The Alaska Supreme Court has cleared for possible release to the public today the Legislature’s highly anticipated investigative report on whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power.
The court Thursday rejected an attempt by a group of six Republican legislators to keep the report into the so-called Troopergate affair from being made public. That made way for members of the bipartisan Legislative Council, which ordered the investigation, to go ahead and pick up their copies of the report. The legislators signed confidentiality agreements promising not to show anyone, including their staff.
The Legislative Council is expected to vote sometime today whether to make the 263-page report public. The legislators will first meet behind closed doors, starting around 9 a.m. this morning, to receive a briefing from Steve Branchflower, the investigator they hired to look into the governor’s dismissal of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, and whether she improperly pressured him to fire a state trooper divorced from her sister. The meeting of the 14-member council will be at the downtown Anchorage Legislative Information Office.
Branchflower also produced a separate volume, roughly twice as large as his report, that’s expected to remain confidential because it contains exhibits with personnel information that cannot legally be released, according to legislative council staff.