Sarah Palin's Valley: fox guarding the henhouse, transparency, teflon, no wrongdoing. Sounds familiar?

On May 23 I wrote a post about Sarah Palin's Valley friends.

The executive director of the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce, Cheryl Metiva, had allegedly "inappropriately spent" money for personal expenses and without board approval.

Five board members resigned over the dodgy affair. (Some people have principles...)

The rest of the board, however, voted unanimously to keep Cheryl Metiva as executive director.

ADN reported a couple of days ago:

Board member Mike Gabel at a chamber meeting Tuesday said the board had voted unanimously to retain Cheryl Metiva as executive director in light of the results of an internal review.

He said it would be inappropriate to hold Metiva solely responsible for those expenses. He also said the total amount of the expenditures was "not significant" and was not to blame for the chamber's current financial crunch.

In an interview later, Gabel declined to provide the total amount of Metiva's expenses or give a ballpark figure. At the meeting, he asked three chamber members who are licensed financial professionals to volunteer to review the books.

It looks like Sarah Palin has taken the Valley code of conduct and extended it to the state. If we substitute the names and some words in the paragraphs above, they read exactly as some of the stories about Sarah Palin's ethics complaints...
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Sarah Palin's wrongdoings

It's nearly time for Sarah Palin to cough up the money she owes the state for her children's travel. The ethics complaint filed by Frank Gwartney last October wasn't frivolous after all!

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has until June 23 to reimburse the state for an estimated $10,000 in costs associated with trips taken by her children, under an agreement resolving an ethics complaint against her. The board found no wrongdoing on Palin's part. (as usual)

There were 72 trips and Sarah Palin will reimburse the state for 10 of them.

That's between her and the state of Alaska.

What I would like to know is how the IRS regard these trips. I have seen the Palin's tax return for 2008 but can't find the link anymore. I don't remember seeing any money for travel by her family members listed as income in there. There's no mention of travel on the 2007 document either.

Sarah Palin had to amend her tax returns and pay tax on her per diems. Did she pay tax on the family travel as well?

If she had to pay tax on her own per diems as a legitimate state official, I would expect the family travel to be even more taxable as they hold no official position in the Alaska government.

I re-read all the ADN articles related to both the per diems and the family travel but couldn't find any questions about tax on the latter. All I could find was that she was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but being a good girl she decided to pay the state back for some of the travel out of the goodness of her heart.

In an article dated October 5, 2008, Jack Bogdanski discusses this very subject:

There is no question whatsoever that the payments for the Palin children's travel -- $24,728.83 -- were indeed taxable to Governor Palin. The money paid for Todd Palin's travel -- $18,761.37 -- might possibly turn out to be tax-free, but it would be quite a stretch. And the per diems and other travel payments to the governor herself ($16,951) may or may not be taxable, but certainly not because state law or the state payroll office says so.

(More on this from TaxProf)

What's Sarah Palin's tax liability, then? Certainly not on the $10,000 she's giving back because she did nothing wrong, but what about all the other children's trips and Todd's travel during her time in office?
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Sarah Palin can't do anything wrong... ever

Oct 2008 Palin office defends charging state for children's travel

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is allowed to charge taxpayers for her children's commercial airline tickets because they represent the state wherever they go with her, the governor's aides said Wednesday.

"There's an expectation that the First Family participates in community activities," said Sharon Leighow, the governor's spokeswoman. "They are representing the First Family and the state of Alaska."

The AP reported that often the children were not invited to the events the governor attended, but she brought them anyway and charged the government.

The AP also reported that Palin ordered the children's travel expense forms changed in August to add language claiming that they performed official state business on the trips.

Leighow also defended other state-paid trips the girls made. She provided to the AP on Wednesday an e-mail that the governor's office received that invited Bristol to a five-hour New York conference in October 2007 that she attended with her mother. Palin charged the state $1,385.11 for her daughter's flight. They shared a room for four nights in a luxury hotel on Central Park.

