TPMMuckraker
Zachary Roth

French: Trooper-Gate Report Will Come Out on Schedule

Zachary Roth | September 19, 2008, 5:24PM

Despite Republican stonewalling, the Alaska legislature will release its report on Trooper-Gate on time, Sen. Hollis French, the Democrat overseeing the investigation, said today. The report is scheduled to be completed October 10th.

None of the subpoenaed witnesses showed up to testify at a legislative hearing today. The McCain-Palin campaign, which has challenged the legitimacy of the investigation, had been actively working to ensure that the witnesses did not testify.

Steven Branchflower, the independent investigator conducting the probe, has already spoken with several witnesses. But it remains to be seen whether his report will be able to reach any definite conclusions without access to testimony by key players like the Palins and several top gubernatorial aides.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (63) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (30)
Topics: Alaska, Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, Trooper-Gate

John McCain

Palin Under Fire At Home For Trooper-Gate Stonewalling

Zachary Roth | September 19, 2008, 5:08PM

Over the last eight years, the Bush administration's approach to governing has been characterized by a reflexive penchant for secrecy, a willingness to stonewall legitimate investigations, and an aggressive media relations strategy, which sees the press as just another interest group, rather than as playing an important public function.

In recent days, the McCain-Palin campaign has doubled down on that same governing style in shutting down the Trooper-Gate investigation.

When Trooper-Gate first broke, Palin pledged full cooperation. But in the last week, the McCain-Palin campaign has brought in a high-powered ex-federal prosecutor and a team of communications experts to all but shut down the probe.

Essentially co-opting the office of state Attorney General, and working closely with Palin's own lawyer, the GOP operatives -- led by Ed O'Callaghan, a former terrorism prosecutor with the US Attorney's office in New York, and Megan Stapleton, a GOP operative who had worked on Palin's 2006 campaign for governor -- have ensured that many of the key witnesses subpoened in the case, including the Palins themselves, have refused to testify. (No witnesses showed up to a committee hearing today.) At daily press conferences, they've disparaged a respected former public employee, Walt Monegan, offering an entirely new line on why Palin fired him. They've made flatly false statements designed to paint the Democratic legislator overseeing the probe, Hollis French, as having overstepped his authority and as running a partisan witch-hunt. And they've aggressively challenged reporting that they've perceived as unfavorable -- in one case, as we reported yesterday, by phoning a reporter at home to complain about an accurate story.

There's little question that despite -- or perhaps because of -- these efforts, the tone of the Trooper-Gate coverage has grown noticeably more negative in the last few days. And Alaska-based commentators and bloggers have reacted with fury in recent days to the McCain-Palin camp's tactics.

In an unusually pointed editorial published yesterday, the state's most prominent newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News concluded: "Palin and McCain are trying to ignite a partisan firestorm that wipes out the Troopergate investigation until after the election."

And in an opinion piece published Tuesday in the same paper, conservative radio host Dan Fagan -- a frequent Palin critic -- referred to Palin's "transparent delay tactics," and argued that "Americans deserve to know what Palin is trying to hide before we vote her a heartbeat away from the leader of the free world."

Bloggers have been even more critical. One at Alaska Report, a liberal site that has tracked corruption in Alaska state government, wrote yesterday: "National political assassins have invaded Alaska. They were visible and in full force at the McCain-Palin press conference yesterday. Alaskans don't roll that way."

And another at Mudflats -- tagline: "Tiptoeing through the muck of Alaskan politics" -- added: "The damage that this stonewalling has had on Sarah Palin's 'image,' that the out-of-state lawyers and the McCain campaign were trying so fervently to craft, has yet to be measured."

There may be signs that the angry reaction to the GOP tactics has spread beyond opinion writers. Matt Zensey, the ADN's editorial page editor, told TPMmuckraker that letters to the editor had been running at somewhere between 60 and 66 percent anti-Palin in recent days.

