Written by Matt Smith and Traci Tamura | CNN | 12 September 2008

Alaska lawmakers voted Friday to subpoena Gov. Sarah Palin's husband, several aides and phone records in their investigation into Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner, setting up what one senator called a "branch-versus-branch smackdown."

Todd Palin has been a "principal critic" of his wife's ex-brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten, and had "many contacts" with Department of Public Safety officials about his status, said Steve Branchflower, the former prosecutor hired by the state Legislature to investigate the firing.

Sarah Palin, now the Republican nominee for vice president, is battling allegations that she and her advisers pressured then-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Wooten and that Monegan was terminated when he refused.

Palin has said she fired Monegan over budget issues and denies any wrongdoing. There was no immediate reaction Friday from the McCain-Palin campaign.

The 3-2 vote fell along party lines, with the three Democrats on the state Senate Judiciary Committee supporting the subpoenas and the two Republicans opposing them.

The House Judiciary Committee concurred in a nonbinding vote. The president of the state Senate, Republican Lyda Green, must approve the subpoenas before they can be issued.

In addition to Todd Palin, Branchflower, a former Anchorage prosecutor, asked lawmakers to subpoena 10 members of Sarah Palin's administration as well as the phone records for suspended Board and Commissions Director Frank Bailey, who was recorded in February discussing Wooten's status with a state police lieutenant. He also asked lawmakers to subpoena the employee of a worker's compensation insurance firm who handled a claim Wooten filed in 2007.

Branchflower laid out his requests to a joint legislative committee Friday morning.

 

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