Former Commissioner Monegan blows "Troopergate" wide open, gives interview with MSNBC

Former Commissioner Monegan blows "Troopergate" wide open, gives interview with MSNBC

By: Bobbi Linn
September 15, 2008, 8:40 PM CST

In a startling turn of events, one of the key figures in the "troopergate" investigation has decided to break his silence and give an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. After hearing that Palin was refusing to cooperate with the investigation, which was moved forward by vote of a bypartisan council, including 2 Republicans, 1 from Wasilla, Former Alaska Commissioner of Public Safety and former Chief of Police Walt Monegan says it is time to come forward and tell what really happened.

Former Commissioner Monegan has been a key figure in the "Troopergate" scandal, with Palin making numerous claims that Monegan has stood by her, backing her claim that she was not involved with the firing of Trooper Wooten, and that her firing of Monegan was due to budgetary issues and not the Wooten personal family issues as claimed in the reports of the investigation.

Monegan, in his exclusive interview with Rachel Maddow, says that he did not receive direct instructions to fire Trooper Wooten. When asked by Maddow if Palin's statements of not pressuring him were accurate, he said "No, that is not entirely true". He said "they said things like 'This man should not be a trooper and shouldn't represent the troopers'. He did receive lots of pressure, starting from January of 2007 with an email from Tod Palin continued until February of 2008, including emails Sarah Palin and her staff members. These emails contained personal information on Wooten, and character assessments of Wooten. They had pictures, documents, and other items that they presented to him regarding Wooten. Monegan said not only did they contact him, but they contacted other members of his staff. They asked him if this was the type of troopers he wanted in his department.

Wooten has been characterized as a "child abuser" by Palin's staff, and spokespersons. Wooten was never charged with child abuse, though state officials did charge him with misconduct.  In his own words,  he "accidentally let the tazer go off" onto his son when demonstrating it for him. He said his son was not harmed and that in fact, his son laughed about it, bragging about it and how he thought it was cool. He said the tazer was only armed at 1/10 of it's strength as a precaution. He said he did use poor judgement, and agreed with the officials findings. Wooten went on to say that he just wanted to spend his life being a good father and a good person, and that he regrets using poor judgement in this matter. Wooten went through a nasty divorce with Palin's sister, which is at the heart of the scandal.

Walt Monegan went on to say that he was never told why he was fired. He says "The first night after it happened, I walked away scratching my head". He had made statements just prior to being fired that he would handle budget issues handed down by Palin with no problems and was happy to do his part to make sure budget requirements were met. He said his only request was that trooper equipment needs be met at the same rate as previously issued to insure that they were able to perform their job with the same amount of efficiency. In fact, Palin went on record, and gave TV interviews, saying Monegan was the right guy for the job just prior to his firing. She said his expertise in handling these matters made him uniquely qualified to handle the task she asked of him with State Troopers and the drug problems s in Alaska. 

It wasn't until he saw Palin on the news the last few days talking about why he was fired that he realized what she was saying and how she portrayed herself, Monegan and Wooten in all of this. He said "Since then, watching how she jumped from one topic to another, it narrowed it down in my mind as to why I was fired."

Rachel Maddow goes on to ask "McCain's spokesperson now says Palin will no longer cooperate with the investigation. I know she had said in the past that she would welcome the investigation, that she had nothing to hide. What do you think of tonight's breaking news?" Monegan replied "Well, I'm disappointed on two areas here. First off, because initially she did say she was going to cooperate like you mentioned. But the other part, probably more fundamental, is that she campaigned and she was all of , I think, of Alaska's hope for an open and transparent government. And now it's being thwarted."

Rachel Maddow: 

"On the issue of her campaign for the Vice Presidency, the basis of this investigation is essentially that she abused her power. This investigation has gone from that initial charge to an allegation that she covered up and lied about what she did in order to avoid getting in trouble for it. Was it very clear and common knowledge at the time that members of her administration and even Governor Palin herself were pressuring you about firing this trooper? Was it clear and common knowledge, in state government, that "that" sort of behavior was inappropriate, out of bounds, and an abuse of power by the Governor's office?"

Walt Monegan:

"Well I would say that it was propably very clear and known to the senior command of the Department of Public Safety and the Alaska State Troopers, because we were all recipients of the phone calls, and ah, or the messages, or the whatever. I mean it was a constant kind of thing. But certainly by the fact that they, they probably already knew that this was inappropriate because they never used the words "fire him, we want you to fire him", so they merely inferred it. Which tells me as a former investigator myself, that they knew it was wrong."

Maddow went on to ask him why he decided to be publically available on this. He said "Well, I'm actually, I'm holding myself a little bit back on this because I have resisted going on air. There's plenty of news crews trying to put me in front of a camera and I have resisted that. The idea though everything that has happened, it harms, I think,  the people in the state of Alaska in regards to some of their safety issues, as well as the people themselves who are charged in carrying this out. You know, Governor Palin actually, we all had high hopes for in trying to bring the troopers and everybody else in government to where it needs to be. And honestly, if you were to go to talk to the vast majority of troopers that are stationed all across this big state, they started to see a light at the end of the tunnel, that they thought for a change now people were going to start to support them. And what that does is they in turn support everybody else. And I think right now, at least what I was told the other day,  was that has come to a screetching halt."

Madden:

"High and dry is the term that comes to mind here".

* To see the interview in it's entirety, go to:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26728409#26728409