More on the TrooperGate Cover-Up

Here’s how Alaska State Representative Les Gara described the latest developments in the TrooperGate cover-up–in which five Republicans sued to stop the bi-partisan legislative investigation and the Attorney General flip-flopped over whether Palin’s staffers have to respond to legislative subpoenas.

It’s silly season up here in the far north, but this week’s moves are aimed at one thing: John McCain’s effort to find cover for being disingenuous. See, before Governor Palin’s nomination for the Republican VP spot, she did the honest thing. She admitted the evidence – of roughly 20 contacts between her staff and husband with Public Safety officials, seeking the firing of Governor Palin’s former brother-in-law – might lead a reasonable person to the conclusion that the she misused her office to fire a state employee. So when Alaska’s Republican-led Legislature called for an investigation, she did the honorable thing and said she and her staff would comply. She denies any wrongdoing.

Things changed on August 29 when Governor Palin was added to the McCain ticket. Since then his handlers have told her she can’t testify. They don’t want the evidence in this case to come out. They don’t want her to testify under oath. They don’t want other witnesses to testify under oath.

So they have engaged in daily maneuvers to attack, as disloyal to the McCain campaign, anyone who wants the investigation to move forward. They’ve now attacked two well respected prosecutors, and perhaps the state’s most highly regarded law enforcement official – the Public Safety Commissioner she hired, and then fired, Walt Monegan.

Every day this week McCain operatives have sung the same tune. Today a guy with an East Coast accent, who knows nothing about Alaska, stood in front of a McCain-Palin banner to lead the attacks against people he doesn’t know. At press conferences on Monday and Tuesday campaign staffer Megan Stapleton spit vitriol to repeat her argument that this investigation is really a "Democratic" attack on Governor Palin.

See, that’s easier than just saying their VP has reneged on her promise to testify. It’s easier than just saying they don’t want anyone testifying before the November election. It’s easier than admitting they are stonewalling a legislative investigation. [my emphasis]

Gara goes on to explain the little details about the Republican majority in the Alaksa legislature that some of us outsiders–particularly in the McCain campaign–seem to be missing. Which only amplifies the point–a bunch of outsiders have swooped into Alaska and started telling Alaskans lies about their own state politics.

Now, according to this picture, that "guy with an East Coast accent" is Ed O’Callaghan, the big gun lawyer the McPalin campaign brought in to ratchet up the cover-up. O’Callaghan was introduced to us (in this context, at least) by Michael Isikoff.  

A former top Justice Department prosecutor now working for John McCain’s presidential campaign has been helping to direct an aggressive legal strategy aimed at shutting down a pre-election ethics investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The growing role of Edward O’Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, illustrates just how seriously the McCain campaign is taking the so-called "troopergate" inquiry into Palin’s firing last summer of Walt Monegan, Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner.

O’Callaghan emerged publicly for the first time this week when he told reporters at a McCain campaign press conference, in Anchorage, that Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with an Alaskan legislative inquiry into Monegan’s firing because it had been "tainted" by politics. That new stand appeared to directly contradict a previous vow,  expressed by her official gubernatorial spokesman on July 28, that Palin  "will fully cooperate"  with an investigation into the matter.

But O’Callaghan (who resigned from the U.S. attorney’s office at the end of July to join the McCain campaign) is doing more than just public relations when it comes to "troopergate."  He told NEWSWEEK that he and another McCain campaign lawyer (whom he declined to identify) are serving as legal "consultants" to Thomas Van Flein, the Anchorage lawyer who at state expense is representing Palin and her office in the inquiry.

As Isikoff explains later in his article, O’Callaghan was recently overseeing the Oil to Food prosecutions–notably the prosecution of Oscar Wyatt. He was also in charge of the really bizarre prosecution of Susan Lindauer, who was indicted as a foreign agent after she served as a go-between between Iraq and her cousin, Andy Card, in an attempt to end sanctions against Iraq. After an extended period in which Lindauer was in a federal facility to determine whether she was competent to stand trial, she had a June hearing in which several people testified she had ties to the CIA; a subsequent hearing with her own doctor to testify to her competence to stand trial has been postponed, most recently apparently so a new federal prosecutor can take over for O’Callaghan. Before that he worked on Gambino family prosecutions. 