But the conference organizer said Bristol was only invited after the governor said she was bringing her.

Feb 2009 Palin to reimburse state for family travel

Gov. Sarah Palin has agreed to reimburse the state nearly $10,000 to cover assorted costs related to various trips taken by her children in 2007 and 2008, but she's not admitting that she did anything wrong.

The charges at issue include the cost of airfare and one meal when daughter Bristol to accompanied Palin to New York City in 2007 for a women's leadership conference, according to the settlement agreement. State travel forms put that cost at about $1,400.

Other questioned trips were in Alaska, including one last year to the start of the Tesoro Iron Dog snowmachine race, in which Palin's husband, Todd, was one of the contenders.

The settlement was signed Monday by Palin and Anchorage lawyer Tim Petumenos, who was hired by the state Personnel Board to investigate the complaint.

"Nothing in this agreement constitutes an admission of wrongdoing, and none has been found," the document said.

Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, took it a step further.

"The governor has been exonerated of all wrongdoing in this ethics act complaint. There is no finding of wrongdoing and there is no ethics violation," Van Flein said in a news conference.

So was she exonerated?

"To be exonerated suggests a hearing on the merits and a conclusion. That was not what happened here," Petumenos said.

As Petumenos described it, the governor agreed not to contest certain charges. He agreed not to file a formal accusation or take the case to a hearing.

Governor's website:

"I am gratified that this settlement explicitly recognizes and establishes that I broke no laws or ethics rules.

It is troubling that this complaint was such an obvious political weapon, with an associate of a political adversary filing this and making it public – against state law – just before the election. Beyond objecting to the obvious gamesmanship that serves the public so terribly, I think it is important to prevent the ethics act from being used as a tool to ensure that only the wealthy can seek higher office in Alaska.

This is a big state, and I am obligated to – and intend to – keep Alaskans informed and meet with them as much as I can, from Barrow to Marshall to Ketchikan. At the same time, I am blessed to have a large and loving family, and the discharge of my duties should not prevent me from spending time with them."

Considering that the Personnel Board, the Attorney General and various "independent" investigators always provide cover for Sarah Palin's misdeeds, it's impossible for her to violate any statutes or break any laws.

A few bloggers are covering the latest ethics complaints that have been dismissed. I went back to Travelgate because there was clear evidence of wrongdoing, which in the eyes of the Personnel Board and other Palin minions means completely innocent, of course.

The fact that she paid back $10,000 to the state doesn't seem to indicate innocence. They made a deal before the matter could come before the courts. Giving money back and making deals doesn't mean she's innocent. They twist and spin the facts, make big statements to the press, Sarah Palin appears to be making a grand gesture, but the facts say otherwise.

Two things stand out:

“This is a big state, and I am obligated to – and intend to – keep Alaskans informed and meet with them as much as I can, from Barrow to Marshall to Ketchikan. At the same time, I am blessed to have a large and loving family, and the discharge of my duties should not prevent me from spending time with them."

The AP also reported that Palin ordered the children's travel expense forms changed in August to add language claiming that they performed official state business on the trips.

If Sarah Palin charged the state to be able to spend time with her children then deliberately ordered her staff to alter expense forms so the travel appeared to be connected to official state business, how is it not wrongdoing?

This was reported at the same time as the reimbursent:

It's the latest development related to Palin's expenses and perks. State officials announced Monday that Palin had turned in her state Chevy Suburban after learning she would owe income taxes on any personal use of it, and last week they said she also would have to pay taxes on expense money she received while living in her Wasilla home.

It seems to me that the IRS was closing in on her and with help from her "independent" associates she managed to wriggle out of some bigger trouble.

Last week I wrote about Cheryl Metiva: "Sarah Palin's Valley friends". The Mat-Su Frontiersman has since published an editorial:

Suspending executive director Cheryl Metiva until the audit is complete was the right move.

