Can He Stop 'Troopergate'?

All this may seem far afield from O'Callaghan's recent work, which included among other matters, directing the Justice Department's sprawling investigation into abuses in the United Nations oil for food program for Iraq.  But ever since last month, when he landed in Alaska as part of a McCain   "rapid response" team dispatched from campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., O'Callaghan has been helping to direct a hardball legal strategy aimed at thwarting inquiries into the Alaska governor on all fronts.

In that capacity, O'Callaghan, working with Van Flein, devised a plan that involved shifting the investigation away from the Alaska Legislative Council—a bipartisan panel that had authorized the probe in a unanimous vote on July 28—and into the hands of the Alaska Personnel Board, a body that is ultimately answerable to Palin herself.

In an unusual filing with the Personnel Board on Sept. 2, Palin essentially filed an ethics complaint against herself, arguing that the state panel should conduct an investigation into whether her firing of Monegan violated state ethics laws. "Our state statute says, if there's a question about actions of the governor…you go to the Personnel Board," Palin said last week, explaining the move in the Charlie Gibson ABC interview. "So we've said all along that that's appropriate."

Simultaneous with that, McCain spokesmen and allies in Anchorage began repeatedly attacking the legitimacy of the Legislative Council probe, contending it had become "tainted" and "politicized" by Obama supporters—most notably a Democratic state senator, Hollis French, who was officially named the "project director" of the probe.

Then this week, Van Flein (again assisted by O'Callaghan) filed a new motion with the Personnel Board. This one argued that, after a review of the evidence, including internal e-mails within the governor's office, the governor's lawyers had determined there was "no probable cause" to pursue any ethics inquiry into Palin at all. As a result, it argued, the previous motion for an ethics inquiry (which Van Flein himself had filed less than two weeks ago) should be dismissed.

Asked why the ethics motion had been filed with the Personnel Board in the first place, O'Callaghan said that was the "proper place" to conduct any ethics probe—and in the meantime, the governor's lawyers needed the time to review the e-mails and "figure out" the evidence relating to the Monegan firing.  Now that they have done so, he said, there is no further need for the matter to be pursued. "There was no Ethics Act violation and there is no need to go forward with this," he said.