Now, I don’t know what the McCain campaign promised O’Callaghan to convince him to walk off the job in July and then, a month later, head off to Alaska to baby-sit the new VP nominee–besides that I suspect he wants to be the next Associate White House Counsel or something like that. But in a matter of weeks he went from one of the lead prosecutors in NYC’s terrorism prosecution unit to trying to play a fast one with the Alaska legislature to help Sarah Palin cover-up her actions in TrooperGate. 

But it does say something about how worried they are about this.

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  1. FrankProbst says:

    Does the AG have the legal standing to tell people to ignore legislative subpoenas? Seems to me that the committee needs to (a) hold the no-shows in contempt and/or (b) impeach the AG.

    • Leen says:

      Really out of the loop on Susan Lindauer. So why is working back channels to push for lifting sanctions against Iraq “betraying your country”? Sounds like traditional D.C. “lobbying” to me.

      • skdadl says:

        First time I’ve read that story too, and it is kind of frightening to me. It forces me to say something nice about Judge Mukasey, though.

        I am not a doctor and I don’t know how the facts in Lindauer’s case are gonna be pinned down, but I have seen how Haldol is used in emergency rooms here (as a restraint, since emerg is not secure); I’ve also watched over someone coming out of a dose, and my eyebrows went ‘way up when I read that someone thought that drugging Lindauer that way was going to be any help to anyone.

        It is a strange story but it is frightening as well, and good for Mukasey for trying to think it through rationally.

  2. emptywheel says:

    Yeah, I saw that. I’m wondering whether they sent O’Callaghan bc he has spent 7 years pursuing someone raised in AK.

    Or maybe they sent him because, after the Oil for Food prosecutions (which I suspect were targeted at the few Democrats bribing Saddam, among a group of Republicans), they thought he could handle oil corruption.

    • bmaz says:

      Interesting that, other than Flein, they do not appear to have a go to local firm up there; I wonder if they do, but they are all dirty tied up with every other significant politician in the whole wide world of Alaska? Also, I wonder what the rundown on Flein is historically….

      • emptywheel says:

        One thing you’ll be interested to know is that Flein accepted Todd’s subpoena, in spite of reports that said he had his own attorney.

        Which suggests either 1) that was a lie, to hide the fact that the state is paying for Todd’s legal representation, or 2) Flein had no business accepting Todd’s subpoena.

        • MadDog says:

          As I’m certainly NAL, perhaps one of our resident Legal Eagles can tell me how representing both MsBull…winkle and First Dude is not a conflict of interest.

          • bmaz says:

            There is a third distinct possibility; I have no idea if it is germane here, but it is also possible that Flein participated in the selection of Todd’s attorney (very common for the main lead to refer other individuals needing separate representation to attys he knows, trusts and works well with) and as a courtesy, and with some form of implied or direct consent, simply accepted the subpoena to give to the co-counsel. This would not be shocking and, quite frankly, wouldn’t concern me so long as Todd agrees the process was duly served, and we have no indication to the contrary. Palin’s guy is the point man, that is just how this is going to work unless something bifurcates Todd and Sarah. Whatever, get Todd in the chair; he doesn’t have any legitimate governmental argument to avoid submission to the served process. Keep it moving on him.

  3. pseudonymousinnc says:

    One of Palin’s off-the-books Yahoo.com email address got cracked today. Someone took a few screenshots, then notified the gov’s office.

    The account was deleted. Which means that unless Yahoo has backups — you do have to hope they do — that’s all the off-the-books communications down the shitter. Or, destruction of evidence.

    It also shows why using off-the-books commodity email is a Very Bad Thing.

    • Rayne says:

      I bust my gut laughing at that. What a special brand of stupid you have to be to use YAHOO for confidential governmental mail — as if nobody, including those Russkies she can see from her window, had ever hacked Yahoo mail.

      Jeebus. She’s a massive threat to our national security if she ever gets to the veep’s office.

      Can you imagine seeing national secrets aired out on GAWKER, forchrissakes?? What a maroon.

  4. BoxTurtle says:

    They should be terrified. Available data suggests this would be an open and shut case in the eyes of the public.

    I wonder if Alaskans like being pushed around by high priced out of state lawyers?

    Boxturtle (Guess we’ll find out)

    • emptywheel says:

      That’s one of the reasons I included that quote from Gara. Yes, he’s a Dem. But still, if the spokesperson on these issues is exclusively O’Callaghan, with his new york accent (though I confess I barely hear it), it’s gonna piss off the home crowd.

      Eventually, I think, Palin’s going to start paying a price in AK for the stuff she’s doing for McCain.