She comes under scrutiny because former misunderstandings regarding chamber credit card purchases indicates she did not understand the card was not for personal use — which seems unlikely — or she deliberately hoped those purchases wouldn’t come up under examination of the books.

In response, via a press release, Metiva said those issues have been cleared up. Which, reading between the lines, probably means she reimbursed the chamber for the purchases and her wrist was slapped. She should have been fired.

In the press release, she intimates, those charges are all that have occurred.

Does anybody notice certain similarities in the style of the two Valley women?

That's Valley ethics in a nutshell. Now Sarah Palin has spread her wings and turned it into Alaska ethics. If she makes it to Washington, the whole of the US would go into an ethics freefall.

Where's the IRS in all this?

Latest ethics complaints: Mudflats, Celtic Diva, Immoral Minority.
RECALL Sarah Palin
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Sarah Palin and creative excuses

Here are some snippets from an ADN editorial:

An investigator made short work last week of two ethics complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin. His conclusions made sense, given how the cases were framed.

But investigator Michael Geraghty and one of the complainants, Anthony Martin, never addressed one question about the governor's November trip to Georgia to campaign for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

Why did the state of Alaska pay per diem expenses to Kris Perry, director of the governor's Anchorage office, for her time in Georgia?

Spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said the state paid per diem to Perry in Georgia because the trip qualified as state business.

The administration argues that Chambliss was a vote for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and his opponent wasn't.

The Georgia trip was partisan politics. None of that should happen on the state dime, including Perry's per diem.

It seems ADN have changed their tune a little bit. Their comments section appears to have improved as well. ADN may have escaped the grip of the Sarah Palin fan site. Hurrah! But they still do very little investigative stuff and are not very cutting edge in their reporting...

The definition of state business as given by Sarah Palin's office is the usual vague, clutching at straws drivel: Sarah Palin's children are state officials and the governor is entitled to claim travel expenses for them, if anybody mentions ANWR while the governor and her staff are away from Alaska on partisan business, it automatically qualifies as state business, and so on and so forth.

The amount of Kris Perry's per diems is not very high, only $105. But the simple fact that it was claimed as state business at all proves that the system is open to abuse. The explanations given by Sarah Palin's office are creative at best. In my opinion, they are pathetic.

There's a major scandal involving politicians' expenses going on in the UK at the moment. Sarah Palin comes across as a rank amateur compared to them. The amounts are not that important, the real problem is accountability. When politicians and their staff are seen as dishonest, with their large or small snouts in the trough, it erodes their credibility.

The electorate deserves better, anywhere in the world.

ADN editorial
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Sarah Palin's Religiongate (updated)

Religiongate is taking shape... Sarah Palin's behaviour regarding church and state is not only unethical, it's unconstitutional as well.

Let's have a look at what has been uncovered so far:

$639.50 to address the "Master's Commission" at the Wasilla Assembly of God. This is just one instance of travel and per diem claimed from the state to attend a religious event.

$13,000 in taxpayer funds for the Governor and the First Family to attend at least 10 religious events and meetings with Christian pastors, including Franklin Graham, the son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham.

$25,000 in state money given to the Assemblies of God Juneau Christian Center.

Exerpt from the History of the Master's Commission:

Master's Commission was born in the heart of Larry Kerychuk. He began the Master's Commission program in 1984 in Phoenix, Arizona along with Pastor Carmen Balsamo as director. Students pledged one year of their lives to scripture memory, the study of the word, and ministry.

God has poured his blessing on Master's Commission and given opportunity for many other MC programs to develop in churches across the country and around the world. As the program spread from church to church the need arose for a network to be established to preserve the integrity and purity of heart with which this intense discipleship training program was created.

Master's Commission Wasilla Alaska (MC:WA) was started in September 2005. Pastor Ed Kalnins, our senior pastor, was part of the first Master's Commission class in 1984. His testimony and experiences from the program are a big part of why Master's Commission exists here in Wasilla. MC:WA was affiliated with MCIN in September 2006. We were recognized as an established and grounded program within the network at the 2007 Master's Commission Conference, joining with hundreds of other affiliated MC programs around the world.

