McCain: Palin Legal Bill Was For "Troopergate"

The Hill ^ | 11/16/09 | Alexander Bolton

[steve-b]

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spoke to The Hill Monday evening, denied Sarah Palin's allegation that his campaign stuck her with a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the cost of vetting her as a potential vice presidential candidate.

McCain said the bill was for legal work related to allegations that Palin made improper use of her influence as Alaska's governor to press for the dismissal of a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Wooten was embroiled in a custody dispute with Palin's younger sister, Molly McCann.

"That was addressed by Trevor Potter," said McCain, "That was over the troopergate."

In a statement to the Associated Press, Potter, McCain's general counsel, denied that McCain's campaign billed Palin for vetting her....

[HiTech RedNeck]

Harbinger of things to come. Of course the account she gives in her book is going to be hotly disputed, and she probably has done well to get the matters aired now, rather than appearing a couple years down the road as Rat and RINO offered “gotchas.” When the dust settles, however, I sense that some RINOs are going to look mighty foolish.

[CeDex]

Yeah. But I think she’s gonna’ be toast over all this, esp. when the McCain camp seriously chimes in...

[noname07718]

Go away John. Please, just go away.

[Wpin]

Sure McCain...what you really are saying is legal work related to troopergate that your team did to vet Sarah Palin...lousy lying bastard. McCain is a perfect example of all that is wrong with our stinking government.

[Outrance]

I don’t pay for services I don’t personally order and so I can understand why Sarah would object to this nonsense.

As so many of you have said I wish the old guy would retire some where and fade away.

[Question_Assumptions]

The whole “Troopergate” issue was going on while the McCain camp was vetting her and her legal response to it, after being picked and which created those expenses, was created by the McCain campaign telling her to dig in a deal with it the Washington, DC way, with lawyers and no comments to the press. So while the McCain camp can split hairs over whether those expenses were part of the actual vetting process or not, those costs were created by the advice of the McCain campaign for dealing with an issue that came up in the vetting process and sticking her with that bill was wrong. Were people in the mainstream media watching the same campaign I was watching?

This illustrates exactly why I’m sick of Washington and still support Sarah Palin, even though I think she has flaws. What she says isn’t carefully parsed lawyer speech and may not always be technically 100% accurate but it’s accurate about what matters and you don’t need to be a laywer to parse what she might be hiding in what she says.

[SaraJohnson]

I have not read the book yet to know what the “vetting expenses” entailed from Gov. Palin’s point of view. It may be wholly different that what McBackstabber is saying.

[Question_Assumptions]

The thing to remember is that when Palin was picked, her strategy concerning “Troopergate” went from cooperation to hunkering down with lawyers provided by the McCain campaign and if those were the lawyers and expenses that she’s talking about, I think surprise that they sent her the bill is reasonable. Of course nothing malicious might have been intended by it. After all, McCain’s wife is quite wealthy and I’m sure he and the other wealthy people in Congress would think nothing of a $50,000 charge.