endorsed by so much as a single sub-committee of the Alaska Legislature, much less any kind of commission, court, jury, or other proper adjudicatory body. It contains no new bombshells in terms of factual revelations. Rather, it's just Steve Branchflower's opinion -- after being hired and directed by one of Gov. Palin's most vocal opponents and one of Alaska's staunchest Obama supporters.