Juneau Christian Center, which received $25,000 from the state for their program The Hub:

Our Purpose: To win souls and make disciples!
Our Passion: To Love God and Love People!
Our Path: Win, Connect, Disciple, and Send.

1. WIN: New believers are added to the church through relational evangelism, church services and outreaches.
2. CONNECT: Both new believers and new church members are "plugged in" to Juneau Christian Center. Life Group Leaders help these individuals become a part of the Life Groups that meet weekly in homes. (Please see Life Groups for more details.)
3. DISCIPLE: Individuals enter the School of Destiny which consists of five seven-week levels of study. The School of Destiny will equip believers.
4. SEND: As each believer progresses through the School of Destiny, he/she will branch out into a ministry.

The Hub, a youth program at JCC, was opened by Sarah Palin and can be found under the tab "Building for Destiny":

"Destiny has begun! The new youth center for children through high school youth is taking shape.

The purpose of The Hub is reach out to youth and parents in Juneau, giving kids a positive place: to grow in safety, build strong relationships, be encouraged to learn in surroundings that match their interests, acquire confidence and prepare for fantastic futures.

The Hub and Kid's Church will provide staff and activities for the "critical hours" after school for youth from 7th grade through high school.

The Hub is designed encourage kids to enjoy learning in academics, sports, music, art, finances, computers, health, and life skills. From IPOD/study stations and video game terminals to a pool tables and plasma screen TV's there is something of interest for everyone. Oh yes, The Hub also provides a cafe that serve smoothies, drinks and light food to encourage fellowship."

If Sarah Palin had donated $25,000 out of her own pocket, it would have been acceptable. What she does with her own money is her own business. I suppose these funds would have been approved by the Alaska Legislature? If that's the case, did they approve it thinking it was to fund a valuable youth project for the benefit of the community as a whole? Did they know it was a recruitment project for the School of Destiny?

How could addressing the Master's Commission of the Wasilla Assembly of God, which has the purpose of networking across the state to spread their own particular beliefs, be considered state business and expenses paid accordingly?

Sarah Palin has been known to worship at both these churches and if she wishes to promote their teachings she should do it with her own money, in her own time. Exactly the same principle should apply to other religious events attended by the Governor and the First Family. Why should the state foot the bill for events that under the Constitution are separate from the state?

The first amendment gives Sarah Palin the freedom to worship as she wishes. It also gives her the obligation to keep her religious preferences separate from the business of the state.

UPDATE: I have added this video and some new links. (March 24, 11:20)



Links
Master's Commission, Wasilla Assembly of God. Their statement about Sarah Palin (new link)
Juneau Christian Center, Assembly of God
The Hub, Juneau Christian Center. Letter re: Finance Committe (new link)
Further background information: Daily Kos, Talk to Action (new link)
Travel authorizations 2008
Article about travel to Wasilla for MC's graduation on ADN (new link)
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Sarah Palin, the state and religion (updated)

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion" or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Although the First Amendment only explicitly applies to the Congress, the Supreme Court has interpreted it as applying to the executive and judicial branches. Additionally, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the limitations of the First Amendment to each state, including any local government within a state.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, non-religion over religion, or religion over non-religion. Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the federal government.

Subsequently, under the incorporation doctrine, certain selected provisions were applied to states. It was not, however, until the middle and later years of the twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by state governments.

The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God's will from the governor's office.

What she didn't tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan taxpayers, who picked up the $639.50 tab for her airplane tickets and per diem fees.

An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as mayor and governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state.

Since she took state office in late 2006, the governor and her family have spent more than $13,000 in taxpayer funds to attend at least 10 religious events and meetings with Christian pastors, including Franklin Graham, the son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham, records show.

