'First Dude' in Trouble?

From the Empty Wheel:

...But I think the real tell--where Todd Palin may be in a heap of trouble--is in this detail from the NYT story.

On Jan. 4, 2007, a month into the Palin administration and his tenure as public safety commissioner, Mr. Monegan was called to the governor’s Anchorage office to meet Todd Palin. Mr. Palin was seated at a conference table with three stacks of personnel files. That, Mr. Monegan recalled, was the first time he heard the name Mike Wooten. [my emphasis]

Personnel files. The implication from this story is that Palin had Wooten's personnel file laying there on a table when he had this first meeting with Walt Monegan. Even in the phone call between Bailey and Dial, there's tension over whether Bailey--a government employee, after all--had accessed Wooten's personnel file. Bailey had suggested he got it through follow-up on the workers comp issue.

But this story suggests that Todd Palin--not a government employee--had gotten Wooten's personnel file in the first weeks of Sarah's tenure as governor. And that personnel file, of course, would have the details about the Grimes investigation.

If Branchflower has proof that Todd Palin got the personnel file--and that Palin's office got it without the excuse of the workers comp issue--then First Dude may be in a heap of trouble.

Read the rest of the complete story here.