It's 21 22 Ethics Complaints, Not 18 ... But Who's Counting? (updated again and again)

Sarah Palin has so many ethics complaints that major news outlets can't keep track anymore! Huffington Post reprinted an AP story by Rachel D'Oro yesterday claming the current number is 18 instead of what appears to be 21 22. In order to keep the record straight, we need a list!

Since no list is worth anything without supporting documentation, you can find links for ethics complaints numbers 1 through 18 at Newsminer and also at Alaska Daily News (ADN).

Find a link for number 19 here,
a link for number 20 here (even though the article misstates number as 19),
a link for number 21 here,
and a link for number 22 here.

Without further ado, here are the 21 22 acknowledged complaints (there may have been more that were just never made public) against Sarah Palin and her administration as of July 15 16 20, 2009.

#	Date	Filer	Description	Results
1	7/28/08	Alaska Legislature	Abuse of Power re: firing Walt Monegan (aka Troopergate)	10/10/08 Sarah Palin found guilty of abuse of power for permitting husband and staff to harangue Monegan about the trooper
2	8/06/08	Andree McLeod (AK resident)	Undue influence exerted by Palin and staff exerted to get a job for a Palin supporter	Palin staff member advised to take ethics training
3	8/20/08	Brian Kraft (AK resident)	Breaking election law by taking public position on ballot initiative concerning Pebble Mine	05/08/09 Complaint rejected by APOC (Alaska Public Offices Commission)
4	9/02/08	Sarah Palin (AK resident)	Self-disclosure filing with AK Personnel Board (re: Troopergate)	11/03/08 Personnel Board found no abuse of power for Sarah Palin letting aides and husband hassle Monegan, but also, no investigation of who committed perjury in their contradictory sworn statements, Palin or Monegan
5	9/03/08	PSEA (AK Public Safety Employees Association)	Improper disclosure of the trooper's personnel records and amended to include allegation of harassment (bundled with charge #4)	11/03/08 Dismissed together with #4 by AK Personnel Board
6	10/13/08	Walt Monegan (AK resident)	Request by filer for a hearing to clear his name (it had been sullied by Palin and staff)	11/03/08 AK Personnel Board said there was no legal basis or jurisdiction for a hearing on this matter
7	10/23/08	CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics)	Expensive wardrobe purchased for Sarah Palin with donor money violates FEC regulations	05/19/09 FEC ruled "party money" is not covered in ban
8	10/24/08	unnamed filer	Abuse of power for charging AK for children's travel	02/23/09 AK Personnel Board negotiated settlement wherein Sarah Palin paid ~$8,000 to reimburse for costs
9	11/14/08	Zane Henning (AK resident)	Alleged abuse of office by doing "post-election damage control" in interviews from Governor's office	03/23/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
10	12/02/08	Anthony Martin (AK resident)	Sarah Palin violated ethics by campaigning for Saxby Chambliss of Georgia	03/23/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
11	12/18/08	unnamed filer	Alleged misuse of funds by allowing her picture to be used to promote Alaska seafood in national publications while also promoting her national political ambitions	01/12/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
12	01/12/09	Edna Birch	Interference in job hiring	02/20/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board because filer failed to use a real name
13	01/26/09	Andree McLeod (AK resident)	Palin aide Bill McAllister worked on state time to benefit Palin's extra-AK political interests	PENDING
14	01/26/09	Andree McLeod (AK resident)	Palin aide Kris Perry worked on state time to benefit Palin's extra-AK political interests	06/05/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
15	03/18/09	Andree McLeod (AK resident)	Improper use of state resources for partisan political purposes	05/27/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
16	03/24/09	Linda Kellen Biegel (AK resident)	Conflict of interest by advertising for husband's sponsor by wearing Arctic Cat gear during official duties	06/02/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
17	04/22/09	Sondra Tompkins (AK resident)	SarahPAC constitutes ethics violation by misusing official position and accepting outside employment	05/08/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board
18	04/27/09	Kim Chatman (AK resident)	Alaska Fund Trust (AFT) violates ethics rules by funneling improper gifts to Sarah Palin	06/24/2010 PALIN SETTLES - has to return $386,000 because AFT declared illegal.
19	07/06/09	Zane Henning (AK resident)	Illegal continuation of per diem collection when Sarah Palin's home is less than 50 miles from Anchorage office	PENDING
20	07/10/09	Ray Ward (AK resident)	Illegal compensation collected by Sarah Palin for giving radio and television interviews since '08 campaign ended	PENDING 07/15/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board (in part for not being properly notarized)
21	07/14/09	Andree McCleod (AK resident)	Failure to transfer power to Lt. Gov during '08 campaign, while collecting salary during "off duty" status	PENDING 07/24/09 Dismissed by AK Personnel Board as legally flawed
22	07/20/09	Andree McCleod (AK resident)	Failure to disclose gifts within 30 days of receipt	PENDING