I couldn't find the travel claims for 2006 and 2007, but in 2008 there were quite substantial amounts claimed for the first family to attend religious events.

Taking the First Amendment into account, can religious events be classed as state business?

UPDATE: Sarah Palin donated $25,000 state money to Juneau Christian Center (Assemblies of God).



Wasilla story from Daily Kos. Juneau Christian Center story and other interesting things.
Travel authorizations 2008.
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Sarah Palin's soulmate found in Britain

Caroline Spelman must repay £9,600 of the Commons expenses she used to pay for nannying work - but any breach of the rules was "unintentional", MPs say.

The Commons standards and privileges committee said the senior Tory MP had accepted its findings and "will pay back the misapplied sums".

Mrs Spelman who had denied any wrong-doing apologised unreservedly after the committee's report was published.

She said payments to Tina Haynes in 1997/8 had been for secretarial work.

The allegation was that she had worked primarily as a nanny while being paid as a part-time constituency secretary.

Mrs Spelman, MP for Meriden in the West Midlands and shadow communities secretary, had insisted Ms Haynes was only paid with public funds for secretarial work between 1997 and 1998.

Full story from the BBC.

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Easy money from Sarah Palin!

A nice money making program was brought to our attention by Ratfish. If anybody collects a reward, don't forget to send Sarah a thank you note... 1140 W Parks Hwy, Wasilla AK 99654.

The IRS has a whistleblower program, with rewards of up to 15% to people “who provide specific and credible information to the IRS if the information results in the collection of taxes, penalties, interest or other amounts from the noncompliant taxpayer.”

Click here to see how the program works.

It should be easy money for anyone interested.

If anyone needs documentation to forward to the IRS, it is here.
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Invite Sarah Palin (and the First Family)

State of Alaska > Governor > Invite the Governor to Meeting or Event

Please fill out the form below if you would like to invite Governor Sarah Palin to attend or participate in an event. If you have any questions regarding our scheduling process, please contact the Governor’s scheduler at (907) 465-3500.

The Governor’s scheduling office will contact you to follow up per your request. You will be notified of the Governor’s availability for the requested date.


After filling out details about who you are, what the event is about, etc, you arrive at these sections:

Is the First Family invited?: *
Yes
No

Will the media be invited?: *
Yes
No

Will there be a podium and/or microphone?: *
Yes
No

Wow! Sarah has covered all bases. She can have her blessed loving family, a photo-op and a microphone to amplify her word salad speeches all rolled into one!

Provided the people making the invitation tick the "Yes" boxes, of course...

In which case her little problem with the children's expenses will be a thing of the past. She'll never be caught out again.

All Sarah has to do is pray a lot so the IRS witches are kept away from her expenses claims forms.

To see the form in full, click here.
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Sarah Palin is not a state employee

Sec. 39.20.060. Exclusion of governor and lieutenant governor from personnel laws.

Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the governor and lieutenant governor are not considered employees of the state for the purpose of state personnel laws relating to hours of employment, annual leave, sick leave, overtime, compensatory time, and travel allowances. This section does not deprive the governor and lieutenant governor of the right to participate in the state retirement system or in state group insurance plans.

There is a very big contradiction regarding this statute.

The governor is not considered an employee of the state. In which case the entitlement to collection of per diem and travel allowances as detailed in the Alaska Administrative Manual - Accounting Travel does not apply to her. The whole manual refers to the entitlement and rules for state employees or approved travellers on state business.

Is there a separate manual for the governor? If she is not a state employee for the purpose of travel allowances, she falls outside the scope for collecting the said allowances. In other words, she should not be entitled to collect per diems or charge the state for travel expenses. By the same token, her family should not be entitled to reimbursements because they are not state employees or approved travellers either.

Sarah Palin can't have it both ways. The statute excludes her from the provisions detailed in the manual, but she claims expenses according to the manual?

Obviously there is a possible get-out clause.

The statute may be interpreted as exempting the governor from complying with the rules in the manual, but retaining entitlement. So there should be a separate set of rules that applies to her regarding travel and other expenses.

