Palin Ethics Complaint – The Next Generation
4 12 2009Today, a brand new ethics complaint was filed against Sarah Palin. No, you’re not reading an old post by mistake. This is a new generation of ethics complaint. Ethics 2.0, if you will. It has been filed based on information revealed when ethics watchdog Andrée McLeod reviewed emails she obtained in response to a public recors request for copies of email communications by long time Palin friend and aide Kris Perry.
This from a press release issued today:
Alaska resident and registered Republican Andrée McLeod has filed an ethics complaint with the attorney general’s office charging that the Governor’s Chief of Staff Mike Nizich, his assistant Randy Ruaro and current and former staffers Kris Perry, Rhonda McBride, Bill McAllister, Shelley James, Linda Perez and Mark Kelsey with violations of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act as they used state resources for national Republican McCain/Palin campaign purposes.
The Ethics Act states that a public officer may not use or authorize the use of state funds, facilities, equipment, services, or another government asset or resource for partisan political purposes.
“Typical of a culture of corruption, these public officials got into the bad habit of misusing state resources to collaborate with McCain/Palin campaign workers and each other on partisan political campaign matters,” Andrée McLeod said. “What they did is flat-out wrong.”
“The law is clear on this. Notices on campaign related prohibitions were distributed to employees three times in 2008,” McLeod said. “Yet, these high-ranking public officials let everyone down by not abiding by the rule of law. I’m certain these emails are the just the tip of the iceberg.”
McLeod continues, “They must all be held accountable for their misconduct. Fortunately, the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act allows for that – even for the ones who quit.”
There are 213 pages in the ethics complaint. Attached to the document are all pertinent emails showing state staffers engaging in campaign business on their state email accounts.
I thought this one was entertaining. It comes from Dan Wilmot (DASD for Intergovernmental Affairs) to John Katz (Director of State/Federal Relations and Special Counsel to the Governor). I have added emphasis just for fun.
The date: November 6, 2008 – two days after the election. (JIFFY POP ALERT!)
John,
It was a bad night on Tuesday, but we will get over it and move on.You are probably getting a lot of unsolicited advice and I apologize for doing the same. I would love to talk with her or email her but leave that up to you all.
She is doing the right thing by staying 100% above the fray with all the reporting we are seeing about the infighting on the trail. It will probably get uglier before it ends but she needs to resist any thought whatsoever of engaging in it. These are staffers, they will get over it. I have been on a losing campaign and this is how it goes. Everyone points fingers at everyone.
I would get her out of the press for a while and schedule her next press outing be working a food line over thanksgiving for the homeless, or something like that.
She is Governor…People should stop with all the “Sarah” stuff and start reminding everyone that she is a Governor of a very big state. Everyone keeps talking about and reporting about her being a mayor. Upcoming press should really key in on her being a Governor. Cabinet meetings, signing laws, budgets discussions, etc…
Now…when stevens retires or is kicked out of the Senate, she needs to appoint her self to the post. she will have to do a run off 90 days later but that is no big deal. She is loved in Alaska and McCain actually won the state easily. This will bring her to Washington, meet the right people, and position herself to “the next step” whatever that is.
So, basically she did the complete opposite of every single suggestion in this email.
And then there was this one to Kris Perry from someone named Kristie:
Just wanted to say CONGRATS! As you well know, there are so many pressing in praying for Sarah as well as YOU and those who are hands on! Praying a “Teflon coating” on her, that as the heat rises nothing sticks, same for you!
Kris, you are ministering to our nation in an awesome way, through your gift of administration! Praying strategy, wisdom, strength and favor! Blessings!
The Teflon prayer… Never heard of that one.
Then there’s this one from Senator Jerry Grafstein, Q.C. (Toronto Office) who can’t quite get that title right (not that you NEED a title)
I could not be more delighted with Senator McCain’s nomination of your boss, Senator Sarah Palin, as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee. [snip] I was most impressed when I met Senator Palin in Philadelphia this summer, especially her handling of the Governor’s Forum in Alternative Energy.
Best wishes to her and you.
P.S.: I will send you a speech I did some time ago on building a “chunnel” from Russia to Alaska to open up rail and economic exchanges, etc., with North America, if interested.
I can see the Russian Chunnel from my house! (God, I’d love to see the cost estimate for a chunnel from Siberia to Nome, and a road connecting it to Canada.)
And then there was a well-meaning pharmacist from Texas who offered his idea for some powerful closing lines for the Vice Presidential debate. And they got forwarded along to Sarah Palin and all of the inner sanctum to see if it “felt right.”
We remember Martin Luther King for his dream.
We remember John F. Kennedy for his “Ask Not.”Well I think our names may speak of our destiny.
Obama/Biden
The only letters that match is the letter “B”.
