lol, somewhat of a tangential question. If a President gets elected, then say gets caught for doing something minor and the punishment is jail for 30 days. Can he remain President during that time? As well same question but something that would usually get 6 months in jail.
Before Palin was appointed VP, it sure looked like the special investigator (not prosecutor, mind you) could have called up Todd and he'd have testified. What is the criminal penalty for an ethics violation? It is an ethics investigation, after all, and the violation is far from proven. Here's another article that you may find interesting (I did / fishing expedition): http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/090508/sta_328880478.shtml Story last updated at 9/5/2008 - 9:39 am <mcc head="">State Troopers file ethics complaints</mcc> <mcc subhead="">Union calls for investigation into Gov. Palin's disclosure of personnel file </mcc> <mcc byline1="">By Alan Suderman | </mcc> <mcc byline2="">JUNEAU EMPIRE</mcc> <mcc story=""> The Alaska State Troopers' union wants the state to investigate Gov. Sarah Palin and her staff to determine if they broke state rules or ethics laws by illegally disclosing the governor's ex-brother-in-law's confidential personnel file. The Public Safety Employees Association released a copy of a complaint it said it filed with the attorney general's office Wednesday. The PSEA represents Trooper Mike Wooten, a key player in the political drama known as Troopergate that's ensnared the governor in questions of possible ethics violations. Palin has said Wooten - who was suspended for five days in 2006 for misconduct, including illegally shooting a moose and using a Taser on his stepson in a "training capacity" - is a rogue cop who has made threats against her. Wooten's union, the PSEA, has said Wooten, who is stationed outside of Anchorage, has been unfairly targeted by the governor because he went through a bitter divorce with her sister. PSEA Executive Director John Cyr said "somebody in the Governor's Office has an unhealthy appetite ... for Trooper Wooten's records." He said the complaint had been in motion for weeks and was not in response to Palin recently being picked as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate. The complaint said Palin; Frank Bailey, director of Boards and Commissions; Frank Thompson, division director of the Department of Administration; and Mike Monagle, acting director of the Division of Workers' Compensation in the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, should be investigated for allegedly breaking a state ethics act that provides substantial penalties against those "who unlawfully disclose an employee's personnel records." "Criminal penalties may also apply," the complaint said. The complaint focuses largely on a recorded phone conversation in February in which Bailey tells Trooper Lt. Rodney Dial there was some "really funny business" in Wooten's workers' compensation claim and that Wooten had "lied on his application." "(Wooten) said that he didn't have any physical impairments and come to find out he was rated in the military, and that was discovered after he retired (from the military)," Bailey said. When asked by Dial where he'd gotten that information, Bailey responded: "Well, I'm a little bit reluctant to say but ... over in (the Department of Administration) is ... where we hold workers' comp." He added that Wooten "was caught on an eight-mile snow machining trip ... so we collected statements that we forwarded on to workers' comp there. And so we started seeing the ... application from that point." "And that's while - while he was a trooper?" Dial asked. "Correct," Bailey said. "Really? OK," Dial said. A retired director of the Department of Administration's Labor Relations Division, Art Chance, said when he worked for the state he never had legal access to state employees workers' compensation records because they were highly restricted. He said Bailey, whom Chance described as a lower-level aide to the governor, never should have had access to Wooten's personnel files. "I'm pretty confident Frank Bailey broke a law," said Chance, who said he is a Palin supporter. "If I'm a supervisor in the division of widget making, I don't have the right to personnel information outside the division of widget making." Two weeks ago Palin suspended Bailey, with pay, after she made the phone call public. Palin said she suspended Bailey because it could be perceived that he was applying undue pressure to have Wooten fired on her behalf. Bailey has said no one asked him to make the call. Palin is under investigation by the state Legislature regarding allegations she tried to pressure her former commissioner of Public Safety, Walt Monegan, to fire Wooten and then fired Monegan after he refused. The governor has denied any wrongdoing and has said Monegan, who was fired in July, was dismissed for policy reasons. Her private attorney, Thomas Van Flein, also filed a complaint with the state's personnel board, asking for it to investigate the Monegan firing in lieu of the Legislature. In that complaint, Van Flein accused the state troopers of doing a "negligently or deliberately slipshod" investigation into complaints Palin and her family made against Wooten. Palin's spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, directed questions regarding PSEA's complaint to Van Flein, who did not return calls seeking comment. But NBC news reported Thursday that the McCain-Palin campaign said Palin had never improperly accessed Wooten's records, and Todd Palin, the governor's husband, had given Bailey information about Wooten that came from divorce proceedings. "If that is the case, then it may not be a ethics violation. It is just utterly disappointing," Cyr said, adding he still thought an investigation was warranted. Monagle, who is accused in the PSEA's complaint of trying to obtain Wooten file for the governor two weeks ago but denies those claims, said confidentiality laws limit who has access to workers' compensation records to employees, employers, insurance companies and claim administrators. As a state employee, Wooten's workers' compensation file could legally be accessed by the governor and her staff - his employers, Monagle said. "I mean, she is the chief executive officer," Monagle said. But in practice, Monagle added, only state employees who have a legitimate need for workers' compensation files have access to them, and they aren't distributed "willie nilly." Monagle said workers' compensation records are held by the Department of Labor and that information is sometimes shared with the Department of Administration's Division of Risk Management. Neither Bailey nor his lawyer, personal injury attorney Greg Grebe, could be reached for comment Thursday. Bailey was supposed to appear before the Legislature's investigator Wednesday to be deposed, but did not. Grebe was quoted by the Anchorage Daily News as saying the governor and the Legislature needed to agree on who has jurisdiction to investigate the Monegan firing before his client testifies. The next step in the process for the PSEA's complaint is for the an independent investigator to be hired to review the charges and look into the allegations, according to Assistant Attorney General Judy Bockmon. She said she couldn't comment on any particular complaint. Bockmon said any complaint involving the governor is referred to the state's personnel board, which is the same board the governor's attorney filed a complaint with on Tuesday. The board must hire an independent investigator to look into the charges and make a report back to the board, Bockmon said. If any evidence of a potential crime was uncovered, it would be forwarded to an appropriate law enforcement agency, she added. </mcc>
I think the President is immune from prosecution while in office. That's what I recall reading, which is why there's often talk about prosecuting a President "once he's left the position." But that may be entirely wrong.
