Legal News

Are Legal Fees at the Root of Palin?s Decision to Step Down?

By Ashby Jones

A lot happened over this three-day weekend: a tennis match turned from scintillating to weirdly boring; an NFL quarterback was killed; eMusic expanded its lineup (Hello, Springsteen!); Obama flew to Russia; a former afternoon roundup honoree made his first All-Star team; and a bankruptcy judge in New York cleared the way for General Motors to sell its most valued brands to the U.S. Treasury.

But the undeniably big news of the weekend involved the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, who unexpectedly threw in the towel on the Alaska governorship.

While much speculation as to the real reason behind Sarah Palin’s abrupt decision to quit spidered quickly through the Internet, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell managed to clear the air — or at least give his own take — on Sunday. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Parnell cited the millions in state money being spent to deal with document requests and other matters concerning ethics complaints made against Palin. Parnell said she has personally accumulated a $500,000 debt defending herself.

“She became a national figure — an international figure during the last presidential race. . . . What that means is that she not only had the local press after her, the local party after her, she had the national — national candidates, national party, after her — international, perhaps, even,” Parnell said.

Much of the debt to which Parnell is referring comes in the form of — yup — legal bills. According to this Anchorage Daily News article from March (Hat Tip: Above the Law), Palin at the time owed some $500,000 to the Alaska law firm Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen & Thorsness.

According to the ADN story, Palin made $131,891 last year, counting her $125,000 salary and expense payments she collects when she’s away from Juneau, according to the disclosure. Todd Palin made $86,150 from his two jobs, as a commercial fisherman and a BP production operator.

“Obviously we cannot afford to personally pay these bills — and really no future governor should feel the sense of financial vulnerability at the hands of those with a political vendetta bent on personal destruction,” Palin wrote. “Some have suggested a legal fund to pay these bills. We’ll have to pursue that.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 06, 2009 (boomark / email).