Lawyering Up And The Vetting – A Timeline

In my previous post I noted the timeline of Governor Palin’s lawyering up. However, since CNN is tonight beating the drums on the air, and in print – based on information from the McCain campaign – that Palin hired the lawyer "three weeks ago", it is important to lay some facts on the table more clearly in a separate post.

Palin’s lawyer, Thomas V. Van Flein, wrote a letter, dated August 29 2008, to Stephen Branchflower, the investigator assigned to investigate "Troopergate". In this letter Flein first informed the investigators that he had been "retained to represent the Governor and the Governor’s Office relative to the Legislative Council’s investigation into the termination of Mr. Monegan, the alleged Executive Branch Ethics violation, and the alleged Personnel Act Violation." This letter was sent via email to Stephen Branchflower.

According to the response to this email from Alaska State Senator Hollis French, the letter from Flein was sent to Branchflower on August 30, 2008. French writes in his response: "I am in receipt of your letter dated August 29, 2008, sent to Stephen Branchflower on August 30, 2008." French added "It’s worth pointing out that we have not received any notice from the Department of Law that the Governor was retaining private counsel." The letter was the first time French had heard that the Governor had retained a lawyer.

John McCain announced that Sarah Palin was his running mate last Friday, August 29, 2008. It appears that sometime the same day, possibly after the McCain camp learned of "Troopergate" from the media, a lawyer was retained for Sarah Palin.

In Flein’s own letter he makes it pretty clear that he has just been retained. He says:

"We have considerable information to review to get up to speed. The Attorney General is forwarding to us information it collected and already shared with you.

…

If you are in town, I think a sit down meeting with you would be beneficial so we can map out the logistics. In the meantime, I would ask that you have no ex parte contact with members of the Governor’s Office, and we will not contact Sen. French."

It is possible that the lawyer was hired three weeks ago and did nothing to notify the investigators he had been hired. If so, he let the investigators contact his client directly for three weeks before sending a letter asking that they not do so. That seems highly unusual. It is also unusual, that if he was hired three weeks ago, that he would not have already gotten information from the Governor’s own Attorney General by this time. It seems a lot more likely that the lawyer was retained on August 29, 2008 – the date he used on his letter to Branchflower.

The McCain campaign, to try to demonstrate they have vetted Palin, may be scrambling to push the timeline of the vetting back. However, all evidence suggests that Governor Palin had not been vetted until she was announced as John McCain’s running mate. The timing of the hiring of the lawyer is further evidence of the lack of vetting.