"We are not alone among those who are taken aback" by Palin's abrupt transformation from a being an advocate of openness and accountability to stone-walling the investigation at every turn, said Zensey. "People are noticing the disconnect."

Zensey said that the take-no-prisoners tactics of the McCain-Palin PR team are not in keeping with Alaska's tradition of civil political discourse. "The 11-minute tirade that Megan Stapleton launched against Walt Monegan is something that was unfamiliar to a lot of Alaskans."

Zensey added: "The politics of personal destruction have come to Alaska."

Still, what ultimately matters is whether the dissatisfaction with Palin's about-face on Trooper-Gate filters into the broader narrative of the presidential campaign. Already, though, Democrats may being taking comfort in the fact that, in recent days, her national approval ratings appear to have slipped noticeably.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (39) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (44)
Topics: Alaska, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

Alaska

Palin Still Bad-Mouthing Trooper

Zachary Roth | September 19, 2008, 11:08AM

In his recent New Yorker story, Philip Gourevitch noted that even as Sarah Palin was arguing to him that she had fired Walt Monegan for other reasons, "she seemed to be saying something else--that her vendetta against Wooten was wholly justified."

And watching Palin's recent interview with Sean Hannity, we got the same impression.

Palin told Hannity: "This trooper tasered my nephew...that was...it's all on the record. It's all there. His threats against the first family, the threat against my dad. All that is in the record. And if the opposition researchers chooses to forget that side of the story, they're not doing their job."

Sounds like she still feels she had a legitimate beef.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (115) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (32)
Topics: Alaska, Mike Wooten, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

John McCain

McCain Press Aide Calls Alaska Reporter At Home To Complain About Unfavorable Coverage

Zachary Roth | September 18, 2008, 6:03PM

Here's a little more evidence that the McCain-Palin campaign is playing the hardest of hardball on Trooper-Gate -- especially in regard to press relations.

Jason Moore, a reporter with Anchorage-based KTUU-TV, just confirmed to TPMmuckraker that Megan Stapleton, a spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign in Alaska, called his home to complain about one of Moore's news reports, and accused Moore of calling Stapleton and another McCain staffer liars.

Moore's report looked at the McCain-Palin campaign's "Truth Squad," an aggressive Alaska-based public relations campaign that's being led by Stapleton and former federal prosecutor Ed O'Callaghan and is designed to help thwart the Trooper-Gate investigation.

Moore reported that the Truth Squad was not always entirely truthful itself. He noted that Stapleton had said in a Friday press conference that it was Hollis French, the Democrat overseeing the investigation, who had pulled one name, that of former Palin chief of staff Mike Tibbles, off the list of witnesses to receive subpoenas. Stapleton had pointed to this as an inappropriate political maneuver by French.

But in fact, Moore reported, it was GOP Rep. Jay Ramras, a McCain supporter, who took Tibbles' name off the list. Moore quoted Ramras saying so.

Stapleton and O'Callaghan have another "Truth Squad" press conference scheduled for 7pm EST tonight.

Moore told TPMmuckraker that he and Stapleton -- who was a press aide to Palin before eventually moving over to the McCain campaign -- used to work together as co-anchors on KTUU. "We're friends," he said.

When Stapleton called his home, said Moore, she reached Moore's wife, and immediately told her: "Your husband just called two Hoyas liars." Stapleton, O'Callaghan, and Moore's wife all attended Georgetown University, whose mascot is the Hoyas.

Moore added that Stapleton had also called the news director of KTUU to complain.

Asked whether he and Stapleton really remained friends, Moore allowed: "It hasn't been too friendly this week."

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (75) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (58)
Topics: Alaska, John McCain, Palin's Press, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

Sarah Palin

AK Lawmaker on Trooper-Gate: "I Don't Think This Is Gonna End Quietly."

Zachary Roth | September 18, 2008, 12:05PM

The no-holds-barred effort by the McCain campaign and its Alaska Republican allies to bury the Trooper-Gate investigation at all costs may be bearing fruit.