    • FrankProbst says:

      They should be terrified. Available data suggests this would be an open and shut case in the eyes of the public.

      Monegan’s got all of his e-mails, and he showed some to the WaPo. I don’t think they reprinted them verbatim, but they still sounded pretty damning. And I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the more than half-a-dozen people have more to say than, “Sarah never said anything at all about firing this guy.” There’s really no way for them to effectively stonewall this unless they offer Monegan one hell of a bribe to keep his mouth shut.

  5. looseheadprop says:

    Sounds like traditional D.C. “lobbying” to me.

    That’s what she was charged with, being an unregistered lobbyist for a foreign country

    • Leen says:

      Last time I checked if you are a member of Aipac lobbying for Israel no need to register as a lobbyist for a foreign country either.

  6. Leen says:

    http://www.salon.com/news/feat…..lin_mayor/
    ” Executive abilities? She doesn’t have any,” said former Wasilla City Council member Nick Carney, who selected and groomed Palin for her first political race in 1992 and served with her after her election to the City Council.

    Four years later, the ambitious Palin won the Wasilla mayor’s office — after scorching the “tax and spend mentality” of her incumbent opponent. But Carney, Palin’s estranged former mentor, and others in city hall were astounded when they found out about a lavish expenditure of Palin’s own after her 1996 election. According to Carney, the newly elected mayor spent more than $50,000 in city funds to redecorate her office, without the council’s authorization.

    Carney confronted Mayor Palin at a City Council hearing, and was shocked by her response.

    “I braced her about it,” he said. “I told her it was against the law to make such a large expenditure without the council taking a vote. She said, ‘I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.’”

    “I’ll never forget it — it’s one of the few times in my life I’ve been speechless,” Carney added. “It would have been easier for her to finesse it. She had the votes on the council by then, she controlled it. But she just pushed forward. That’s Sarah. She just has no respect for rules and regulations.”

    ———————————————————
    Damn Sarah and George are so much alike.

    Sarah ‘I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.’”

    George “I decide what the law is for the executive branch,” he said.

  7. JimWhite says:

    New Troopergate story up on CNN.com. A few snips:

    Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin won’t comply with subpoenas issued by state lawmakers investigating the firing of Alaska’s former public safety commissioner because Palin “has declined to participate” in the probe, her attorney general says.

    As state employees, our clients have taken an oath to uphold the Alaska Constitution, and for that reason, they respect the Legislature’s desire to carry out an investigation in support of its lawmaking powers,” Attorney General Talis Colberg, a Palin appointee, told the investigation’s manager in a letter released Wednesday.

    “However, our clients are also loyal employees subject to the supervision of the governor.”
    /snip/
    The judge assigned to hear the Anchorage case, John Suddock, recused himself Wednesday. Suddock heard the divorce case between Palin’s sister and the trooper at the center of the allegations, Mike Wooten — and he warned the governor’s family against trying to get her then-brother-in-law fired long before the Monegan controversy erupted, according to court records.

    There we have it. Sarah has crossed over to the Bush side. The “supervision of the governor” trumps the Alaska Constitution. Sound familiar?

    The rest of the article does a decent job pointing out that the investigation originally was unanimous and that Palin had pledged participation. It also points out the smoking gun video of her aide “telling a state trooper lieutenant that the Palins were concerned that there had been “absolutely no action for a year on this issue.”"

  8. Leen says:

    ot

    Senator Byrd and Senator Bernie Sanders ripped it up on the Senate floor with their Constitution Day speeches. I really respect both of these fellows. Byrd was swinging that little constitution book that he always keeps in his pocket and going on (I love it) the way he does about what the Constitution means and how this administration has basically shredded it.

    Senator Bernie Sanders followed Byrd with a rip roaring speech on how the Bush administration has committed a long list of crimes and have yet to be held accountable. How the inability or effort to hold them accountable has destroyed what our country is supposed to be about. Senator Byrd was filling in the back round while Sanders was speaking with “yes” and “amens”. I felt like I was in a church revival or in the British parliament.

    Surprised not to find any mention of it or clips of the two of them ripping up the Senate carpet on “Constitution Day”

  9. MadDog says:

    And Gold, with its biggest rise in over a decade, jumped +$80. Per Reuters:

    The $81 rise in the benchmark U.S. gold contract for December delivery was gold’s biggest one-day rise in absolute terms since 1980 and the biggest one-day percentage gain for gold futures since February 2000.

