Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (33 page)

I
nto the winter of 2007–08, the First Dude ranted ever more frequently over his disgust with the lack of action. “Why the hell doesn't Walt get rid of Wooten?” This was a question Todd asked dozens of times in escalating frustration. For me, Todd Palin's indifference to my real job—placing over two hundred board applications a year and identifying, reviewing, and initializing placements of dozens of judgeships for Governor Palin's ultimate approval—grew wearisome. While I agreed with Todd's assessment of Wooten—bad cop, being protected—after more than nine months of regular and lengthy calls, visits, and demands to do something, they became a cruel thief of my already minimal time with job and family. Todd's was an ongoing assignment I couldn't just tackle and get off my desk. As Kris Perry was my closest confidante in the administration, I discovered that she too was hearing from Todd incessantly. “Todd just called again about Wooten” became the second most frequent topic behind “What kind of mood is Sarah in today?”

In November 2007 Todd launched me into another project. Only days earlier, I'd learned from Todd that Wooten and the state of Alaska settled his countersuit after the April contravention of his prior claim. As part of the settlement, he underwent back surgery at the
state's expense. Todd, who had eyes and ears across the state reporting on Wooten's whereabouts, sent me an email in which he said,
“Must have been a serious back operation, he's already driving around town. I wonder what kind of back operation he had if he's already up and running.”
Minutes later, he sent a second email.
“If he had back surgery, the question should be what kind of medication are you on and are you driving under the influence of strong medication. He was spotted driving today.”

There is no way to overestimate Todd's obsession with punishing Wooten. His hope became that if we hurled enough accusation spaghetti against the wall, no matter how frivolous, something might stick. As thin as many of these secondhand reports appeared, I dutifully passed along each one to Brad Thompson and anyone else in law enforcement willing to lend an ear.

Secretly, I prayed that Wooten would just quit his job and put an end to the madness.

In the background, there were two high-profile trooper scandals Todd also focused on as evidence of a blue-line conspiracy. One had to do with Alaska State Trooper Jesse Osborn, who shot and killed an unarmed disabled man at a Kenai highway pullout in 2003. That case was under review and litigation, eventually being settled in 2010 when an arbitrator awarded $150,000 to the deceased man's family.

A second case received even more attention. Trooper Eric Spitzer was charged with using excessive force in 2002 when he arrested Kevin Patrick for driving a snowmobile drunk in Emmonak. Spitzer, at six foot four and 230 pounds, dwarfed the five-foot-four, 140-pound Patrick, yet used a Taser on Patrick while handcuffing him. Examined by a nurse two days after the arrest, Patrick was found to have eight separate burns on his back, shoulder, and chest. When he sued the state in 2005, a jury awarded him $1,800,000. After the state appealed, the parties eventually settled for $575,000 in September 2007.

Because the Spitzer case occurred in rural Alaska, where law enforcement had a history of troubling run-ins with the Native community, and this was the third time that the Department of Public
Safety had to settle excessive force charges against Trooper Spitzer, it was a particularly sensitive matter. Sarah was sufficiently nervous about being implicated in the settlement that she wrote Monegan,
“What I need is just the factual info that proves this was a DPS issue and I was not a part of any settlement. I was not advised, nor requested to participate in this . . . as is the appropriate way of handling such a case. I ask because I've already heard the accusation that ‘I' settled with a bad cop.”
In other words, because her image was on the line, Monegan's task was to make certain people realize that this was
his
responsibility, not the governor's. In reviewing trooper misconduct cases in general, Sarah let Monegan know in a February 2008 email exactly what she thought should happen to rogue troopers:
“we weed out bad apples in ranks that lead some Alaskans to have this distrust of public safety efforts.”
From prior pushbacks, Sarah had learned to couch Wooten criticism in broader brushstrokes. Without a doubt, Walt Monegan and others copied on her bad-apple message (me, Kris Perry, Mike Tibbles, Attorney General Talis Colberg, and several others) understood with arctic-air clarity that Sarah's ex-brother-in-law was exhibit one in the need-to-weed-out imperative.

Todd frequently sent articles on both cases. He would suggest, “Walt would rather cost taxpayers money over and over for these dirt-bags instead of pissing off the union and firing their asses.” Todd's rage blossomed, and the guilty parties expanded to include Colberg and Tibbles. “They're all worthless,” he would say. “Doin' nothin'.” Hearing his anger, I became increasingly committed to staying off that villainous list of do-nothings. But that wasn't the whole story with me. I genuinely fretted about the reputation of law enforcement and the abuses, not to mention that I feared Wooten did pose a physical danger to the governor's family.

But Todd never let go of any aspect of this case, no matter how far removed from the present. At one point, he had asked both Chief of Staff Tibbles and Attorney General Colberg for copies of the interviews that Sergeant Ron Wall had conducted on behalf of Colonel Julia Grimes in the original 2005 investigation. In particular, Todd believed that Wall had deliberately turned off the tape recorder when interviewing his daughter Bristol during her account of Wooten's tasering
episode. If only Todd could get hold of that document, he felt he'd have the smoking gun needed to expose the blue-line cover-up; in essence, he'd prove that Wall had doctored evidence. When Tibbles and Colberg failed to secure these documents, Todd asked me to try. I made inquiries, had no luck, and realized fully that with every incident, his emotional pressure gauge was trending further into the red zone. I imagined that in thirty years he'd be in a rocking chair with a salt-and-pepper goatee, a great-grandson bouncing on one knee, and Wooten's open file balanced on the other.