Republicans have in recent days been calling on Democratic senator Kim Elton to reconvene the bipartisan legislative council with ultimate responsibility for the probe. And yesterday Elton told the Associated Press that he may do so, allowing for a vote on whether to delay the investigation or replace Democratic senator Hollis French as its manager.

The council, which contains 10 Republicans and four Democrats, had voted unanimously in July to launch the investigation. But many observers believe that, now that the probe could play a role in the presidential race, the committee's GOP members will vote to shut it down if given a chance.

Other recent developments confirm that the GOP is pulling out all the stops.

Talis Colberg -- the Palin-appointed Attorney General who was directly involved in efforts to pressure the former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan over Trooper Mike Wooten -- said Tuesday that ten state employees would not honor subpoenas to testify in the case. Palin, of course, had originally pledged her office's full cooperation in the probe.

A group of five GOP legislators filed suit -- with the help of a right-wing Texas-based legal foundation -- to stop the investigation in its tracks.

The McCain campaign officially took charge of the effort, trotting out a hard-charging former federal prosecutor, Ed O'Callaghan, as its point-man on the issue.

And the ADN reported today that Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, is no longer being paid for by the state of Alaska, but could not say whether the McCain camp was helping to pay his bills.

But the GOP's hardball tactics could end up doing more harm than good, by adding to the suspicion that Palin has something to hide.

In an editorial published this morning, the ADN accused Palin and McCain of "trying to ignite a partisan firestorm that wipes out the Troopergate investigation until after the election."

And the liberal journalist David Corn observed last night on MSNBC: "In the last few days the Republicans are treating this like its another Watergate and they better shut it down right way."

So: Where do things go from here?

Van Flein told the ADN that he'd likely decide today whether Todd Palin, who also been subponaed but is not a state employee, will testify, which would occur at a session of the Judiciary Committee tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the band of lawmakers struggling to maintain control of the investigation -- French, Elton, and their supporters in the legislature -- certainly aren't backing down.

Despite saying he might agree to GOP calls to reconvene the legislative council, Elton sent a letter yesterday to Colberg, the Attorney General, accusing him of going back on an agreement to allow the ten state employees testify. "Bluntly, I feel like Charlie Brown after Lucy moved the football," Elton wrote to Colberg.

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat and French ally, told TPMmuckraker: "Hollis French has no intention of buckling under," and said that the same holds true of Elton.

The operation, Wielechowski continued, is "clearly politically driven by the McCain campaign."

"I've never seen an effort like this in this state to kill something," he added. "I don't think this is gonna end quietly."

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (55) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (51)
Topics: John McCain, Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, Trooper-Gate

Charles Rangel

Wrangling Over Rangel: What Do We Know?

Zachary Roth | September 17, 2008, 4:15PM

There's nothing that inspires confidence like the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee -- the body that writes our tax laws -- submitting a financial disclosure form in which the value for one piece of property varies by as much as 10 times from one page to another. But that's the case with embattled New York Democrat Charlie Rangel.

We learned yesterday that, with crucial support from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rangel will defy GOP calls for his resignation and stay on as chair of the powerhouse committee. So given that Rangel's going to be around for at least a while longer, we thought it was worth running down the allegations against the Harlem Congressman.

The trouble started for Rangel in July, when an investigation by the New York Times found that Rangel rents four rent-stabilized apartments -- one of which he uses as a campaign office -- in the same Harlem building, at well below market rates. City and state regulations prevent the use of rent-controlled apartments for purposes other than as a primary residence.

The more serious charge, first reported by the New York Post at the end of August, is that Rangel failed to disclose -- either on his tax returns or on Congressional disclosure forms -- over $75,000 in income from a rental villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. Rangel has called the disclosure failures an oversight, and has admitted that he owes around $10,000 in back taxes and penalties.

The Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel chairs, is in charge of writing federal tax laws, making the news particularly embarrassing for Rangel.