If there are not clearly stated rules covering these expenses, does the statute mean that the governor is simply not accountable?

Why did the Personnel Board go through the pretense of investigating the ethics complaint filed by Frank Gwartney against the governor when they could have quoted the statute and end the matter there and then?

None of this makes any sense!

To read article by Lisa Demer and access links to statute, manual and other bits, click here.
The image is my little joke, any rule book is better than none...
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Sarah Palin blessed with large, loving family

Dear friends over the pond, do you believe Sarah Palin's expenses for herself and her family appear to be a bit dodgy? Do you think she's entitled to charge the state $60 for a phone call from the comfort of her own home? Or to be reimbursed for her children's travel because she is blessed with a big, loving family and wants to spend time with them? Do you consider her children to be state officials, conducting state business on these trips?

No?

Would you like some tax experts to have a good look at all her expenses claims since she took office? Tim Petumenos, on behalf Personnel Board, did go through forty out of seventy-two of Sarah Palin's claims and found that in only nine instances the children were not really serving the interests of the state of Alaska. Have they been appointed by the governor to perform specific state duties? Maybe Mr Petumenos is not as knowledgeable as the guys from the IRS and decided to cut a deal and put the matter to bed because he was out of his depth and it would be too much hard work to take it any further, who knows?

The press release from the Governor's office regarding this matter is quite interesting, here is a fine justification offered by Sarah Palin:

“This is a big state, and I am obligated to — and intend to — keep Alaskans informed and meet with them as much as I can, from Barrow to Marshall to Ketchikan,” Palin said in a written statement. “At the same time, I am blessed to have a large and loving family, and the discharge of my duties should not prevent me from spending time with them.”

So they're not state officials, they're just loving children? The state has to pay for travel so they can be together? Something is not right...

To find out exactly what is legitimate and what isn't, once and for all, ask the experts!

If you suspect or know of an individual or company that is not complying with the tax laws, you may report this activity by completing Form 3949-A. You may fill out Form 3949-A online, print it and mail it to: Internal Revenue Service Fresno, CA 93888 If you do not wish to use Form 3949-A, you may send a letter to the address above. Please include the following information, if available:

• Name and address of the person you are reporting.

Sarah Palin, 1140 W Parks Hwy, Wasilla AK 99654

• The taxpayer identification number social security number for an individual or employer identification number for a business. (Not known)
  
• A brief description of the alleged violation, including how you became aware of or obtained the information. (Describe the best way you can)
  
• The years involved. (From December 2006)
  
• The estimated dollar amount of any unreported income. (In excess of $22,000)
  

Your name, address and daytime telephone number. Although you are not required to identify yourself, it is helpful to do so. Your identity can be kept confidential.


Simple, uh? If a lot of people do it, they're bound to take an interest. Go on... do it. The worst that could happen is for the IRS to agree with Sarah Palin and decide that it's OK for people to charge their employers for their children's travel so they can perform their duties and have their large, loving, blessed families with them, everywhere. Hey, that would be good news for working parents!

Changing the subject a little bit, the Palin children must have an abysmal school attendance record, don't you think?

To go to the IRS page, click here.
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When is fraud not fraud?

Something has been bugging me about Sarah Palin giving part of her children's travel expenses back to the state. It bugged me since I wrote the previous post about a pretend slap on the wrist.

ADN updated their report to include the following:


"Nothing in this agreement constitutes an admission of wrongdoing, and none has been found," the document said.

Palin's lawyer, Thoman Van Flein, took it a step further.

"The governor has been exonerated of all wrongdoing in this ethics act complaint. There is no finding of wrongdoing and there is no ethics violation," Van Flein said in a news conference.

As Petumenos described it, the governor agreed not to contest certain charges. He agreed not to file a formal accusation or take the case to a hearing.


