State Probing Palin's Troopergate

(CBS)  CBS News Investigative Producer Laura Strickler and Kim Lengle wrote this story for CBSNews.com.

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Alaskans refer to it as "troopergate" but the McCain campaign is convinced the investigation into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's attempts to fire her ex-brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten, will show no wrongdoing. Palin allegedly demanded that Wooten be fired from his job while Wooten was in the midst of a bitter divorce with her sister. The results of the investigation will be released a few days before the November election.

The focus of the investigation will surround whether Palin abused her power as governor by pressuring Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire Wooten. After Monegan declined to fire Wooten, Palin asked him to step down. Investigators will try and figure out if the two incidents are related, Palin says they are not.

A senior official from the McCain campaign close to the vetting process says they were "convinced there was no impropriety" after thoroughly researching the firing. The source also said they "spent a lot of time" looking into it.

John Cyr runs the Public Safety Employees Association that represents Wooten. Cyr's organization is planning to file a new round of ethics complaints against the Palin administration related to the firing of Monegan. He says the national spotlight on the four-year-old issue is quite a change, "I don't have a strategy, I am the executive of a little union at the fringe of the earth," Cyr told CBS News.

And Cyr notes that according to his records, Wooten has not had a formal complaint filed against him in his eight years as a trooper with the exception of the raft of complaints from the Palin family. He says his office handles about 40 serious trooper complaints each year.

According to The Associated Press, the Palin family accused Wooten of drinking a beer while in his patrol car, illegal hunting and taser-ing his 11-year-old stepson. They also claimed Wooten threatened to kill Sarah Palin's father.

"He is 6 foot 5 and goes 285 - which is not bad if you are an Alaska state trooper, but it doesn't make you exactly sympathetic in the eyes of the public," Cyr told CBS News.

But while Wooten has support of the union, one Alaska trooper who did not want to be named tells CBS News in his opinion the accusations against Wooten reflect negatively on all troopers, "Wooten had been making extremely poor decisions and I would never want to work with the guy."

Wooten is currently on the job as a trooper in the Mat-Su Valley region of Alaska which includes the town of Wasilla, Palin's hometown. The region he patrols is the size of the state of West Virginia, Cyr says.
By Laura Strickler

[concorde5]

McCain''s Executive experince = ZERO

[rktsci3127]

Great speech and the only negative I heard was from a woman who seemed to resent the fact Palin could actually do something while raising kids. With 80 percent of the press against her...she has to be the right choice.

[barbaraf4]

Gov. Palin has the perfect credentials to be on the Republican ticket: she is under investigation for an ethics violation. She is one of their own.

[oleander8]

If the Republicans can''''t stand the heat, they are invited to leave the kitchen. If they want Palin''''s family to be off-limits - why are they parading them around at the convention? And now they have brought the boyfriend to the convention as well. They are using Palin''s evangelical, large family, and gender to garner support -- This makes them fair-game! When other politicians want their families privacy respected - they keep them out of the political spotlight.

[xlib]

People, People-I thought families were off limits.
Did any of the kennedy politicians have anything to do with all the family scandals?? I mean, murder with golf clubs, drownings, etc, etc.

[xlib]

Troopergate? Troopergate?? Are we still on that? Wasn''t that covered up in the early 90''s? What does Palin have to do with bringing bubba babes to his motel room??
Geez, and you libs talk about us!

She was fantastic!!!!
And yea, she has more experience than sitting on boards with ayers and running a campaign. Besides, what are they paying axelrod the big bucks for. He''s supposed to be running the messiah''s campaign.
Axelrod''s company did such a great job working with the perpetually PO''d michele when she was at the Univeristy of Chicago Medical Center getting those pesky uninsured to stop using the ER. GEez, cost the Univeristy a bundle taking care of all those folks.

luvg-d at 12:29 AM : Sep 04, 2008 wrote:

"What you see is the real person."

Really? Because what I see is a bad mother who is going to neglect her special needs son when he needs her the most, along with the other members of her family that need her.

[ramos937]

McCain is 72 and if elected, has a poor chance of surving his first term. Then Palin would take over. That would be a very scary situation. This lady has never been outside of the USA.

She has to be faulted as a mother. At home, she has four kids left - one is an unwed teenage mother; one is a baby with downs symdrome; we do not know about the other two except that one is a girl about 12 years old. With her professional committments it is impossible for her to have time for them. Especially the baby who will need constant care and attention. Being an absentee mother by choice is not being a good mother.

[gypsyman4]

Incredible that this maniac cop has a job, and incredible that the liberal media are passing this thing off as a story. http://www.notwrightforamerica.com has been busy destroying the basis for this investigation all week, Flopping Aces has a great timeline on this also.

The person leading what is supposed to be an impartial legislative investigation, Alaska state senator Hollis French, is a partisan liberal Democrat who has badly compromised his impartiality by talking about how the committee report will hurt Palin, even though the committee is not even close to finished. The execution before the trial.

[tryhonesty]

RepubliCONs always bought and paid for by Big Oil. I can not wait for $6 to $8 per gallon gas. Are you narrow minded cons really better off now than you were 8 years ago? Don''t lie. Your noses are getting longer and longer. Greedy OLD Party going the way of dinosaurs...stuck in the oil tarpit...with no innovation and no ideas to improve our country...living in the past...sounds just like the Middle East...both have so much in common...