Troopergate: What is Palin hiding?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The truth, no doubt. And the McCain campaign knows it:

Is the McCain campaign afraid of an 'October surprise' involving vice-presidential pick Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska?

The Alaska state senator running an investigation of Gov. Palin says the McCain campaign is using stall tactics to prevent him from releasing his final report by Oct. 31, four days before the November election.

"It's likely to be damaging to the Governor's administration," said Senator Hollis French, a Democrat, appointed the project manager for a bi-partisan State Senate Legislative Counsel Committee investigation of claims that Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired.

Palin, who has denied any wrongdoing and has said she has nothing to hide, hired private lawyers on Saturday, the day after Sen. McCain announced her as his running mate.

She denies and denies, but her staff was involved, as well as her family (including her husband), and her story keep changing as details emerge.

But did Palin really know nothing about what was going on?

Monegan... said in an interview with The Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi on Friday that the governor repeatedly brought up the topic of her ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, after Monegan became the state's commissioner of public safety in December 2006. Palin's husband, Todd, met with Monegan and presented a dossier of information about Wooten, who was going through a bitter custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly. Monegan also said Sarah Palin sent him e-mails on the subject, but Monegan declined to disclose them, saying he planned to give them to a legislative investigator looking into the matter.

Palin initially denied that she or anyone in her administration had ever pressured Monegan to fire the trooper, but this summer acknowledged more than a half a dozen contacts over the matter, including one phone call from a Palin administration official to a state police lieutenant. The call was recorded and was released by Palin's office this month. Todd Palin told a television reporter in Alaska that he did meet with Monegan, but said he was just "informing" Monegan about the issue, not exerting pressure.

Uh-huh. Sure.

Palin herself may never have "directly asked" Monegan to fire Wooten, but the message was clear. No wonder the McCain campaign is stalling.