Who knew ABC News actually did follow up? They apparently have caught Palin in a lie from her debate with Senator Biden. Just what did she lie about? Follow the jump...
"When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars,"
So said Governor Sarah Palin during Thursday night's debate. One problem - it's a complete lie. Les Gara (D) an Alaska State Representative from Anchorage co-sponsored a resolution early in the year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund to divest all funds with ties to the Sudanese government. Apparently this numbered in the millions of dollars. The Alaska Permanent Fund for those that do not know is a 40 Billion dollar investment fund which distributes dividends to all Alaskan residents on a yearly basis (with exclusions for felons and habitation requirements). This is mainly oil money of course.
In it's research ABC News finds that:
But a search of news clips and transcripts from the first three months of this year did not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska's investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure.
So far not so good for Governor Palin. From there the news gets a little stranger. According to Rep Gara the lack of backing from the Palin administration killed the bill.
"I walked out of that hearing livid," Gara recalled of the February meeting. Because of the Palin administration's opposition to the bill, "We could not get a vote in that committee," he explained. At no point did Palin come out in support of the effort, Gara said.
To back that up ABC came up with the following
"The legislation is well-intended, and the desire to make a difference is noble, but mixing moral and political agendas at the expense of our citizens' financial security is not a good combination," testified Brian Andrews, Palin's deputy revenue commissioner, before a hearing on the Gara-Lynn Sudan divestment bill in February. Minutes from the meeting are posted online by the legislature.
The Republican co-sponsor of the resolution of course backed Governor Palin saying: "I know she was very strongly behind this." When asked how this could be considering Mr. Andrews above statement he responded thusly: "We don't all work in lockstep here," he said. "People have different opinions."
This is reprehensible and indefensible in my opinion. She went before the American people and told a flat out lie. This is not opinion, this is not up for debate this is a flat out lie. Lynn further tried to cover for Governor Palin by stating that she agreed to re-introduce the bill next January. When asked if Palin's support would have helped pass the bill he would not answer saying: "I'm not going to do this what if, what if, what if," he said. "These are hypotheticals." Amazing. I really hope this is going to be on the news tonight. This should help some of those undecided voters I would think.
ABC News Story
UPDATE: Apparently I was linking to the second page in the story, sorry for the confusion and I believe it has been fixed.
UPDATE #2: Wow rec list, not expected. One thing to add to this is to make sure and email ABC News and thank them for doing some real reporting. I honestly have been avoiding them since the atrocity that was the Democratic debate in the primaries, maybe they are finally stating to take a serious step towards correcting their news division.