    Flores said it was not simply a case of investors buying more gold as a safe haven at a time of financial meltdown on Wall Street.

    He noted the gold price had risen in March when the dollar was weak and then dropped off after Bear Stearns collapsed. There was no parallel now, since the price has kept on rising even as the dollar strengthened and several Wall Street institutions have faltered.

    “This may be people who shorted gold when the dollar rallied and now they are covering,” said Flores. “This not the way gold is supposed to behave.”

    (My Bold)

    Note to self – when smiling, try not to let your teeth show.

    Just kidding, no gold here. *g*

  10. JimWhite says:

    An OT conundrum: So if all five of the major investment banking firms are either dead or circling the drain, who’s cutting all the deals this week? Follow this money, it just might go someplace interesting.

      • JimWhite says:

        Very. And I just had another very disturbing thought. Would a complete meltdown of Wall Street be the “crisis” needed for martial law and postponing the election?

    • 4jkb4ia says:

      Well, here is the NYT story on Goldman and Morgan Stanley. The reporter interprets that their stocks are going down simply because of panic and fear, and no one knowing what their exposure is. Both firms reported a profit.
      If an investment bank isn’t independent, but is part of a commercial bank, it continues to exist. This is what might happen with Morgan Stanley.

  11. mkls says:

    off-topic, EW — have you thought about resurrecting the Abramoff emails that McCain has put under 50-year seal?
    Or the lovely Gramm couple’s ties to Enron?
    You do the most trenchant, exhaustive, and thoughtful analysis I see on the web — and I’d love to see you tackle those.
    People have such short short memories — and they deserve to be reminded.
    Thanks for all you do.

  12. AlbertFall says:

    Republican mantra:

    You can’t accuse us without evidence–and we are going to keep you from getting the evidence.

    The needed Dem response:

    It’s called obstruction of justice, it’s another crime on top of the crime your actions cause me to assume you are covering up.

    Usual Dem response:

  13. MadDog says:

    OT – Judge Walker and FISA news in case you missed it:

    Wiretap Cases a Go Despite FISA Change

    Though Congress put a damper this summer on legal efforts to prove the Bush administration unlawfully spied on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails, flagship litigation in the Northern District of California will still proceed.

    Chief Judge Vaughn Walker laid out a briefing schedule at a hearing Friday for In re National Security Agency Telecommunications Records Litigation, MDL 06-1791 — the consolidated suits against the government and numerous telecommunications giants like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

    Walker first made quick work of the scheduling for Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush and granted the Islamic charity the opportunity to file a motion arguing that it’s an “aggrieved party” under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a status that would allow Walker to use classified evidence of government spying to determine if illegal surveillance had occurred…

    …But Walker wasn’t as brief or generous to the plaintiffs in the cases against telecom companies, which represent the other half of the consolidated wiretapping litigation.

    Over the arguments of Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director Cindy Cohn, co-lead plaintiffs counsel, Walker denied a request to challenge the constitutionality of the recently passed amendments to FISA, which give telecoms retroactive immunity. Walker decided the government should get a chance to argue, by Sept. 19, for the cases to be dismissed before a constitutional challenge is raised.

    “I do think we need first to see if the [FISA Amendments Act of 2008] applies to these cases, to let the government make its presentation in that regard … and then decide how the cases are to proceed, if at all,” he said…

  14. Leen says:

    chris Matthews focused on the Troopergate issue for quite some time with David Corn and John Fund.

    Matthews pounded Rep Cantor from Virginia for running from his party. Matthews kept saying that the Republicans are taking their uniforms off during the game and had nothing to do with what has taken place the last 8 years. He kept poking Cantor asking him if “he takes any responsibility for where his party has brought this country at this point”?

    Matthews kept asking “where’s President Bush”"? “why not show his face or say something during this economic catastrophe”?

    I thought Matthews head was going to explode as he kept challenging Rep. Cantor (R-Va) asking why the Republicans are acting like they have not been around the last 8 years, or did not help get Bush elected.

  15. freepatriot says:

    I told ya sarah palin was the gift that just keeps on giving

    sarah palin = princess pandora for the repuglitards

    the alaska attorney general just said that state employees can’t testify because princess palin has dubbed the subpeonas to be “legally questionable”

    did this asshat get his law degree from a box of crackerjacks ???

    or was it regency school of law and small engine repair ???

  16. Citizen92 says:

    This investigation is “tainted by politics?”

    Isn’t this the same crowd that was arguing, not so long ago, that the Democratic Party wanted to “criminalize politics?”

