Word: monegan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...July 11, 2008, Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner (or top cop) for the state of Alaska, was fired. On the face of it, there was nothing wrong with that. He was a Palin appointee, and she had the right to fire him. But at first with prodding from his union, and then on his own, Monegan began telling people about the persistent pressure he claimed to have felt, in the months leading up to his dismissal, from the governor, her staff and her husband to get rid of a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Wooten happened to be Palin...
...Hard to say. She has already issued a few seemingly contradictory statements about the matter. Just after Monegan's firing, she said that "never was there any pressure put on Commissioner Monegan to hire or fire anybody." A month later, though, she held a surprise press conference, which revealed that key staffers and even her husband had made more than two dozen contacts with Monegan about Wooten, contacts she insists she hadn't known about. It turns out an increasingly wary state police had recorded one of those conversations, which is fairly explicit in its intent. The call, from Palin...
...Wasn't Monegan fired for poor performance...
Colberg also has a role in the current Troopergate investigation - about whether Palin pressured then-Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan to fire Palin's former brother-in-law Mike Wooten, and then fired Monegan because he wouldn't fire Wooten. Under normal circumstances, Colberg's office would have represented the governor in the inquiry, but Colberg admitted in August that he was among the dozen or so members of Palin's staff and family who contacted Monegan about Wooten. So Colberg had to recuse himself, and the state hired independent counsel to defend the governor...