ANCHORAGE — Several top Alaska state legislators said Friday that they would meet next week to consider authorizing subpoenas to force aides to Gov. Sarah Palin to testify in a probe into whether she abused her powers when she fired the state's public safety commissioner.
Palin ousted Walter Monegan in July, saying she wanted to go in a "new direction," but Monegan has said he was axed after he repeatedly refused to sack Alaska State Trooper Michael Wooten, who was involved in a messy divorce from Palin's sister.
Wooten, who had not talked about the controversy, surfaced for the first time Friday and downplayed Palin's charges against him, denying to CNN that he had ever threatened the life of her father, Chuck Heath.
"I didn't threaten him, and I never threatened anyone," Wooten said.
Palin, who is now the Republican vice presidential nominee, wrote to state police officials in an Aug. 10, 2005, e-mail that Wooten had threatened: "I will kill him. He'll eat a . . . lead bullet, I'll shoot him." When pressed about whether Palin had lied, Wooten said he would not talk about the Palin family. A call to Wooten's residence was not returned.
The Alaska legislators said Friday that they had no plans to subpoena Palin to force testimony from the governor because she had promised to cooperate. But Democratic state Sen. Hollis French, one of the legislators involved in the inquiry, said seven of Palin's aides had recently declined to be deposed. Palin's lawyer also has pressed to have the matter handled by the Alaska Personnel Board, an agency whose three members are Republican appointees.
Palin's attorney, Thomas V. Van Flein, warned that the Legislature has only "limited investigatory power" -- a caution that some Democratic legislators worry is a prelude to a court battle that would tie the case in knots until after the November election.
"It would be very easy for them to run out the clock," said state Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat pressing for subpoenas. Gara said that if attorneys for Palin and her aides took the case to court, it would wind its way to the Alaska Supreme Court.
Republican lawmakers minimized that threat. "I think a report will be forthcoming in a timely fashion," said state Rep. Jay Ramras, who has been involved with French in a bipartisan effort to look into Monegan's firing.
Both French and Ramras said in a joint statement that they expected a report delivered by Oct. 10 -- well before the election.