As always, I promised to do whatever I could and speak with anyone who would listen and might have some input. Later that February, I phoned Lieutenant Rodney Dial in what became the infamous recorded conversation that hibernated for six months and reappeared shortly after Sarah dismissed Monegan. The call began with a discussion of the Public Safety Employees Association contract negotiations. As director of boards and commissions, my interest was natural, and I thought that Dial might have some insight into the thought processes of those with whom we'd be negotiating.

As with most conversations, I felt I shouldn't let opportunity pass, so I launched into a well-rehearsed critique of Wooten and included the bit about the trooper's driving his children to school while on duty. As the tapes revealed as well, I additionally strayed into Wooten's past offenses, paraphrasing language I'd heard from Todd often enough to dream about it. “Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads,” I told him. “You know, why on earth hasn't—why is this guy still representing the department? He's a horrible recruiting tool, you know.” I also added a sentence to reflect Todd's conspiracy theory: “I mean, from their perspective, everybody's protecting him.”

When I immediately repeated back the entire Dial conversation to Todd, he was clearly pleased with my initiative. “Wow, you think these guys will finally do something?” he asked. “Good stuff, Frank. Great.” Within a day or two of this exchange, Todd demonstrated his gratitude by asking me if I'd consider becoming chief of staff if Sarah got rid of Mike Tibbles. “Sarah needs someone she can trust,” he said. “That's you or Kris, and she is way too emotional.”

Todd repeated the request over the next few weeks. Although I was
flattered by Todd's confidence in me (“You just get things done, and Sarah likes that”), I was more interested in becoming deputy chief of staff. The governor needed a COS who knew how to speak to the public, a talent I simply didn't possess.

Shortly after Sarah appointed Monegan as DPS commissioner in early 2007, he named former Wasilla chief of police John Glass deputy commissioner. Glass and Todd knew each other and shared an interest in racing snowmobiles. At Todd's instigation, Glass became someone to whom I relayed Wooten developments on at least three occasions. Our first conversation, the day after my recorded call to Lieutenant Dial, began with my asking—at Todd's request—about the Alaska Police Standards Council, the body charged with disciplining law enforcement personnel, and past levels of trooper discipline. Naturally, Wooten's name spilled out.

Glass was aware of my conversation with Dial and therefore knew what was on my mind. He quickly volunteered, “Frank, the Wooten matter has been taken care of.” Later, speaking to investigators, Glass stated incorrectly that he told me Wooten had been thoroughly investigated and suspended without pay. At best, Lieutenant Glass's recollection is faulty, because the first I ever heard of Wooten's suspension was after the trooper released his own file in July 2008. To the contrary, when I spoke to Todd about this conversation, I specifically mentioned that I cynically thought Dial's characterization meant DPS had swept the matter under the proverbial rug.

At Todd's insistence and with his prior knowledge, I phoned Glass a second time in early March to specifically address the issue of Wooten's dropping off his children while on duty. Glass said he would look into the allegations but explained that even if it occurred, it was not a firable offense.

“John, on top of all these other problems, how can this not be important?” I went through the lengthy grievance list. “You guys are just protecting him,” I continued, begging him to see the light and care enough to get off his rear end and take action. Glass said he'd make inquiries, a response I interpreted as just one more brush-off.

From reading the
Branchflower Report
, I'd learn that I was not alone in my calls to law enforcement personnel. While I never did
speak directly to DPS Commissioner Monegan about Wooten (as Monegan claimed to the media), Chief of Staff Mike Tibbles did several times. Kris Perry, Attorney General Colberg, and at least three others in the administration made over two dozen calls inquiring about Wooten. Todd, it turns out, made many of his calls directly from the governor's office.

Entering 2008, we juggled other time-wasting balls in addition to the trooper-bashing main event. One of these was our ongoing priority—that began in the early days of the campaign—to rig issue-oriented opinion polls by television stations KTUU and KTVA as well as radio stations KFQD-AM and KENI-AM, among others. When a January KTUU poll asked, Do you agree with Governor Palin's decision to reject a pipeline proposal from ConocoPhillips?, we frantically submitted votes. Scott Heyworth went above and beyond, getting us a two-point swing within just fifteen minutes. We won that vote handily. A few days later, the station ran another poll: Do you support or oppose the Clean Water Initiative if it harms the state's mining industry? We tried, but lost that one. (Our sentiments were with the mining industry.)

While I actively participated, Ivy Frye, now working in the Department of Administration in my former position, became our after-hours polling watchdog, generating hundreds of responses as needed. For a KTUU listener poll about the gas line—our signature issue—she sent an email blast to her exhaustive contact list, exhorting everyone to vote multiple times. She counseled discretion, as our efforts might be “taken out of context,” she wrote, and people might think we were rigging the results. Which, of course, we were. Another KTUU poll asked Alaskans if polar bears should be added to the endangered species list. Sarah strongly opposed this designation, as it would negatively impact Arctic drilling and her pipeline plans. She joined Ivy and emailed friends and family, urging them to vote—multiple times—on this vital issue. During the live online polling updates, it was not unusual for us to email back and forth detailing the minute-by-minute changes in the numbers. While attending legislative
meetings, there were times when Sarah, using hard to track BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry PIN messaging, would direct us to target a particular poll or supply updates.