Palin fired Alaska State Public Safety Commissioner because he asked about using a car seat for Trig (chad)

Seriously - Todd even said so.

OK he didn't actually say that, but that's what the headline in the Seattle Times implies.

Todd did give a 25 page statement to the guy investigating tasergate the jist of which was he though Palin's brother in law was a bad cop, dishonest and a threat to his family, but there was bad blood between Moneghan and Gov. Palin and questions about car seat use exacerbated it.

Overall, despite the crappy headline, Todd comes out looking pretty good from the accounts in the Seattle Times.

In his statement, Palin is unapologetic about his efforts to get Wooten fired, but he says he doesn't think those efforts had anything to do with Monegan's dismissal. He said his understanding is that Monegan lost his job due to a "dispute with the governor and her staff over budget issues and failure to fill trooper vacancies."

In his statement, Palin repeatedly discusses his quest to get Wooten dismissed, but said he never told Monegan to fire Wooten. He said Wooten threatened Palin's father-in-law, bullied people as a trooper, drove in his trooper car after drinking, improperly used his trooper car to shuttle his kids and falsified a workers' comp claim. Wooten was suspended for five days in 2006 after troopers investigated complaints against him.

"I had hundreds of conversations and communications about Trooper Wooten over the last several years with my family, with friends, with colleagues, and with just about everyone I could — including government officials," Palin said.

"I talked about Wooten so much over the years that my wife told me to stop talking about it with her."

He said by taking his concerns to Monegan he was following the instructions regular citizens get for complaining about troopers.

"There is absolutely nothing improper about lodging concerns about Trooper Wooten with Monegan or his predecessor — complaints about state troopers are supposed to go to the commissioner," he said.

source

posted by xgenghisx at 07:07 PM

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