A few days after the Post's report, Bloomberg News reported that Rangel received an interest-free loan from the developers of the villa, when he bought it in 1990. But, according to the director of the complex that contains the villa, several other non-Dominican investors received similar breaks at the time, because the project wasn't producing sufficient income.

Rangel has asked the House Ethics Committee to look into both the rent-stabilized apartments issue and the Dominican villa issue, as well as a third matter -- that he used his Congressional office letterhead to solicit donors for an educational center named for himself, and run by the City College of New York. In addition, Rangel directed a forensic accounting expert to pore over his tax returns and financial disclosure statements to Congress, and to submit a report to the Ethics Committee.

On Monday, it was announced that the accountant had found additional discrepancies.

As summarized by the Associated Press:

-Rangel's papers over the past 10 years show no reference to the sale of a home he once owned on Colorado Avenue in Washington.
-The details of a property bought in Sunny Isles, Fla., are bewildering at best. The stated value changes significantly from year to year, and even page to page, from $50,000 to $100,000 all the way up to $500,000.
-Some of the entries for investment funds fluctuate strangely, suggesting that the person either didn't have accurate information or didn't fill out the paperwork correctly.

In a statement put out alongisde the announcement of the discrepencies, Rangel said:

"While over the years I delegated to my staff the completion of my annual House financial disclosure statements, I had the ultimate responsibility. I owed my colleagues and the public adherence to a higher standard of care not only as a member of Congress but even more as the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee," he said.

And it was reported today that Rangel has asked the Ethics Committe to allow him to use campaign contributions to pay for the forensic audit of his tax returns and disclosure forms -- which could end up costing more than $100,000.

Right now, the jury is still out on what this all adds up to. At best, Rangel has been irresponsibly lax in the management of his financial affairs. And he may have been deliberately mendacious. But as things currently stand, there's little evidence of a quo for the quid.

On the issue of the Harlem apartments, Rangel did have a 2005 meeting with a lobbyist for the Olnick Association, the company that owns the building in question, when Olnick was seeking government approval for two building projects in the Bronx and Harlem. But both Olnick and Rangel say the Congressman took no action on the company's behalf, and neither project advanced.

And as for the Dominican vila, there's no evidence whatsoever that Rangel took steps to help the company that owned the complex, or that his failure to pay taxes on the villa income, or make proper disclosures to Congress, was abetted by anyone seeking favors from him.

Still, at the very least, Rangel's inability to personally comply with the tax laws doesn't inspire much confidence that he's the best person to be writing those laws.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (13) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)
Topics: Charles Rangel

Sarah Palin

GOP Legislators Enlist Right-Wing Lawyers to Stymie Trooper-Gate Probe

Zachary Roth | September 16, 2008, 6:16PM

The GOP campaign to thwart the Trooper-Gate investigation cranked into even higher gear early this morning, with an emailed announcement by Anchorage attorney Kevin Clarkson that, on behalf of five Republican members, he is suing to halt the investigation. Clarkson argued in the email that Democratic senators Hollis French and Kim Elton, and independent investigator Steve Branchflower have inappropriately politicized the probe "in an attempt to unlawfully smear Gov. Palin." The Republican legislators behind the move are Representatives Wes Keller, Mike Kelly, and Bob Lynn, and Senators Fred Dyson and Sen. Tom Wagoner.

In addition, the GOP Speaker of the House, Rep. John Harris, released a letter today in which he asserted that what "started as a bipartisan and impartial effort is becoming overshadowed by public comments from individuals at both ends of the political spectrum."

And McCain staffers were all over the airwaves making a similar claim, and arguing that, as a result, the matter should be turned over to the state personnel board -- a request made originally by Palin's lawyer.

There's evidence of additional involvement by national Republicans in the effort to stymie the probe. Clarkson told the Associated Press he's working with the Liberty Legal Institute (LLI) a Texas nonprofit legal firm that's donating its time. The LLI is the legal arm of the Free Market Foundation, a conservative activist group that describes itself on its website as "the statewide public policy council associated with Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family." Dobson, of course, is a key religious right leader and GOP power-broker.

