Did anyone really think soon-to-be resigned and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin intended to go quietly into the political night? She never said that — and now some new legal news related event attests to that.
First, the FBI quickly shot down reports suggesting that Palin is being investigated on corruption charges. Meanwhile, Palin’s lawyer issued a stern warning to the news media that Palin will go after those who pick up and publish defamatory, speculative material from weblogs. Fading away, this exactly ain’t…
The FBI:
A day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resigned, a federal official in her home state dismissed one potential explanation for her sudden and unexpected resignation: a rumored FBI investigation into the former Wasilla mayor on public corruption charges.
Despite rumors of a looming controversy after the Republican governor’s surprise announcement Friday that she would leave office this month, some of them published in the blogosphere, the FBI’s Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity.
“There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we’re investigating her or getting ready to indict her,” Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. “It’s just not true.” He added that there was “no wiggle room” in his comments for any kind of inquiry.
The FBI has been active in mounting corruption investigations in Alaska, some to see whether local, state and federal lawmakers illegally received favors, money or free construction work from businesses or people seeking favors.
Palin’s attorney:
Ratcheting up her offensive against the news media, Gov. Sarah Palin’s attorney threatened Saturday to sue mainstream news organizations if they publish “defamatory” stories relating to whether Palin is under federal investigation.
In an extraordinary four-page letter, Alaska-based attorney Thomas Van Flein warns of severe consequences should speculation that until now has largely been confined to blogs about whether Palin embezzled funds in the construction of a Wasilla, Alaska, sports arena find its way into print.
“This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law,” Van Flein warned, citing Alaska liberal blogger Shannyn Moore.
Much like Palin did in her Facebook statement Saturday, Van Flein savages the news media in his letter.
“Just as power abhors a vacuum, modern journalism apparently abhors any type of due diligence and fact checking before scurrilous allegations are repeated as fact,” the Anchorage attorney wrote.
Neither the Times or the Post made any mention of the embezzlement rumors in their Saturday editions, but sources close to Palin consider the letter a warning shot to stay away from the topic.
This could cause some blogs to think twice, but it’s going to be unlikely to stop infooutlets such as the Huffington Post, TV/cable networks, or big newspapers to (a) not republish material that is already on the Internet and being widely quoted and (b)sending out their own teams of reporters to look into every nook and cranny of Palin’s life. And if this did succeed, would Democrats then follow suit and go after conservative blogs running unfounded rumors and those outlets that print or broadcast them?
An ongoing open “war” between Palin and the media, spilling over into courtrooms and being covered by the new and old media, would help Palin shore up her base. But Palin’s her problem as a politician with aspirations is that she doesn’t want to run for President of the base but for an office that will require that she wins over some others who either don’t like her or have doubts about her, too.
And in terms of seriously expanding her supportive constituency polls since the election show that she has a failing grade. Her crossover appeal so far seems limited to crossover listeners from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24521.html#ixzz0KOuI1kZU&C
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.