MetroMan
Senior Member
This from RawStory.com makes a lot of sense.
In the wake of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s surprise resignation on Friday, rumors are beginning to circulate that she might have acted in anticipation of a previously unsuspected scandal being revealed.
Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore suggested at Huffington Post that “rumors of an ‘iceberg scandal’ have been circulating” even before today’s announcement.
“Resignation is certainly out of character for Sarah Palin,” Moore noted. “Senator Mark Begich had a meeting with Sarah Palin two days ago with no mention of her leaving office. Palin’s press secretary, David Murrow had posted on his Facebook page Wednesday, ‘David Murrow is considering life’s ironies.’ He was hired less than a month ago. Yesterday he wrote, ‘There’s gonna be some fireworks this weekend!’”
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo similarly suggested, “Remember that based on the public record, Palin is a wildly unethical public official, guilty at a minimum of numerous instances of abusing her authority as governor. And a lot of very damaging information has come out about her in the last few days — though mainly embarrassing information about her character rather than new evidence of bad acts. I would not be surprised if this latest round of revelations shook something else loose that we haven’t heard about yet.”
Moore later spoke by phone with BradBlog’s Brad Friedman and told him that “Palin is ‘resigning as part of damage control’ due to a scandal this is ‘not of a family nature.’”
“The governor would not be able to continue her job when it comes out,” Moore told Friedman. “Why would Mark Sanford not resign, but Sarah Palin did? Her family didn’t even know about the resignation until they were standing with her by the lake when she made her announcement.”
Update: BradBlog is now reporting additional information received from Alaskans who follow Palin: “I’ve now been able to get independent information from multiple sources that all of this precedes what are said to be possible federal indictments against Palin, concerning an embezzlement scandal related to the building of Palin’s house and the Wasilla Sports Complex built during her tenure as Mayor. Both structures, it is said, feature the ’same windows, same wood, same products.’ Federal investigators have been looking into this for some time, and indictments could be imminent, according to the Alaska sources.”
Max Blumenthal at The Daily Beast offers additional details:
One logical place to start looking is the affair that has Alaska political circles buzzing: an alleged scandal centered around a building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies, with close ties to Palin and her husband, Todd.
Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state. …
Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.
Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an additional $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.
Questions about the construction of Palin’s house are not new. An article last fall by Wayne Barrett at the Village Voice offered many of the same speculations that are now being presented by Blumenthal and others as possible explanations for Palin’s resignation.
If these allegations turn out to be accurate, Palin’s problems would be ironically similar to the scandal which torpedoed former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens’ career. That also involved improvements to his home for which he made no payment.