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Memo to Snyder: Don’t stop the radical reforms now!Palin settles ethics complaint concerning her legal defense fund
June 24th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Dan Calabrese
Sarah Palin has agreed to a settlement on one of the many ethics charges filed against her in Alaska – this one concerning the establishment of her legal defense fund prior to her resignation as governor.
The decision follows a finding by an independent counsel that Palin’s fund did not comply with Alaska ethics laws.
Here we go.
I just got off a conference call with some of Palin’s representatives and several other writers and bloggers who were contacted by Palin’s camp. They believe the independent counsel’s finding is absurd, but Palin agreed to settle the matter because a) an agreeable remedy was easy to put in place; and b) she didn’t think the protracted legal battle was worth it.
The long and short of it is this: The legal defense fund set up on Palin’s behalf, designed to pay her legal fees once she became besieged with frivolous ethics charges, is alleged to have been illegal under Alaska law mainly because the fund used the word “official” in its name, and that implied that it was an arm of the governor’s office.
Palin doesn’t acknowledge or admit anything, but her people say she made the decision that it isn’t worth it to engage in a protracted legal fight over it. The reason they used the word “official,” her representatives say, was to distinguish it from anything someone might have set up without her involvement – sort of like she has an “official” Facebook page, but there are many other Palin pages set up by fans, with which she had nothing to do.
At any rate, the resolution is that Palin has to refund all contributions she received before the day she resigned as governor, and has set up a new fund to help raise money for that purpose, as well as for any other continuing legal expenses she might have that arise from the ethics charges.
During the conference call, I asked why Palin, as governor, shouldn’t have been familiar enough with the letter of the law to avoid violating it – even if ethics in Alaska are ridiculous. Here is the response of her representative on the call, Justin Hart:
“She had over seven attorneys saying this was absolutely completely and totally lawful, and couldn’t be questioned. Anywhere else in America, if you have a counsel who has stated this, because you have that, you’re not liable.”
Without a doubt, Alaska ethics laws are screwy. One of the screwiest facets is the fact that the state attorney general does not represent the governor. So if the governor is hit with ethics complaints (or, as the case is here, 26 of them), he or she has to arrange for his or her own legal defense.
I thought Hart also made another interesting comment, at least insofar as it was actually put on the record by a Palin representative:
“She’s saying, ‘I resigned rather than put Alaska through millions of dollars in legal battles,’ and I’m not gonna do it now.”
At any rate, the actual issue at hand sounds to me like little more than a nitpicky, letter-of-the-law matter that someone managed to turn into a big deal. Palin’s people are sure the mainstream media will spin this as Palin admitting to some big wrongdoing, and I’m sure that’s exactly what they will do.
Hopefully this account of the story provides the factual basis to understand what’s actually happened.
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Posted in Dan Calabrese
12 Responses to “Palin settles ethics complaint concerning her legal defense fund”
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Good man Dan. What can I say? We fought this before and have been fighting (LSM lies) we’ll just have to go into battle again like we always have!
for all the angles and every fact you need to know, just go to http://www.conservatives4palin.com web site where they have substantial posts covering this
Try reading the Anchorage Daily News account for more details. She purposely bypassed running the fund past the attorney general, who was her ethics supervisor. Mind you, Mrs. Palin took credit for passing Alaska’s ethics reform, then decided to ignore it, kind of the way she ignored rules about making the state pay for her children’s travel and $700/night hotel rooms.
Another element in the investigator’s decision was the fact that the fund was run by a good personal friend whom Palin had appointed to several boards (not that she was qualified for them). Having a public official run her fund provided “substantial private benefit.” Her friend claimed a year ago that Sarah Palin had nothing to do at all with this fund and hadn’t taken a penny. The investigator’s report shows what a lie that was.
The fact that the fund had a clause allowing any Palin friend or family member to withdraw money for virtually any reason makes the whole thing look like a slush fund at best.
Fortunately, her supporters can continue sending her more money since she’s so poor and all.
Arctos,
The AG cannot assist the Governor in ethics cases. Or did you just ignore that out of convenience?
Secondly, there is no law that stops one appointing a “friend” as a trustee, how close that friend is neither here nor there. If you were really concerned about friends bring put in to positions of responsibility then perhaps you should look at a few appointments of Obama I mean you remember him do t you?
Mailman
Arctos, you are wrong.
The friend to whom you refer served on the boards as a VOLUNTEER. Also they chose to freeze the money until the case was settled, and they objected to the Obama-linked ‘independent’ investigator who was first chosen:
“The Personnel Board initially appointed an “independent” investigator. That investigator, we later learned, had connections with, and was associated with President Obama. The Personnel Board had hired President Obama’s personal law firm as an “independent” investigator to review whether a fund created to raise money to eliminate a debt incurred as a result of Governor Palin’s opposition to President Obama was appropriate. We objected to both the illegal leak and the blatant political influence, and a new investigator was appointed.
The new investigator spent considerable time reviewing the old information and collecting new, but I think it proved to be too difficult to reverse an already-public decision. He concluded that the Trust fund violated Alaska law in two respects. His biggest heartburn was that we used the word “official” on the website. And he was distressed that we turned down an offer from a former White House Special Counsel to serve as trustee and instead chose an Alaskan whom Alaskans would recognize – Kristan Cole.
Kristan sat on several state boards as a volunteer public servant. The investigator concluded that because she sat on such boards, Governor Palin as governor was technically her boss, and therefore she should not be the trustee of the fund. That is his conclusion and we respect that. The law is not clear on this aspect, and not one member of the legal team saw this as an issue, but again, we respect the conclusion here and it is not worth the time or money to dispute that. But we do want to thank Kristan for taking on that otherwise thankless task. What is it they say about no good deed?”
The above is part of a statement by Meghan Stapleton, Palin’s former spokesperson.
Nice try, leftie loons! Next!
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