Sarah Palin emails: Troubled appointment blamed on internal communications problem
Sarah Palin blamed the inadequacy of the communication system in the governor’s office for her failure to realize that Charles Kopp, who she appointed to succeed Walt Monegan as Alaska public safety director in the midst of the so-called Troopergate controversy, had been reprimanded after a 2005 sexual harassment complaint.
In the wake of a furor over the harassment complaint, Kopp resigned in July 2008, two weeks after Palin appointed him.
In an email to aides, Palin complained that she had not been shown an email two weeks earlier from the Kenai, Ala., employee who had accused Kopp of sexual harassment.
RELATED: Read the Palin emails
“It should be easy to figure out that these communications surrounding such a volitile (sic) issue should have been given to me without me having to hustle around trying to find out where they landed and to ask why they were not forwarded to me,” she wrote to aides. “Again, that email/communication system has got to change so I am not the last to know.”
The morning she was preparing to meet with Kopp – hours before he went before television cameras to announce his resignation – Palin wrote to aides to request some curious information. In the July 25 email titled “Troopers,” Palin asked: “What are the three adjectives printed on the sides of their patrol cars?” The answer – “loyalty, integrity, courage” – showed up later, in her remarks about Kopp’s departure.
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