I Heart The Mudflats

The following guest post is written by ‘Akhbar the Great’ who posts over at http://theenlighteneddespot.com.

Be forewarned: the post you are about to read is about Troopergate. No, don’t run away! I know, I know, that story is so last year, and there are so many fresher scandals to enjoy. But as with love, so with ethics complaints against Sarah Palin: the first cut is the deepest. Sarah Palin has lied many, many times in her career, and done more than her fair of things that were illegal, unethical, or simply foolish. But nothing she has said in her defense on any of these issues has been as publicly noted and as straightforward as the claim that she had no knowledge of any of her aides or family members pressuring Walt Moneghan about Trooper Wooten.

If definitive evidence that this was a lie ever comes to light, it will stick to her and sink her as no other scandal has. When Palin was asked to hand over emails in a records request related to the Troopergate investigation, she withheld 1,100 of them, and there has been plenty of speculation that there might be a smoking gun amongst them. I’ll go a bit further: I have a good guess just which emails have the goods.

To begin with, though, a little background. I imagine most Mudflats readers are at least somewhat familiar with the case, but it’s been a while, so I imagine a little bit of review is in order:

• The Call. The most damaging piece of evidence to come to light thus far in the Troopergate scandal was a recording of a phone call Palin aide Frank Bailey made to Lieutenant Rodney Dial. In the conversation, Bailey conveys the Palin family’s frustration that Walt Monegan hasn’t taken more forceful action against Trooper Wooten. Though he certainly makes it sound as if he is calling on the governor’s behalf, she has denied any foreknowledge of the call.Generally overlooked, however, is that the call does not start out as an inquiry about Wooten at all. The majority of the discussion between the two men concerns ongoing negotiations between the State and PSEA, the union which represents - amongst others - the State Troopers. Bailey, with a dismal attempt at subtlety, encourages Dial to forward any internal PSEA communications he receives regarding the negotiations. This would be a scandal in and of itself, if not for the fact that - unbeknownst to the Governor’s office - Dial was not a member of the union, and wouldn’t have access to anything that wasn’t completely public and available to Palin through other channels. It’s hard to say whether corruption or incompetence is the more salient feature of this interaction, though I’m inclined to go with the latter.
• The emails. Corruption watchdog Andree McLeod - most recently known to Mudflatters for her anti-cleavage stance - made a documents request for a huge number of emails from the governor’s office. Of those requested, 1,100 were withheld, but McCleod did receive the date, subject heading, and recipient list for all of those emails. About 40 of these emails include Todd Palin as the sender or one of the recipients, making the legal case for withholding them especially problematic, for reasons I’ve gone into a bit before, but won’t bother with here.

OK, enough boring history. On to the smoking gun! Well, actually, just on to my theory of where it is, if only Governor Palin would let us see it:

On the afternoon of February 28th, Todd Palin made three phone calls to Palin aide Ivy Frye. At 8:09 PM that night, Frye sent an email to Todd and Sarah Palin, Frank Bailey, and Kris Perry, with the subject ‘PSEA’. At 9:28 AM the next morning, Sarah Palin sent out a reply to the same group. That same morning, Bailey placed the notorious call to Rodney Dial, asking for the PSEA mailings, and then applying pressure over Trooper Wooten. Later that day, Bailey sent the following to Frye:

Leaving pretty quick for the airport…call me though I need to give you a heads up. Spoke to Rodney and he doesn’t get that kind of stuff since he’s a Lieutenant, but he’d definitely pass it on.

Whether Bailey was too stupid to understand what Dial told him about not getting ‘that stuff’ or too embarassed to admit it is a question I will leave for the reader to ponder. But the evidence that these emails will prove Palin did in fact know about the Dial phone call - though circumstantial - strikes me as pretty powerful. Bailey does not need to specify what ’stuff’ he’s talking about - so Frye already knew he was going to contact Dial on the subject. Frye had sent Bailey an email on the subject the night before. And Sarah Palin received and responded to that email.

As is perhaps obvious at this point, this has been something of an obsession of mine over the past months, and I’ve continually been amazed that more attention wasn’t paid to the issue during the election. At this point, the MSM has better things to do, but Palin still has a career and - at least in her imagination - a political future, so it’s hardly irrelevant. If the Mudflats readership doesn’t think this is significant, then maybe I really am crazy. So, what say you, Mudflatters?