To summarize the 21 22 complaints we know about:

One found Sarah Palin abused her power.

One found Sarah Palin illegally solicited funds for her personal use while Governor.

Two were dismissed by the Personnel Board with various repercussions.

Eleven Twelve were dismissed by the Personnel Board with no other actions.

One was rejected by APOC.

One was rejected by the FEC.

Five Four Three are still pending resolution.

The AK Personnel Board has consistently refused to affix any finding of fault. As a reminder, this group of three persons is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Governor.

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Go figure, eh?

I Take a Walk on the Red Side

This post is about my visit to Redstate.com last night, wherein I read a diatribe by someone named Martin Knight.  His/her speech was filled with hyperbolic outrage and unsupported wide-ranging accusations.  If you'd like to read it yourself, it's titled The Campaign to Bankrupt the Palin Family.

Even though the speech was disturbing, I was somewhat heartened to find one or two people making relatively honest and even insightful comments vis à vis GINO's latest ethics complaint.  One of them referred to the 'Sarah-can-do-no-wrong gang' as sycophants.  An online dictionary I visited says that a synonym for sycophant is parasite.  Para rhymes with Sarah, so from now on, I'll refer to Maet Haras and other Palinbots as "sarasites."  I kind of like it!  The image below, well, it's really a parasite but I think it fits. 

I think M. Knight is a sarasite.  His post, as you can guess from the title, suggests—no, claims outright—that there is a "group of Alaska liberals, with the apparent cooperation of members of the Alaska Democratic Party" who are filing baseless and "even fairly deranged" ethics charges with the express purpose of destroying the Palin family's finances so they are left destitute after GINO leaves office.

Sounds like quite a conspiracy!  What does M. Knight use to support his/her assertions?  Well, nothing really, except he/she goes on to relate that David Bonior (misspelling the name as Bonoir), a House Democratic Whip in the 1990's, filed lots of ethics complaints against Newt Gingrich for political reasons.  Therefore this new cluster of Alaska liberals must have resuscitated the tactic, only they don't care about politics, just personal destruction... GINO's personal destruction, that is.

I mentioned that the post was filled with hyperbolic outrage.  This first quote gets me humming the Subway commercial -- five, five hundred, ...

From just September till now, Sarah Palin has accumulated a personal dept [sic] of over $500,000 in legal fees defending herself against fake/false/frivolous ethics charges. That’s Five Hundred Thousand Dollars.

Then this one, a rather stunning accusation (not to mention totally off the mark):

These people want to bankrupt the Palins and leave them destitute. They want to empty their bank accounts so that they cannot afford the basics and necessities of life after Governor Palin leaves office.

Oh no, not the poorhouse!

This one refers to GINO's whine that she'll have to set up a legal fund:

But it’s the fact that she has to consider doing this to keep her and her husband’s life savings - a man and woman with minor children at home - from disappearing altogether that should sicken all of us - I don’t know about any of you, but I’m literally shaking with rage here.

And then we have the obligatory declaration of who's evil:

I knew the Left’s tactics were ugly, but this … this is beyond wrong, this is pure evil.

