This story is just starting to come out. In light of the AK Superior Court decision earlier this week, seven state employees said that they will now honor the subpoenas and testify in the Troopergate investigation.
http://www.adn.com/...
Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg announced today that seven state employees will now honor subpoenas to testify in the legislative investigation of the Troopergate affair.
Keep in mind that this is the AG that had earlier tried to block the state employees from honoring the subpoenas.
"Despite my initial concerns about the subpoenas, we respect the court's decision to defer to the Legislature," Colberg said. "We are working with Senator Hollis French to arrange for the testimony of the seven state employee plaintiffs."
The Troopergate report is still due to come out on Friday. My understanding is that it would have come out regardless of whether the subpoenas were honored, because many of the parties involved have already had depositions taken. But, having follow up testimony under oath with the special investigator would seem to lend further credence to whatever findings are in the report.
With McCain ready to go nucular with the smears, any clear-cut findings that Palin abused her executive power could snuff out that partisan crap fire in a hurry.
UPDATE: Wow! Thanks for all the recs, honored to make my first trip to the rec list!
In light of some of the comments pointing the Supreme Court appeal process, here's the link to the AP story from yesterday.
The way that I read this (I'm not a lawyer, so feel free to correct me if I'm reading it incorrectly), the Supreme Court appeal filed by the McCain camp is attempting to block the release of the actual investigation findings. But, the Superior Court judge's earlier ruling clears the way for the investigation to continue. From the AP story, it would be an unprecedented action for the Supreme Court to suppress the Troopergate report.
http://ap.google.com/...
Defense attorney Peter Maassen said the Legislature is free to conduct an investigation as it sees fit and the judge's ruling confirmed the separation of power principles. By the time the Supreme Court makes a ruling, the investigation will have already been completed — all that will remain will be to make its findings public.
"There's been no time in history that a court has suppressed the outcome of a legislative investigation," Maassen said.
UPDATE #2: Bloomberg just filed their wire story. Some additional details are included that clarify how this fits in with the timeline. From this article it looks like they're trying to get the testimony in before the scheduled release date.
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
The Legislative Council has called for the probe to be completed by Oct. 10, less than a month before the presidential election. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and other lawmakers have sought to have the completion date pushed back until after the election.
The aides are trying to schedule their statements this week before the deadline.
UPDATE #3: I've linked to the AP wire story below. Not much different, except that it discusses Todd Palin's status. Basically, some stories ran yesterday talking about Todd Palin agreeing to an interview, but not with the Legislative investigation.
http://ap.google.com/...
Democratic state Sen. Hollis French, who is managing the investigation, said that, following the court ruling, he again asked Palin and her husband, Todd, whether they planned to testify.
"We've had no response," French said Sunday.
Palin says the legislative inquiry has become too political and she believes that only the state's personnel board should investigate the firing. Todd Palin has agreed to speak with investigators for that panel but not for the legislative inquiry.
Talking Points Memo also links to the Anchorage Daily News story. No further discussion about the timeline, other than French expecting the report to come out on Friday.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...
UPDATE #4: Sorry about the incorrect reference to the Supreme Court in the intro. I thought I'd corrected it last night, but turns out I had not.
Thanks to Isara for linking to the AK-based Mudflats blog, which has been following this story from the beginning. In contrast to some of the commenters who view the state employees agreeing to testify as a stall tactic hatched by the McCain campaign, the Mudflats blog views this as the AG trying to save his own skin. Seems that Alaskans don't appreciate Bush-style obfuscation and obstruction taking hold in their state politics.
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/...
To help our Governor and our AG remember this, a grass roots group spontaneously emerged, calling themselves Alaskans for Truth.
This group, organized a rally in part to demand the resignation of Talis Colberg for telling state employees that they didn’t need to comply with legislative subpoenas issued as part of the ethics investigation that has become known as "Troopergate." This smacked a little too much of Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Meiers for many Alaskans, and 2000 signatures were toted down to the Governor’s Anchorage office and presented to Palin spokesman Bill McAllister, (when Lt. Governor Sean Parnell chose to remain in the comfort and safety of his office).
The rally and the petition drop-off were covered quite well by our local news media, and thanks to this and the efforts of several determined and ticked-off bloggers, it got some national play as well. Multiple complaints have been filed against Colberg to the Alaska Bar, and despite a lawsuit claiming the subpoenas are illegitimate, a judge’s ruling this week said, basically, "I don’t think so." An emergency appeal was filed with the Alaska Supreme Court which will be heard this coming Wednesday.
Also, it seems that this story has not yet taken hold in the broadcast media. With Wall Street laying yet another egg, and the Ayers and Keating 5 attacks going live, the Troopergate story is still under the radar, even though this was covered as a breaking story yesterday on MSNBC.