The Alaska Supreme Court has just slammed the door on the Texas-based Liberty Legal Institute‘s efforts to shut down the so-called “Troopergate” investigation involving Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor and the Republican vice-presidential nominee. The court’s decision means investigators may release a report tomorrow on whether Palin improperly pressured her public safety commissioner to fire her former brother-in-law, a state trooper. Palin later fired the commissioner, who had refused to fire the trooper.
This isn’t good news for Palin’s running mate, Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The McCain campaign had furiously struggled to block the investigation and tomorrow’s expected report. If the report shows that Palin abused her power as governor — and then lied about it — the McCain ticket could find itself falling ever further behind the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in polls.
The Liberty Legal Institute is the legal arm of the Plano-based Free Market Foundation, which itself is the Texas affiliate of the far-right Focus on the Family. Click here for more background on the case and why in the world a religious-right organization from Texas was involved in a case in Alaska.