M. Knight calls out the ugly tacticians by name:  McLeod, Henning, Biegel, etc., but offers no evidence that they are participants in such a conspiracy -- with each other or anyone else, for that matter. Yet he would like to see their names "turned to mud in Alaska and all over America."  Why?  For "depriving the people of Alaska of the services of their governor because of nothing more than hate."  Oh my.  You mean, an ethics complaint could get GINO removed from office?  Gee, why didn't I think of that?  :)

M. Knight also asserts that every one the ethics charges against GINO was filed after she was selected as the Republican VP candidate, except for "the partisan ethics complaint [Troopergate]..."  I'm not sure how he/she can say this.  First of all, the initial Troopergate inquiry was set in motion by a unanimous vote of a bipartisan 12-person council.  It didn't become partisan until later, and it wasn't the Democrats who turned it into a partisan issue.  Second, we don't know how many ethics complaints there have been or when they were filed, since at least some of them have not been made public.  Third, at least one of Andree McLeod's complaints was filed pre-August 29, 2008, when McCain announced his VP pick.

After reading the post and the 100 or so comments that were there, I decided to blog about it here instead of adding my own comment over there.  The sarasites were out in force, and it was quite an education in denial, delusion, deflection, and general dirt-under-rug-sweeping!

Those Pesky Ethics Complaints Keep Coming!

Here's a list of known ethics complaints filed against Governor Sarah Palin (GINO).  The list does not include the original Troopergate investigation, unanimously approved by a bipartisan panel and initiated in July 2008 following GINO's controversial firing of Walt Monegan.

1. August 6, 2008  Cronyism in hiring [edited to correct date to 2008, not 2009]
   
2. September 3, 2008  Troopergate (Palin complains against herself)
3. September 4, 2008  Releasing protected personnel file information
4. October 24, 2008  Charging Alaska for children's travel
5. November 18, 2008  Campaigning on Alaska State property
6. January 23, 2009  Palin aides using official position to advance Palin's campaign

According to GINO, she has had to defend herself against 10 ethics complaints so far (the complaints do not have to be made public, so these are just the complaints I can readily find). As a result of paying for legal assistance to resolve these complaints, GINO claims she has racked up more than half a million dollars worth of debt.

Sarah Palin advertises Arctic Cat while performing official Governor duties at Iron Dog 2009

And the complaints keep coming.  Celtic Diva, a progressive Alaskan blogger, is set to file yet another ethics complaint.  This one alleges GINO used her official position to benefit herself and her family financially.  It's a good, solid complaint.  It is supported by pictures in state and national publications and GINO's own, recently released, financial report filing.

The essence of the complaint (please visit divasblueoasis.com for a copy of the document that will be filed) states that GINO had official responsibilities to start the 2009 Iron Dog race, and charged Alaskans for the trip to the starting location.  The Arctic Cat company sponsors Todd Palin's racing team and in exchange for monetary payments, clothing and discounts, Todd's team advertises for Arctic Cat.  Piper Palin even sports a "Team Arctic" jacket.

It is ethically wrong for a Governor, or any public official for that matter, to promote a product or a company -- especially when the official has received financial benefit from such promotion.

For those who think this is an inconsequential misstep -- I can hear some saying already, "What's the big deal, so she dressed up in her husband's colors?" -- please imagine if public officials in places outside Alaska thought it was no big deal to advertise while on the job.

 

Artist's conception of what's next if public officials followed Sarah Palin's "ethics"  

What if President Obama's relatives got free seed and fertilizer for their lawns and gardens, in exchange for signs like these on government property over a weekend when national media were taking pictures of the lawn?  (I believe in chemical-free organic lawns and gardens, but you get the idea...)  There's really no difference between this scenario and what GINO was doing at the start and the finish of the Iron Dog race.

If GINO still aspires to a national political office, she had better take a crash course or three in ethics.  If she would only learn why what she does so flippantly is so very wrong, she could save herself (and the Team Sarah and SarahPAC devotees who will contribute to her legal fund) a LOT of money.