As for Clarkson himself, one veteran Anchorage attorney described him, in an email to TPMmuckraker, as "a religious conservative who is known for taking on politically charged cases that get his name in the paper," but added that he "is not a heavy hitter".

By all accounts, this particular effort to get the courts to stop the probe is unlikely to succeed, as few courts would be likely to want to intervene in the management of an internal legislative matter. But the move may be designed as much to create political pressure on French and his allies to back down or soft pedal the investigation.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (14) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)
Topics: Alaska, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

Sarah Palin

Source: Sex Assault Program Cited in Monegan Firing Targeted Child Abusers

Zachary Roth | September 16, 2008, 4:58PM

So Sarah Palin's latest explanation for why she fired Walt Monegan is that he had gone over her head in seeking federal money for an initiative to combat sexual assault crimes, before she had approved the program.

But it now appears that the program in question is one that most elected officials would be wary of admitting they hadn't strongly backed. According to Peggy Brown, who heads the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Monegan wanted to use the federal money to hire retired troopers and law enforcement officials, and assign them to investigate the most egregious cases of sexual assault -- including those against children.

In other words, if Palin's new story is true, she fired Monegan for being too aggressive in going after child molesters.

ABC News reported yesterday that, although Alaska leads the nation in reported rapes per capita, Palin hasn't made the issue a priority as governor.

Monegan, however, appeared eager to change that. "He seemed to get the issue and really took it seriously," Brown told TPMmuckraker.

According to the Palin camp, too seriously.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (53) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (46)
Topics: Alaska, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

Sarah Palin

Trooper-Gate: Palin's Shifting Stories

Zachary Roth | September 16, 2008, 3:51PM

There's a moment in a lot of political scandals when the contradictions and inconsistencies in the story being put out by the figure accused become so glaringly obvious that they themselves turn into an important part of the story. We may now have reached that point in Trooper-Gate -- especially as regards Sarah Palin's stated reasons for firing Walt Monegan.

A court filing made yesterday by Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, asserts that Palin fired Monegan as the state's public safety commissioner because of a series of instances of Monegan's insubordination on budget issues, including Monegan working with an Alaska legislator to seek funding for a project Governor Palin had already vetoed. This alleged pattern of "outright insubordination" is said to have culminated in Monegan planning a trip to Washington to go after federal funds for an initiative to fight sexual assault crimes, which had not yet been approved by the governor. (Van Flein's account was in sync with the line taken last night by a McCain campaign spokesman at a press conference in Alaska.)

The issue of Monegan's work on the sexual assault initiative doesn't come completely out of the blue. In a lengthy exploration of Palin's record on combating sexual assault crimes, ABC News reported yesterday that Monegan was the "chief proponent" for an "ambitious, multi-million dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state," and that Palin's office "put the plan on hold in July," just days before Monegan's firing.

But whatever the role of the sexual assault initiative in Monegan's departure from state government, this is by now the third substantive explanation given by Palin for that departure. And, to one degree or another, all those explanations contradict each other.

In this interview from July, Palin said she fired Monegan because she was dissatisfied with his performance on filling vacant trooper positions and on bootlegging and alcohol abuse issues.

Around the same time, she told The New Yorker, for a story published this week, that she hadn't actually fired Monegan, but rather had wanted to reassign him to combat alcohol abuse, and that he quit instead.

She said that one of her goals had been to combat alcohol abuse in rural Alaska, and she blamed Commissioner Monegan for failing to address the problem. That, she said, was a big reason that she'd let him go--only, by her account, she didn't fire him, exactly. Rather, she asked him to drop everything else and single-mindedly take on the state's drinking problem, as the director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. "It was a job that was open, commensurate in salary pretty much--ten thousand dollars less"--but, she added, Monegan hadn't wanted the job, so he left state service; he quit.

