Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (39 page)

Truth Be Told

F
rom Sarah's point of view, Walt Monegan's dismissal, while the subject of criticism, was, everyone agreed, within her rights—even if he was replaced with someone whose background we hadn't properly vetted. Her acting like a pricked balloon when given a heads up from her DPS commissioner over a child not being strapped into a car seat was totally irrelevant.

As firm as her ground seemed, on Thursday, July 17, the soil suddenly shifted, and her foundation of technical righteousness crumbled.

Monegan did not understand why Sarah dumped him; nor did one of our most prominent enemies. When Andrew Halcro interviewed Mike Wooten for his blog, the trooper made a number of startling claims, leading Halcro to conclude that Governor Palin had canned her DPS “commissioner because he fought too hard. Governor Palin fired Monegan because she understood too little and wanted a puppet as commissioner. But there was another reason that contributed to Monegan's ouster; a more alarming reason.” Hitting the nail hard and true, he summed up by writing, “But more alarming than any budget battle, Monegan said no to firing a State Trooper who had divorced Governor Palin's sister.”

The morning of Halcro's explosive blog, I drew the short straw and
had to escort Sarah to a speaking engagement for congressional candidates who'd flown up to Alaska to visit the 19 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. When we arrived, Sarah was, per usual, greeted as a celebrity. I had to literally push her through the throng to the podium. While she delivered her speech, KTUU television reporter Jason Moore tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, Frank, have you read this stuff on Halcro's blog about Mike Wooten?”

I half laughed, suggesting that anything originating from Halcro was not worth the cyber ink used to print it. “No, I don't follow Andy's blog.”

“Well, maybe you should. He's alleging Monegan was let go because of the governor's ex-brother-in-law. The trooper. I'd like to talk to her after this event, ask her a few questions.”

The smell of media gunpowder sent my nose twitching. “Sorry, not likely,” I said, my eyes roaming the room for further signs of ambush. “We have another pressing event to go to right away.” While a fabrication, I realized that surprise confrontations did not bring forth Sarah's finer moments.

The minute the governor finished her speech, I intercepted her. While she basked in the wild applause, getting Sarah to focus on my warnings about the reporters and Halcro's comments bore no fruit. Worse, she spotted blogger Sherry-Syrin-Whitstine in the audience and insisted that she publicly confront her, all the while unaware that massively embarrassing allegations were being fed like hungry fleas on a mutt's belly.

But the persistent Jason Moore nabbed Sarah before she could get to Syrin from Wasilla. “Governor, could I have a word with you about Monegan?”

“That's a personnel matter, and I really can't comment,” she said, still focused on a confrontation with an enemy.

“Andrew Halcro says it's about your brother-in-law. Monegan wouldn't fire him.”

Finally, in her face, I saw the realization that somehow her multi-year vendetta against Trooper Wooten was being exposed in the worst possible manner, and this situation represented yet another confluence of familiar enemies coming together: Wooten, Monegan, and Halcro.

Not to mention Lyda Green, who would shortly call for an investigation.

“Governor,” I said, clutching her elbow, “we need to move on. No time for interviews. Uh, our next appointment and we're running late.”

Another reporter, with camera lights glaring, shot off a question before I could redirect Sarah toward the exit. “Why did you fire Monegan? Was it because . . .”

Sarah's eyeballs came unhinged. She stammered and said something about Walt not being fired; he'd been reassigned to another agency but declined. Wooten? No connection. Halcro? Hadn't read him.

“Governor, your meeting!” I reiterated, more firmly this time. “We have to go.”

We left, but not before the damage was done.

Later that day, Todd came at this from another direction. He assumed that because Halcro's blog contained so much detail, he must have received inside information. Todd emailed:
“From Halcros blog, a bunch of lies, but he must have access to Wooten's investigators final report from Walt or John Cyr. I would check Walt's computer to check if he printed a copy of the report before he left his office and gave it to Halcro.”
It escaped my attention at the time, but Todd seemed to be suggesting that he knew what was in Wooten's file. How? Had he seen the file firsthand, despite later swearing under oath that he hadn't?

