Sarah Palin Faces Big Problems Again

Sarah Palin has big personal expenses. She has been hit with more than half a million dollars worth of legal fees to defend charges of ethics violations. Is she just being picked on or does this woman always seem to be in a fix?

Turns out those legal bills have really been piling up. On an income of about $131,000 of fees and salary for Palin and $86,000 for Todd, a debt of more than half a million dollars and still growing can look formidable. Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, maintains that most of this has been caused by partisan attacks on his client, but it turns out that it was mostly Republicans checking out irregularities for which Palin was found guilty. For example, her children attended special events, ate and went on airline trips at government expense. In addition she was found guilty of ethics violations in abusing power by not stopping her husband from his involvement in the scandal called Troopergate. This is the case where allegedly the Palins tried to get their supposedly errant, former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten fired and terminated public safety commissioner Walt Monegan when he failed to terminate Wooten. According to the news Palin has had 10 charges against her, six of which have been dismissed. These have included the children's expenses, Troopergate, and two others not described except to say that one was filed using the name of a soap opera character and another involved the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute that had promoted food using her photograph. Although Palin considers these legal complaints against her frivolous, activists don't. Zane Henning complains that Palin's use of her office to discuss partisan police specific to her candidacy in the Presidential race, where she was John McCain's Vice Presidential pick, was unethical. After he filed the complaint, she ended the behavior but Henning isn't talking about the complaint while it is pending. Palin is looking into setting up a legal defense fund to pay her fees, which are now topping that half million dollars. In the meantime, she has remained in the news, despite the fact that she is no longer a candidate for national office, even though there is speculation she might be. Non-legal questions concerned her preaching abstinence while her daughter Bristol became pregnant while unwed, now no longer planning to marry the father of the child, Levi Johnston. Then there were the clothing expenses scandals used while campaigning that went into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The first issue is explained as simply a private matter; the second that the clothing was needed, picked out for her and given back. There have also been questions concerning Palin's stand on the environment in a high profile debate with Ashley Judd. Judd took to the airwaves with Larry King and declared Palin's lack of concern for wolves being killed unnecessarily and risks to the environment. In the meantime as Palin has attended Washington functions, sharing the spotlight with Obama whom she intimated was a terrorist because of claimed association with William Ayers and has talked about a future in national politics, it is likely she will remain news.