Can He Stop 'Troopergate'?

The evidence accompanying the motion—and released by O'Callaghan at the Anchorage press conference—does appear to show that there was some displeasure among the governor's top aides over Monegan's pushing for appropriations from the state legislature that had not been cleared with Palin's budget director. Monegan's department "is constantly going off the reservation," the governor's deputy chief of staff wrote to the state budget director in a May 7, 2008 e-mail.

But the e-mail release also seemed to show Palin's own intense focus on Wooten—and why he was still working for the state. In one July 17, 2007 e-mail to Monegan that started out talking about a bill by a legislator, named Les Gara, dealing with the sale of guns to individuals judicially deemed to be a threat to public safety, Palin suddenly veered off topic.

"The first thought that hit me when reading [about the Gara bill] went to my ex brother-in-law, the trooper who threatened to kill my dad, yet was not even reprimanded by his bosses and still to this day carries a gun, of course," Palin wrote. "We can't have double standards. Remember when that death threat was reported, and follow-on threats from Mike [Wooten] that he was going to 'bring Sarah and her family down'-instead of any reprimand. We [sic] were told by trooper union-personnel that we'd be sued if we talked about those threats. Amazing. And he's still a trooper, and he still carries a gun, and he still tells anyone who will listen that he will 'never work for that b*itch' (me) because he has such anger and distain [sic] towards my family."

Even O'Callaghan acknowledged today that Palin's motion to dismiss her own ethics complaint against herself is not likely to immediately end the matter. The Personnel Board has already appointed its own investigator to look into the Monegan firing, and that work, will at least for the time being, proceed until the Board can take up the new motion.

In the meantime, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, by a three to two margin, voted last Friday to subpoena 13 witnesses, including top aides to Palin, and Todd Palin, the governor's husband. (The swing vote to issue the subpoenas came from state Sen. Charlie Huggins, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla, who said: "I say, let's just get the facts on the table, the sooner the better.") They voted to do so after Steve Branchflower, the special counsel hired to conduct the probe, presented what he said, was new evidence into an alleged attempt by Palin's office to interfere with a workers' compensation claim filed by Wooten. A state contractor, who Branchflower declined to identify by name, and who handled the workers'-comp claim, testified that her boss had told her "something to the effect that either the governor or the governor's office wanted this claim denied," the special counsel said.

It is unclear whether the subpoenas will be honored, however. A court battle over them seems likely. Five Republican legislators filed a lawsuit in state court to block the investigation.  O'Callaghan confirmed to NEWSWEEK that day, that Van Flein, the Palin's lawyer, had accepted service of the subpoena for Todd Palin. Another McCain spokesman said the lawyer is "reviewing" the matter and hadn't yet decided how the First Gentleman—as Todd Palin is known—will respond.

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