Fortunately, I ignored Todd's request to visit Monegan's computer.

Over the next six days, we convened around the clock rehearsing what information was seeping out to the public and how to handle things. There were no good answers. On Wednesday, July 23, Sarah met with several of her cabinet members, including me, Kris Perry, Sharon Leighow, and Deputy Chief of Staff Randy Ruaro. The governor sat hunched over, her hair hanging uncharacteristically limp and unbundled. With a pinched, pained expression, she appeared to have aged ten years in two days. On the radio, we listened to Dan Fagan interviewing Halcro: both were claiming that Sarah Palin ruined Walt Monegan's career because he wouldn't do her bidding and unfairly fire a trooper. Unanimously we cursed the evil things being said without
admitting that many of them were true. Finally Sarah lifted her head and said, “No one's talked to DPS about Wooten, have they?”

Incredulously, I looked around the room at the others. We all knew there was constant complaining about Wooten. Furthermore, many of us had, at one time or another, articulated Palin grievances when interacting with people in law enforcement. And, given that I'd related to Todd Palin every word I could recall after each DPS conversation, I had little doubt Sarah was aware of at least some of what I'd done and said. Her question defied common sense. Her suggesting that “No one's talked to DPS about Wooten” was her way of saying, “If asked, I want everyone to deny ever mentioning Mike Wooten to anyone, anytime. Okay?”

We were assembled in the governor's seventeenth-floor corner office with its view of downtown Anchorage. Storm clouds blanketing the horizon seemed suddenly to breach the windows and enter our room as I admitted, “I have, on more than one occasion, discussed Wooten. I've spoken to John Glass, others.”

“About what?” Sarah asked.

“Wooten on his snow machine, driving his kids to school in his patrol car.”

Sarah's attention turned to her BlackBerry as she let the conversation die. She didn't want to hear any of this because it would fly in the face of reality. A day or two later, she had Sharon Leighow issue the following statement: “Outright, the first family unequivocally says there was never any pressure by them, or the governor's staff, for Monegan to fire their former brother-in-law. Governor Palin says, ‘All I know is what the facts are and what the truth is. And the truth is never was there any pressure put on Commissioner Monegan to fire anybody.' ”

When I read those words, I wished the governor had edited out the part about her staff. Also, I'd have felt a bit more sanguine about the “truthfulness” if she'd managed to find a way to exclude her husband from that blanket denial as well. With calls for an investigation growing, surely the fact that Sarah knew this statement to be disingenuous at best would surface.

If she expected me to lie under oath, she'd be disappointed.

If asked about calls, I'd relay to the best of my knowledge exactly what was said.

And while I had heretofore avoided implicating Todd Palin, continuing to do so was going to be increasingly difficult. For anyone to suggest that his unrelenting goal was
not
to destroy Wooten, including having him dismissed as a state trooper, would seem on face to be ludicrous.

For days, Sarah, Todd, and the administration spokespersons continued to deny any connection with Monegan and Trooper Wooten. It was as if all those meetings between Todd and me had never existed. In their alternate version of reality, Todd hadn't hand delivered photos, articles, or so-called testimonials of Trooper Wooten's misdeeds, nor had he repeatedly instructed me to forward that information to people in government on his behalf. He conveniently forgot about relaying the results of the investigation of Wooten to members of the media.

What I didn't understand was why Sarah simply didn't say, “Yes, one of the reasons I let Walt go was that we had rogue troopers—including Trooper Wooten—who had no business wearing a badge or carrying a gun.” All she had to do was release everything that she and her husband had compiled on the guy. Who in their right mind wouldn't agree with her? Sarah's sister Molly seemed to understand the soundness of this strategy best. She phoned me shortly after one of my disastrous press interviews to remind me that Wooten had recently threatened, “Get ready for the show! I'm gonna take down your sister.” She believed that if all the dirty laundry were aired, the story would have a satisfactory conclusion.

