Consortium News
Palin’s new position was summed up in a Sept. 9 letter from Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg to the state legislature, which has authorized an independent counsel probe into whether Palin and her staff illegally accessed confidential personnel records of her ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten.
The probe also focuses on Palin’s firing of state Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan in July after he refused to fire Wooten.
Colberg’s argument is that Palin can access confidential files of any state employee she chooses and thus the allegation that she got unauthorized access to Wooten’s personnel records – by whatever means – is moot.
“It does not violate the State Personnel Act for Department of Administration Staff to provide confidential personnel information to the governor or her staff — or for the governor or her staff to receive that information — in the course and scope of their official duties,” the attorney general wrote.
“The governor or her staff may, in the course and scope of their official duties, review a confidential personnel file to ensure, for example, that an employee is adequately supervised, appropriately evaluated, and appropriately disciplined. In appropriate cases, the governor may also direct the termination of a state employee.”
This legal analysis appears to be an attempt to provide Palin and her staffers with legal cover for allegedly disseminating confidential information about Wooten in a campaign to get him fired.
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