Flashback Blog: Shadow Governor?
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Andrew's Note 2/6/10: With today's public release of over 3,000 emails from the Palin administration, many confirming reports about Todd Palin's deep reach into state business, I'm re-printing a blog we wrote in July of 2008.
Originally Posted 7/23/08: In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power?
After all, Nancy Murkowski or Susan Knowles were never accused of pressuring a commissioner or inappropriately sitting in on meetings that should have been private.
The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels told me about going into a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.
Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd's presence was at meetings with the governor. Yesterday on the Dan Fagan Show, Representative Jay Ramras mentioned that Todd was working lawmakers offices during the ACES debate.
But more importantly, Todd's fingerprints on trying to impact personnel decisions appear to go beyond the current scandal revolving around State Trooper Mike Wooten.
Consider the story of one of Governor Palin's former trusted advisors, John Bitney.
Bitney grew up with the governor, often telling the story of being in the same band class. He served as her Issues Coordinator during her successful gubernatorial campaign in 2006, spokesman for her transition team after the election and on December 1, 2006 he was named her Legislative Liaison.
Bitney was respected as a hard worker by people who knew him and worked with him. In six months, Bitney guided the governor's policies through the legislature, including her hallmark legislation; AGIA.
But John Bitney made the fatal employment mistake; he got on the bad side of Todd Palin.
In June of 2007, it became known that Bitney was dating the soon to be ex-wife of Todd Palin's good friend. Palin reportedly began demanding that Bitney be fired.
After a short time, Bitney realized that he couldn't remain in the governor's office due to the constant pressure and he worked out a deal with Chief of Staff Mike Tibbles to take a transfer to another department.
On July 3, Bitney was in the process of driving his vehicle back to Juneau when he couldn't get his state issued Blackberry to work. When he arrived in Tok he called his office and was told that his Blackberry had been turned off and that his name had been removed from the state employee directory.
His call was then transferred into Tibbles who told him the proposal they talked about was a no deal and the governor ordered him fired immediately. John Bitney was never given a reason why he was fired and never given a chance to make a graceful exit.
However reading the press statements from the Palin administration, you'd think otherwise.
According to the APRN on July 9, 2007, Governor Palin's spokeswomen Sharon Leighow said Bitney left for "personal reasons" and the departure was "amicable."
The Associated Press reported on July 10, 2007, "A spokeswoman for the governor says Bitney and Palin mutually agreed he would leave his post for personal reasons."
Bitney didn't leave his post, he was unfairly and unceremoniously fired and even after serving as a loyal employee was never given an answer as to why he was dismissed by the governor.
According to Bitney, "Todd's words have so much weight".
Confidential Emails
The most alarming indication of Todd Palin's reach into state government came just yesterday.
Last month, a group of Alaskans filed a freedom of information act for emails sent from the computers of both Frank Bailey and Ivey Frye. Along with several boxes of documents, they received a cover letter along with 78 pages detailing the emails that were not released due to "Deliberative Process and Executive Privilege". (Privilege log attached)
Page 1 of the list showed seven emails from both Governor Sarah Palin and Lt. Governor Sean Parnell within a three hour time frame on Feburary 1, 2008 that were described as "Email re Andrew Halcro".
The serious concern about these emails is that they were prohibited from being released to the public due to executive privilege, even though Todd Palin was copied on these same emails.
Todd Palin is not a member of the executive branch, nor is he even a government employee. Todd Palin is a member of the general public.
So why in the world is Todd Palin getting copied on emails that his wife's administration is classifying as confidential?
Furthermore there is something incredibly suspicious about these emails.
The first email was sent on Feburary 1 at 7:41am from Lt. Governor Sean Parnell to Governor Sarah Palin. Obviously something was burning Parnell to make him fire off an email to the governor so early in the morning about Andrew Halcro. This in turn set off a flurry of email activity that spanned the next three hours and encompassed five different people including Todd Palin.
Judging from the blogs I posted on January 31, the night before, this very well could be about the 2004 TransCanada proposal that Parnell help negotiate when he was an attorney in the oil & gas division that has been kept sealed ever since. TransCanada has insisted to this day that it remain confidential.
These emails should be released to the public...after all Todd Palin has no standing to claim executive privilege. By including him in the email loop, the Palin administration has arguably breached any claim of executive privilege.
After all, government can't pick and choose what private citizens get to see confidential material, that is exactly why freedom of information laws exist.
The attached print out clearly shows that something drove this administration into overdrive, hence the seven emails in under three hours. Since the executive privilege has been breached by sending them to Todd Palin, this administration should release those emails so all Alaskans can see them.
This is yet another example of why we need to get to the facts about how power is being used in the governor's office.
(To see the complete email Privilege Log detailing the flow of emails click attachment)
Press Archives of John Bitney's firing:
http://www.ktuu.com/global/story.asp?s=6772376&ClientType=Printable
http://aprn.org/2007/07/09/john-bitney-leaves-governors-office/
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