Just before Chuck Kopp was forced to resign and muddy the waters even further, Assistant Attorney General Mike Barnhill interviewed me. I candidly told him everything I could remember, leaving nothing out about Todd, Sarah, Tibbles, Monegan, and Wooten. Afterward, Sarah and Kris Perry immediately asked about the interview. I shared all. They seemed nervous, and I could almost hear them thinking through their own stories so as to avoid contradicting anything I'd said.

The following day, Acting Chief of Staff Nizich summoned me. My
name was being bandied about as the key player in the Get-Wooten-fired saga. Dan Fagan incessantly hammered me on the radio, while the television stations rolled unflattering clips of me stumbling through interviews. Lack of sleep, concern for my governor, feelings of guilt, and grief for the pain I was causing my family translated into a gnawing in my gut as I entered Nizich's office. Without much fanfare, he told me that they had become aware of my conversation with Lieutenant Rodney Dial back in February. As I'd already told them all about it, I wondered what the big deal was. Then he launched his uppercut: “The call was taped.”

As he began playing the six-month-old recording, I had to admit the conversation sounded bad. All of the administration's protests about never pressuring Monegan were about to be dashed, and I was to blame. Not because I was alone in doing what the first family wanted me to do but because I'd been
recorded
doing what the first family wanted me to do.

Once we'd listened to the entire conversation, Nizich said in his best prosecutorial voice, “Frank, you say that others shouldn't do anything to embarrass the governor. Well, this will be highly embarrassing to her.”

Yeah, this
was
embarrassing, but the reasons went far beyond me. Even while Sarah swore that nobody put pressure on Monegan, she knew of my call because I'd told her about it only a day or two earlier. Sarah made the decision to misrepresent the truth, not me. I said nothing in my defense, though, because inconvenient facts were not on today's menu.

“Did the governor ask you to make this call?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did Todd?”

“No.”

Nizich asked why I felt compelled to suggest that I was speaking on behalf of the governor. I said it was a stupid mistake. He wanted to know how I had all this information. “Did you ever see Wooten's personnel file?”

With that question, there was no longer any way to protect Todd
and, as Nizich was one of our team leaders, I decided to let him fumble around with trying to downplay Todd's role in all this. “Mike, it came from Todd. Every file, letter, photo, and accusation . . . every bit of information on Wooten came from Todd. He was aware of this call to Dial, thanked me, and was pleased.

“Other calls? He sometimes knew ahead of time; always knew before or after. Always encouraged me, gave me information to pass along, let me know he appreciated my efforts. Wooten is a bad cop, Mike. I agreed that he needed to be dealt with for the good of the troopers, but my actions were always on behalf of Todd and Sarah, no matter what they say now or in the future.” I didn't say these things in anger at the First Dude; my defensiveness was directed at Nizich for not at least pretending to support my position. Later, when he was to blame for not vetting Kopp, he likely came to understand more fully that abiding by the demands of his bosses often had negative consequences. For now, he seemed intent on blowtorching me in a show of effective loyalty to the governor.

Later that day I spoke with Sarah. She wanted to know about the Dial recording. “Was he leading you on, fishing for information?” Sarah acted supportive, looking for an angle to attack back. She indicated they'd be releasing the tape to the public rather than wait for independent counsel Stephen Branchflower or her legislative enemies to do so. She felt it would ease some of the sting if she addressed the issue directly and gave her side of events first.

“This is on me,” I explained. “I'll take the hit. What's worse is I don't know how I'm going to avoid the question about Todd when this tape hits the media. Everything I had came from him. I already explained that to Nizich.”

“I'm expecting they'll lump Todd and me together in this. What's the worst they can do, Frank? Impeachment? I guess then I'll go home, and life can be normal again.”

Go home and be normal?
The way she said the words held no relief. She was miserable, and that made me feel like the single, solitary cause of her problem. In that moment, I foolishly believed nothing could get worse.