I think SCOTUS ruled that a president can be prosecuted for things like hitting a pedestrian while driving a car (the example I remember from the time) while in office. Paula Jones was able to sue him while in office as well. Those things not related to doing his job, he's a citizen like the rest of us in his personal life and not above the law. At least that's the reasoning.
Wait, you see nothing shady in any of this? The Obamas wished to purchase a house. Unfortunately for them, the owner wouldn't sell the house without also selling the attached lot. Along comes State Senator Obama's largest contributor who agrees to purchase the adjacent parcel at the same time the Obama's purchase the home. Mind you, this is a real estate investor, who then chooses to do nothing but the land. I spent considerable time in Hyde Park. The notion that you wouldn't develop the land in that neighborhood is crazy. You could put a home on it and sell it for seven figures. Up until the matter became public, the Obama's used that Rezco parcel as their yard. When the deal was seen as shady, they did something even worse--the Obamas bought a small parcel from Rezco. Why was that worse? Because the purchase of that parcel put the Rezco parcel beneath the square footage on which you can develop a house in Kenwood/Hyde Park. So why would a real estate investor sell a small slice of their parcel which would render their entire investment worthless? Hmmm.... Yeah, luckily Chicago politics are so clean, or I might think there was something rotten in Denmark.
Unless you fire them for the wrong reasons . . . hence the investigation . . . or attempted investigation.
We should investigate anyway, there's surely something potentially wrong here. Send out the subpoenas!
Update to the story (I would not want to be him): WASHINGTON - The FBI searched the residence of the son of a Democratic state lawmaker in Tennessee over the weekend looking for evidence linking the young man to the hacking of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Monday. David Kernell, 20, has not returned repeated phone calls or e-mails from the AP since last week. He is the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat and chairman of Tennessee's House Government Operations Committee. The father declined last week to discuss the possibility his son might be involved in the case.
We've gone through this before. I believe that people should be able to fire anyone as long as employment laws aren't violated.
Well if we gone through this before, why do you say there is nothing wrong with firing someone who serves at your pleasure. It's just not true . . . there potentially could be something wrong with it. Maybe where we disagree is the idea that gov't employees are held to even higher standards because of their position. Let me ask you, if people were fired all because someone got involved in a messy divorce with the sister of the governor . . . would you consider that wrong and an abuse of power?
Why? People should be able to be hired and fired at will, especially those in management. Do you believe Mr. Monhegan held himself to the highest standards? If so, check his record and his attempts to undermine his boss. But it wasn't the divorce. Being a cop takes a certain temperment, and this officer clearly doesn't have it. He admitted to tasering his 11 year old stepson. He admitted to striking his wife. He has multiple accusations of drinking on duty. If he's a bad cop, and Gov. Palin has personal knowledge that he's not fit to wear the uniform, then shouldn't her personal knowledge be used for the benefit of the Alaskan people? I'd like cops that were stable and took their responsibilities seriously. All that aside, Gov. Palin never asked that he be fired. Mr. Monhegan was fired for other reasons, which were clearly sited, but he's trying to extract his pound of flesh by pointing to this trooper.
Which I chose not to accept, precisely because I believe his assumption to be wrong. Why do I believe it to be wrong? Because if this guy were some sort of Archibald Cox, Gov. Palin would have found someone to replace him whose first order of business would have been to fire this trooper. He's not only still working, he's been promoted. If Gov. Palin indeed made those moves for the reasons specified by her opponents, I find it strange that her former brother-in-law is still employed as a State Trooper.
There's a saying about Alaskan men: The odds are good, but the goods are odd. You can't hold Alaskan men to the standards of other states. They're just different. By Alaskan standards, all this doesn't necessarily make him a bad cop--just a typical Alaskan kookoohead.