But the new line from the Palin camp is that Monegan was fired for his insubordination on budget issues, culminating in his effort to win federal money for the initiative to combat sexual assaults -- an explanation that neither Palin nor anyone around her had raised until now, two months after the firing.

That's by no means the only contradiction in Palin's story.

As we've explained before, Palin at first said no one in her office had exerted pressure to fire Mike Wooten -- the trooper who was embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Palin family. But after a tape surfaced of Palin-aide Frank Bailey raising the issue with a trooper official in a phone call, Palin backtracked and admitted that "pressure could have been perceived to exist," though she maintained that Bailey had been freelancing.

Similarly, she at first said that she had never contacted Monegan about Wooten except in the context of expressing concerns about the safety of her family. But recently, The Washington Post published emails sent by Palin to Monegan in which she expressed frustration that Wooten was still on the job.

And of course, Palin at first pledged total cooperation with the investigation. Now, through her lawyer, she refuses to testify, saying that the probe has been inappropriately politicized.

Update: According to TPMmuckraker's reporting, the initiative to combat sexual assault that Palin now claims she fired Monegan for trying to get federal money for, was designed to go after child sex abusers.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (61) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (39)
Topics: Alaska, Sarah Palin, Trooper-Gate

Barack Obama

Noted Bamboozler Behind Latest Obama Smear

Zachary Roth | September 16, 2008, 12:14PM

Since yesterday, the right-wing blogosphere has been all aflutter over a report in the New York Post, written by the Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri, that Barack Obama has privately tried to delay an agreement between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration on a draw-down of American forces from Iraq.

Here's the key passage:

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."

Yesterday evening, the McCain camp sought to get some mileage out of Taheri's report, releasing a statement from Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy aide, asserting that: "If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas."

But there are a couple reasons why the bloviation looks to be uncalled for. The Obama camp yesterday put out a statement of its own asserting that the story "bears as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial," and charging that Taheri has confused a long-term Status of Forces agreement with negotations over a shorter-term drawdown.

It's worth looking at that distinction more closely to get a sense of what the Obama camp means here and where Taheri may have erred. In terms of a Status of Forces agreement, Obama has consistently made clear that he believes any such agreement should be delayed until after the election -- so that a President Obama or McCain would not be bound by an agreement negotiated by a weakened Bush administration. The McCain camp did not object when, in June, Obama told reporters at a press conference that he had made exactly this argument to Zebari in a phone call.

The Obama campaign's statement released yesterday in response to the report was consistent with this position: "Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi Parliament," though, perhaps unwilling to alienate antiwar voters, it artfully omitted the fact that Obama has argued that this should be delayed until the next administration is in charge.

As for a shorter-term drawdown -- which is what Taheri seems to mean by "a draw-down of the American military presence" -- Obama has never suggested that this should be delayed. And again, yesterday's statement backs that up: "Unlike John McCain, he supports a clear timetable to redeploy our troops that has the support of the Iraqi government. Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades."

Still, if Taheri's report were accurate, and Obama had indeed talked to Zebari about delaying any shorter-term deal, it would at least represent a change of position for the candidate.

But Taheri doesn't exactly have a reputation for care and precision in his work. In May 2006, he published an explosive story in the Post (since removed from the paper's site), as well as Canada's National Post, about an Iranian law that forced Jews to wear a yellow stripe, stoking fears of a second Nazi Germany. Only problem: it turned out to be a complete fabrication.

That turned out to be typical of Taheri's work. A 1989 review of Taheri's book, Nest of Spies: America's Journey to Disaster in Iran, written for The New Republic by noted Iranian scholar Shaul Bakhash and unearthed by TPMmuckraker in 2006, noted that Taheri "repeatedly refers us to books where the information cited does not exist," and is "capable of generalizations of breathtaking sweep and inaccuracy." According to Bakhash, "[Taheri's] interpretations of the documents are often egregiously inaccurate," and he "has trouble transcribing even the simplest information."