I think that’s Bad. (spoken with a Sarah Palin gouge)On the other hand, the names McCain/Palin have matching “A”s
they have matching “I”s
they have matching “N”s
that leaves MCCPL
Make the Correct Choice for Productive Leadership.Our Destiny is Our Victory.
(You may want to shuffle the words differently if you like and you have my permission to quote me.)
*** *******, a Pharmacist from Texas
[Name redacted to save him any further embarrassment] It’s amazing that Palin will not go down in history with the catchy memorable phrase “MCCPL – Make the Correct Choice for Productive Leadership. It had such promise, such flow, such unforgettable catchiness.
For those who want to sift through the whole 213 pages, they are posted on The Huffington Post HERE.
.
December 5th, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Makes one think the turkey-slaughter scene was an intentional F.U. to anyone who dared suggest what she SHOULD do.
Perhaps she really does have some (diabolical) brilliance.
December 5th, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Not to be a stick in the mud, but I’m sure there’s going to be some issues about incoming e-mails being considered a breach of ethics.
Unless the recipients provided their state e-mail addresses in a campaign environment, replied or blatantly engaged in the type of conduct being alleged it’s going to be tough to move this forward. Andree would have had a stronger argument if she pared down the complaint to demonstrated 2-way communication.
December 5th, 2009 at 11:21 AM
If I remember correctly, didn’t Sarah file a similar complaint against the head guy in the Republican Party of Alaska back when she quit her job on the energy council?
December 5th, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Some of these emails are easily deflected, but there are many that seem to show (to me, anyway) how Mike Nizich and Kris Perry and others on her staff were quite involved in helping the McCain campaign with talking points, arrangements, and so on. And the McCain people sent talking points to governor’s staff. I had lots of questions. Why did Kris Perry apparently have a McCain HQ email address? Why is Meg Stapleton (using a McCain email address) asking Sharon Leighow of the governor’s office to give info on the Gravina Road to CNN? Why is Marty Rutherford of DNR coordinating with McCain operative Bexie Nobles on BP meetings? Why are emails FROM McCain’s office TO state staff redacted? Why does one email give Stapleton’s state cellphone number and yet she seems to be working for McCain? Mike Nizich, her chief of staff, is all over the place in these emails–giving McCain people explanations about Monegan to answer questions from the press, for example.
And I hope Nizich’s $430 &630/nt stay at the Biltmore before the election was not on the state dime.
But there is also some highly entertaining stuff in here. It’s good reading.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:04 PM
As I continue to read thru, and re-read thru, this batch of emails, something basic occurs to me: if S’error Palin no longer is governor and these emails were very recently produced, why are there so many redactions under the claim of “deliberative process”??
S’error Palin no longer is governor, therefore there can no longer be a viable claim of deliberative anything. She no longer is involved in that process. Andree should appeal any and all such redactions, and should ask for a written explanation for each and every such redaction.
This is becoming a fun exercise. I hope to have a post up on my own blog (space limitations here in the comments section) as to my thoughts as to the relevancy and worth of each and every email I was able to d/l from HuffPo.
December 5th, 2009 at 3:17 PM
All BTQ$ had to do was:
A. Use her state email for business, and
B. Use her Yahoo email for personal.
To me, the crux of the current filing is against her cohorts, who probably did NOT sell their souls to the devil and agree to secretly worship Satan to get what they wanted.
But their fearless leader was setting the tone and pace that whatever they wanted to do was OK and fine, also, too…
December 5th, 2009 at 3:40 PM
When I was reminded thru the e-mails that she had called on Senator Stevens to explain why the feds were are his house, I got angry again. Ethical Sarah should have had the feds investigating her house and the similarites in some of the fixtures to the new sports facility that she is so famous for.
December 5th, 2009 at 6:33 PM
I’m sorry, but they actually passed around the pharmacists’ recommendation because they were considering it? That is SO high school… AK government must run like one big “special ed” class… (my appologies to the special ed folks!)
Do you guys need more hats or something? Is brain damage from brain freeze that common up there? (breaking out knitting needles… )
December 5th, 2009 at 10:54 PM
That Texas pharma-guy has a serious case of concrete thinking masquerading as abstract thinking.(Kind of like Palin, come to think of it.)
His suggested motto?: “Our Destiny is Our Victory”
Naw……Your Failure is Your Destiny……. Same as old Moose-Brains up yonder in el norte.
December 5th, 2009 at 11:32 PM
The teflon remark would point to The Great Reagan who they say once actually walked the earth in human form. If he is the mighty skillet that deep fried the commies singlehandedly then she is the saucy pan you cook down stupid remarks in to make a puree for dribling over your old tea bags. When that teflon wears and chips off it will make peole sick, like now. Her highness was in Dallas yesterday prompting one local to remark “You’d think Jesus was in there or somethin’.