    • bobschacht says:

      This investigation is “tainted by politics?”

      Standard Rovian? trick: Take whatever you’re guilty of, and accuse your opponents of it before they can accuse you of it.

      Of course it’s tainted by politics. The McCain team made it so! Talk about self-serving crappola.

      Bob in HI

  17. Mary says:

    Walker’s keeping it interesting – and from just the blurb with nothing else, I think procedurally he’s right that gov should ask for the dismissal b4 the Constitutional challenge is ripe.

    Meanwhile – it’s finadamnlee time on some of the Abramoff/DOJ principals front.

    From thinkp, this AP story:

    http://ap.google.com/article/A…..gD938KU3O0

    Two former top Justice Department officials emerged Wednesday as figures in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal . . . The officials are former Solicitor General Paul Clement and David Ayres, one-time chief of staff to former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

    I missed that Clement is an ex. Why they are only now getting Ayres in a headline, with the Abramoff email about Ayres telling him all about the then classified Mariannas report in the skybox and setting up the bball slam dunk with Ring and Ashcroft to finish quashing the report having been out there forever.

    Still no Ashcroft headline. Thinkofthat – he let Addington and Yoo run his dept and sat in on The PRincipals sign offs on torture AND evidence destruction or non-preservation, even with all the known litigation out there — he buried the Mariannas report even from Congress for years – – the stories all seem so empty with no mention of him.

    For that matter, the stories seem so empty bc, in the end, they are so empty I guess:

    There’s no public indication that either Clement or Ayres is implicated in wrongdoing. Ayres’ attorney did not immediately return a call for comment and a message left at Clement’s office at Georgetown Law School, where he is a visiting professor, was not immediately returned.

    Hey -not EVERYTHING the loyal Bushies did was illegal. And besides, Ashcroft’s “there” even if not in the grabbers.

    Ring knew Clement, Ayres, Coughlin and others because they all worked for Ashcroft when Ashcroft was a Republican senator from Missouri, before he became attorney general in 2001.

    BTW – how high a stack do you get when you have “several million pages?”

    • bmaz says:

      What Mary said. I agree that Walker is simply placing things in the procedural order that is appropriate. I don’t get the was “Walker wasn’t as generous” bit on the core of consolidated cases bit; he scheduled and ruled the only way he could. He has left all options on the table for argument and consideration as maximally as possible. Not saying he will find one he feels strong enough to base giving the finger to the government and the crappy new FISA Amendments Law, but he sure appears willing to look. That is all you can ask.

      I still don’t think that anything more than a reprimand, if that, can result from the Virginia Bar Complaint. If her actions did not violate the DC rules and there was no finding there (and to my knowledge there are no proceedings in DC that could even lead to that) and there is evidence she was following directions of superiors, I just don’t see that Virginia is going to be able to nick her substantially.

  18. Mary says:

    Callaghan’s crew, if they hadn’t got the plea, were fighting to enter in this bizarre journal supposedly recovered with oil ministry records which had references to Wyatt using his influence on Hussein’s behalf to get Ted Kennedy to come out as being against the war. It was so bizare and so in your face as being incredible with poor provenance that it was really kind of startling to me when the reports were that it was going to be allowed in.

  19. Citizen92 says:

    Hell, Spiro Agnew resigned the Vice Presidency over criminal charges stemming back to his days a Maryland Governor.

    The clock doesn’t stop when you assume higher office – so I suppose there’s always hope.

  20. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Litigators like O’Callaghan have ego, will travel. They wear chess pieces on their briefcases instead of their holsters, and receive offers of work via secure phones instead of by wire to the Hotel Carlton in SFO.

    Their jobs are to knock heads, rap knuckles, cajole, persuade, and hide their client’s troubles. He’s not there to negotiate, except to make offers Alaskan GOP’ers can’t refuse. He’s Tom Hagen on the public payroll, not the don’s, except that now he’s on McCain’s payroll. That he comes from the SDNY USA’s terrorism task force means he’s used to having no limits to his extra-legal powers to get what he wants.

    EW asks the right collateral question. O’Callaghan knows his job in NYC won’t be half as much fun under a President Obama. With McCain, he could step up three levels at Main Justice or go to the White House. Ambitions like those don’t lend themselves to restrained behavior. My guess is that he’s Vlad the Palin with a law degree and more smarts. A man to watch; the next Gooper president will want to make him a federal appeals’ court judge.