Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Dismissal - Contacts Between Governor's Office and Wooten's Supervisors

Contacts Between Governor's Office and Wooten's Supervisors

In early December 2006, Palin took office as Governor of Alaska and appointed Walter C. Monegan III to be Public Safety Commissioner, a cabinet position. Monegan is a former police chief of Anchorage and son of Walter C. Monegan, Jr. According to the investigator hired by the state legislature, "Right about that time, a little after the swearing in," someone from Palin's office called Monegan's office to schedule a meeting between Monegan and Todd Palin, the governor's husband.

According to Monegan, the meeting took place in the Governor's office on January 4, 2007, with only Monegan and Todd Palin present. Palin asked Monegan to look into the Wooten affair. He gave Monegan various records, including material from a private investigator hired by the Palin family. Palin said that he disagreed with the five-day suspension, as inadequate and insufficient, and accused Wooten of a variety of transgressions, including drunken driving and child abuse. He asked Monegan to revisit the matter in light of some additional evidence he was providing. Monegan agreed to do that. He detailed some staff for the review, who made a page-by-page comparison with the investigation that had been done earlier, and told Monegan that there was nothing new. Monegan then told Todd Palin that there was nothing he could do as the case was closed. The troopers operate under a union contract that restricts the circumstances under which a trooper can be fired.

According to Monegan, Governor Palin raised the matter with him personally twice, in January and February, and then kept raising the matter indirectly through e-mails, though she did not again bring it up directly. In an email sent to Monegan on February 7, 2007 about a proposed bill to require 99-year sentences for police officers found guilty of murder, Palin mentioned Wooten as an example of an officer who violated the public trust. The email listed several examples of Wooten's alleged misbehavior. Another Palin email, dated July 17, 2007, concerned a proposed bill to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. Palin wrote to Monegan that her first thoughts "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." A spokesperson for the McCain-Palin campaign says that Palin's contacts with Monegan were only to alert him to potential threats to her family.

Monegan also has said he got telephone calls from three Palin appointees: her then-chief of staff, Mike Tibbles; Commissioner Annette Kreitzer of the Department of Administration; and Attorney General Talis Colberg. Colberg said he called after Todd Palin asked him about "the process" for handling death threats made by state troopers against the first family. Monegan told Colberg the matter had been handled, and Colberg reported back to Todd Palin that nothing more could be done. In mid-August 2008, the Alaska Attorney General's inquiry reported that Palin's staff had made about two dozen contacts with public safety officials about Wooten, in 2007 and 2008, with more than half initiated by Tibbles.

In April 2007, Todd Palin told the Anchorage Daily News he had met once with Wooten's supervisor, Colonel Audie Holloway, to give her pictures of Wooten driving a snowmobile when he was out on a worker's compensation claim. Diane Kiesel, Alaska state personnel director, also called Holloway about the snowmobile incident.

On November 19, 2007, a meeting was called by Mike Tibbles, at the time Palin's chief of staff, to discuss the process of how Wooten had returned to work after a worker's compensation injury. Present were Kevin Brooks, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Administration, Nicki Neal, director of the Personnel Division, and Diane Kiesel, former director of Personnel and Labor Relations.

On February 29, 2008, Frank Bailey, the governor's director of boards and commissions, made a phone call to trooper Lt. Rodney Dial, the state troopers' liaison to the Legislature. The Public Safety Department recorded the call, as it does routinely, and the Palin administration released an audiotape of it on August 13. In it, Bailey made several accusations against Wooten, including that he lied on his application to become a trooper. He was recorded saying "Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, 'why on earth hasn't, why is this guy still representing the department?' " and "I'm telling you honestly, you know, she really likes Walt a lot, but on this issue, she feels like it's, she doesn't know why there is absolutely no action for a year on this issue. It's very, very troubling to her and the family. I could definitely relay that." Bailey said in an interview on August 13 that no one had asked him to make the call and he didn't know why he indicated in the call that he was speaking on behalf of the Palins. A transcript of the call is available.

Cell records show that Todd Palin spoke to Palin aide Ivy Frye three times on the afternoon of Feb. 28, the day before Bailey's conversation with Dial. About three hours after the last call, the first of ten emails began to circulate between Ivy Frye, Sarah Palin, her husband Todd, Bailey, Administration Commissioner Annette Kreitzer, Deputy Chief of Staff Randy Ruaro and Palin aide Kris Perry. The exchanges continued overnight and into the morning of Bailey's phone call.

Shortly before the annual celebration of Police Memorial Day on May 15, 2008, Commissioner Monegan dropped off a color photograph at Governor Palin's Anchorage office with a request that she sign and present it at the ceremony. The photograph was of an Alaska State Trooper, dressed in a formal uniform, saluting. He was standing in front of the police memorial located in front of the crime lab at AST headquarters in Anchorage, partially obscured by a flagpole. The picture to be signed by the Governor was to be used as a poster to be displayed in various Trooper Detachments around the state.

Shortly after he returned to his office from dropping off the photograph, he received a call from Kris Perry, Governor Palin's Director of her Anchorage office, who asked (according to Walt Monegan's testimony), "Why did you send a poster over here that has a picture of Mike Wooten on it?" Until that moment, Commissioner Monegan apparently never realized it was indeed a photograph of Trooper Wooten. Governor Palin canceled her appearance and sent Lieutenant Governor Parnell in her place.

Directly contacting Monegan was one of at least three dozen contacts over 19 months by the governor, her husband and seven administration officials. Kim Peterson, Mr. Monegan’s special assistant and a 31-year veteran of state government who retired 10 days before Mr. Monegan’s firing, said she received about a dozen calls herself. “It was very clear that someone from the governor’s office wanted him watched,” she told the New York Times. Mr. Palin had called Ms. Peterson to claim that he had seen Wooten riding a snowmobile while on disability for a back injury and asked her to investigate. When Mr. Palin called back two weeks later asking for a response, Peterson told him that she could not discuss it because it was an official state personnel matter.

Dianne Kiesel, a deputy director at the Department of Administration, called Ms. Peterson suggesting that Wooten's duties could be shifted such as moving him to the cold-case unit or a desk job doing background checks. Ms. Peterson, who had worked in human resources management for most of her government career, responded that those options would violate the public safety union’s contract. Annette Kreitzer, Commissioner of the Alaskan Department of Administration, also called Monegan and Peterson about Wooten.