Let's put this whole business in a clearer context, starting with a quote from Sarah Palin:

"I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't." Now she's the Governor. She charges $60 per diem to make a phone call from her own home.

1. Sarah Palin filed expenses claims that included the cost of her children's travel to several events, when the children were clearly not attending them on state business.
2. Charges were challenged by reporters.
3. The governor had forms amended, changing the language to make it clear that the children were invited to events as part of First Family.
4. Ethics complaint filed.
5. Complaint investigated by the Personnel Board. All members of the board are appointed by the governor.
   
6. The same person who "investigated" Troopergate on behalf of the Personnel Board is asked to look into the claims.
7. They come to an arrangement where she pays "x" amount back and no further questions will be asked and no charges brought against the Governor.
   

If the reporters had not asked some questions, if the ethics complaint had not been filed, she wouldn't have to reimburse the state for anything. She would have kept the money for at least nine of the children's trips. Sarah Palin was aware that the expenses claims were fishy and deliberately had them amended so she could keep the money. The simple fact that she has been asked or offered to pay the money back shows that the claims were false.

Where I come from, this is called fraud. When an employee, any employee, files inaccurate expenses claims from their employers, gets the expenses reimbursed, have them challenged in some way, proceeds to amend the claims to try and validate them, the claims are investigated and this person is asked to pay the money back, the employee doesn't just pay the employer back, the employee gets fired and possibly faces criminal charges for fraud. No deals.

What makes this case any different? The claims were false, money was paid, claims were deliberately amended, claims were found to be indeed inaccurate and money has to be returned.

I believe it's about time Sarah Palin's ethics violations were investigated by an independent body, people a bit higher up who won't make any deals on terms dictated by Sarah Palin herself. She has to be investigated by an authority that won't validate fraud.

Updated report: ADN
Image: FBI logo
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Sarah Palin gets a (pretend) slap on the wrist

Sarah Palin has agreed to reimburse the state for the costs of nine trips for her children. An agreement announced today settles an ethics complaint filed in October.

The settlement was signed by Palin and Anchorage lawyer Tim Petumenos, who was hired by the state Personnel Board to investigate the complaint.

The settlement doesn't specify how much Palin will repay the state, but Petumenos said he was given an estimate from the governor's staff of about $7,000.

The vast majority of trips that included the Palin children appeared appropriate, Petumenos said. He said he examined more than 40 trips.

When Alaska reporters began asking for the records, before she joined McCain's ticket, Palin had her staff amend records to state clearly that the first family had been invited.

When Petumenos was asked to examine the complaint in October, he was also investigating "Troopergate". Petumenos found that Palin didn't violate the law or abuse her power in that case.

Sarah Palin received reimbursements totaling $43,500 for travel and lodging for her family in connection with state business. Of that total, around $22,000 was for her children’s travel and the rest was for her husband Todd.


What a lovely and generous gesture in the part of our Sarah!

This time Petumenos was cautious enough to find a little bit wrong and they settled at $7,000.

Otherwise people might start thinking that Petumenos and the Personnel Board are in Sarah Palin's pocket...

Full report: ADN
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Sarah Palin spins

Palin Communications Director Bill McAllister compared Sarah Palin's expenses to those of former Gov. Frank Murkowski during a press conference held in Anchorage.

"She has been unfairly attacked for a comparatively minor amount of per diem." McAllister said.

He presented charts showing that Palin had spent less money on travel than did the former governor, but repeatedly said that what was not an attack on Murkowski.

Did Murkowski take the whole family, right down to the family parrot, on trips to events they were not invited to, then later amended official forms stating that the First Family were invited to draw raffle tickets?

Sarah Palin swept to an easy victory over Murkowski, in part because of the Murkowski administration's controversial purchase of a jet. Sarah campaigned against the jet, and then sold it after she became governor.

Sarah herself was heard telling Franklin Graham that she sold the Murkowski jet because it couldn't land on gravel.

Spin, baby, spin!

Full report on Juneau Empire
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