One Iraq scholar told TPMmuckraker after the false yellow-star report, referring to Taheri: "This is a person who doesn't have any credibility."

Doesn't exactly sound like a reliable source.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (21) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (25)
Topics: Amir Taheri, Barack Obama

Sarah Palin

Palin Won't Testify in Trooper-Gate

Zachary Roth | September 16, 2008, 8:48AM

Sarah Palin is unlikely to testify in the Trooper-Gate investigation, according to a spokesman for the McCain campaign.

Speaking at a press conference in Alaska last night, spokesman Ed O'Callaghan argued that the probe had become "tainted." Palin's lawyer, and Alaska GOP legislators, have pointed to public statements made by Sen. Hollis French, the Democrat overseeing the investigation -- including that it could provide an "October surprise" -- as inappropriately politicizing the probe.

Palin had initially pledged her cooperation with the probe. After lawmakers voted unanimously to investigate her firing of former public safety commissioner Walt Monegan, she said: "We have absolutely nothing to hide, and so certainly we would never prohibit or be less than enthusiastic about any kind of investigation. Let's deal with the facts and you do that via an investigation."

But in recent weeks, that cooperation has ground virtually to a halt. In early September, her lawyer asserted that Palin would not testify unless the investigation were transferred to the state personnel board, whose members are appointed by the governor.

French and Steve Branchflower, the indepedendent investigator, have ruled out subpoenaing Palin, but had still expressed the hope that she would testify voluntarily.

Todd Palin was subponaed Friday. O'Callaghan said he did not know whether Todd would challenge that subpoena, though in a letter sent last Thursday, the state attorney general's office appeared to lay the groundwork for such a challenge.

The McCain campaign -- now clearly running the show on Trooper-Gate damage control -- also trotted out a new line to explain Monegan's firing. It released emails suggesting that Monegan alienated the governor's office by seeking federal money to go after sexual assault cases, even though the governor hadn't agreed that the money should be sought.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (35) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)
Topics: Alaska, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, Trooper-Gate

Sarah Palin

Former Palin Backer: State Ag Director Job Was "Payoff" To Supporter

Zachary Roth | September 15, 2008, 12:57PM

In a lengthy investigation into Sarah Palin's hiring practices as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska published yesterday, the New York Times reported in its lede:

[W]hen there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, [Palin] appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

It's not just the Times that doesn't appear to think much of Havemeister's fitness for the job. Nick Carney, who ran the Division of Agriculture under Republican governor Jay Hammond -- and who later went on to help launch Palin's political career -- told TPMmuckraker that Palin's appointment of Havemeister was a "payoff" to a political supporter, that was "characteristic of how Sarah operates."

Carney described Havemeister, who he knows personally (Carney's daughter was a high-school classmate of Palin's and Havemeister's) as "a very nice gal," but added: "I don't believe that she really does have those kinds of skills," needed to run the agency.

It was Carney who first convinced Palin to run for city council in 1992 -- a fact confirmed by another source who was active in Wasilla politics during the period. A council member himself at the time, Carney told TPMmuckraker that he believed the council needed someone who represented non-business interests, which then dominated the council. But once Palin became mayor in 1996, the two fell out over a number of issues, including Carney's successful opposition to an effort by Palin to appoint to the city council two conservative supporters -- both of whom opposed recent council decisions to institute a sales tax and to start a police force.

Carney also shed some light on Palin's hiring of a city manager, John Cramer, to help her run Wasilla, a few months into her mayoralty. Though the hiring -- which Carney described as a first for the city -- added $50,000 to Wasilla's budget, Palin has defended the move in the past as necessary for the fast-growing exurb of Anchorage. Carney backed up that claim, but added that Palin's own shortcomings as an executive were also a factor in the council's support for the decision: Palin, he told TPMmuckraker, "had absolutely no management skills and couldn't manage the city on her own."