Thomas Van Flein says the finding that Palin violated the ethics act is flawed because she received no monetary benefit from whatever actions she and her husband are accused of.Except a violation doesn't require receiving any monetary benefit, that's why the statute reads "personal or financial benefit."
He cited several prior ethics investigations. "The common thread of all of these Ethics Act cases is money and the use of a government position to personally gain," Van Flein's statement says.Then those cases are distinguishable, as we say. Financial benefit is not a requirement, and it wasn't an issue in this instance. Personal benefit was the issue, and personal benefit isn't the same thing as financial benefit, obviously, according to the statute.
It may be one or the other, otherwise the statute would read "personal and financial benefit."
"Here, there is no accusation, no finding and no facts that money or financial gain to the Governor was involved in the decision to remove Monegan," the governor's attorney says. "There can be no ethics violations under these circumstances."That's just completely false. Of course there can.
Furthermore, the finding that AK Gov. Palin violated the public trust has little, if anything, to do with Monegan's dismissal. His dismissal was addressed in one of the report's other, separate findings.
3 comments:
illy, I doubt he's struggling with the language; he's just trying to spin this in Palin's favor.
No doubt he's spinning furiously but he's misrepresenting the "plain language of the law," and you know how sacrosanct that is to conservatives.
It is improper to talk about the plain language of the law until the case is settled, after which the case will have been old news and not worth talking about anymore. You know the drill.
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