ABC News has exclusively learned that Alaska Senator Hollis French will announce today that he is moving up the release date of his investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired. The results of the investigation were originally scheduled for release Oct. 31 but will now come almost three weeks earlier, according to sources.
It's the latest twist in what has become the subject of global media scrutiny -- whether Palin, the newly minted Republican vice presidential candidate, abused her powers as governor to try to drive her former brother-in-law Mike Wooten out of the trooper ranks.
Palin and her family have accused Wooten, who was involved in a messy divorce with the governor's sister, of a variety of misdeeds such as threatening her family and drinking while driving his patrol car. Palin insists she didn't use the trooper's continued employment as an excuse to fire a member of her cabinet, Walt Monegan, who supervised the troopers as commissioner of public safety.
Read a transcript of the conversation here.
The union representing state Trooper Mike Wooten has filed an ethics complaint against Gov. Sarah Palin and members of her administration charging a possible unlawful breach of Wooten's confidential personnel and workers' compensation files.
Could the governor face impeachment?
