In Dozens of Calls, Palins and Aides Pressed for Trooper’s Removal

The 2007 state fair was days away when Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, took another call about one of his troopers, Michael Wooten. This time, the director of Gov. Sarah Palin's Anchorage office was on the line.

As Mr. Monegan recalls it, the aide said the governor had heard that Mr. Wooten was assigned to work the kickoff to the fair. If so, Mr. Monegan should do something about it, because Ms. Palin was also planning to attend and did not want the trooper nearby.

Somewhat bewildered, Mr. Monegan soon determined that Mr. Wooten had indeed volunteered for duty at the fairgrounds — in full costume as "Safety Bear," the troopers' child-friendly mascot.

Two years earlier, the trooper and the governor's sister had been embroiled in a nasty divorce and child-custody battle that had hardened the Palin family against him. To Mr. Monegan and several top aides, the state fair episode was yet another example of a fixation that the governor and her husband, Todd, had with Mr. Wooten and the most granular details of his life.

"I thought to myself, 'Man, do they have a heavy-duty network and focus on this guy,' " Mr. Monegan said. "You'd call that an obsession."

On July 11, Ms. Palin fired Mr. Monegan, setting off a politically charged scandal that has become vastly more so since Ms. Palin became the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

Trooper in Palin probe tells his side

Speaking Thursday to CNN's Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston, Wooten gave his account of the Taser incident but denied ever drinking while driving.

He said that he was a new Taser instructor, and his stepson was asking him about the equipment. "I didn't shoot him with live, you know, actual live cartridge," Wooten said.

Instead, he said, he hooked his stepson up to a training aid "with little clips. And, you know, the Taser was activated for less than a second, which would be less than what you would get if you touched an electric fence. ... It was as safe as I could possibly make it."

He said his stepson was on the living room floor surrounded by pillows, that he "was bragging about it," and that the family laughed about it.

Asked whether it was a dumb decision, Wooten told CNN, "absolutely."

It wasn’t Monegan’s issues, it was the AK Trooper’s union that protected Walton, in fact, they complained when he got a 10 day suspension, and it was cut down to 5 days.

I have a stock answer when someone moans about Tasergate, I say "Hmm, how interesting to hear a liberal sticking up for a wife-beating Taser-happy rogue cop who drinks on duty. Guess if his union dues are paid up, he gets a pass from the Democrats, eh?"

-ccm

Walter Monegan says he was fired from his job as public safety commissioner for not dismissing Wooten, a claim that eventually led to the politically charged investigation just before McCain chose Palin as his running mate in late August.

Palin says she fired Monegan over a budget dispute.

Todd Palin said he never pressured anyone, including his wife. In fact, he says that after repeatedly talking with her about the matter, she finally told him to “drop it.”

“Anyone who knows Sarah knows she is the governor and she calls the shots,” Todd Palin wrote. “I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family and wanting to publicize the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge.”

Hi Fellow Conservative Friends,
This is my first post. I love Free Republic! I’ve been lurking for quite some time (couple years or so), so I finally decided to join up.
Anyhow, thought you all might like to see the E-Mail I sent to that so-called journalist at the NY-Obama Times. Here it is:

Listen, you liberal nut job! I really don’t care if Gov. Palin had anything to do with that trooper being fired! That trooper deserved to be fired, no matter how it had to happen. Someone wasn’t doing their job by not firing that trooper, and it wasn’t Gov. Palin! The guy admitted to tasering his 10 year old son, got reprimanded and written up many times (one time drinking in his cruiser). Are you some kind of an idiot or what? You want someone like that “protecting” your streets? I sure as hell don’t. My husband is a retired police officer, and let me tell you, I don’t know how that trooper kept his job for as long as he did. My husband wouldn’t have wanted to work with someone like that. Gov. Palin did her fellow citizens a good service by getting rid of him. And tell me why Gov. Palin has the best approval rating of ANY governor in the U.S. Where as, your buddy Obama and the liberal-majority congress has the lowest approval rating EVER, about 3 times lower than Bush’s 38% approval rating.
Why don’t you cover a story that’s worth something. Oh, I forgot, you and others like you don’t know how to be real journalists. Quit disguising yourself as a journalist, and go back to doing something you just might be good at - maybe flipping burgers or something. Or perhaps you could try to be a true journalist and cover stories that really matter - like your idiot friend Obama and his communist and terrorist goons he likes to hang around with. No? I forgot, that would be too much for you and your ilk. By the way, why don’t you change your name to Serge Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Suits you better.

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