Palin found to violate ethics laws

This investigation of Palin's actions began one month before McCain announced her as his running mate. If he was aware of this situation, I guess kowtowing to the religious nutbags (by picking Palin) trumps having a running mate with ethics problems. If he was not aware of it, he's an idiot.

Can Joe Six-Pack and hockey moms relate to ethics violations?

Alaska Inquiry Concludes Palin Abused Powers

By SERGE F. KOVALESKI

Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded. The inquiry found, however, that she was within her right to dismiss her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who was the trooper’s boss.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Gov. Sarah Palin at a campaign rally in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday.

Text of Report (pdf)

A 263-page report released by lawmakers in Alaska on Friday, found that Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had herself exerted pressure to get Trooper Michael Wooten dismissed, as well as allowed her husband and subordinates to press for his firing, as a result of a divorce proceeding between him and Ms. Palin’s sister in 2005.

“Such impermissible and repeated contacts,” the report states, “create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of that displeasure.” The report concludes that the action was a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

What now lies ahead is not fully known at this point. Ms. Palin could be censured by the Legislature, but that is unlikely.

Ms. Palin, who was elected governor in 2006, was tapped as Senator John McCain’s running mate in late August, about a month after an inquiry was opened into her firing of Mr. Monegan. Her political ascendancy took what was essentially a state personnel matter and elevated it into a national issue, one that has been simmering in the background of an increasingly heated presidential race.

the whole thing is here.