Sarah Palin Defending Many Lawsuits

If you had visited the site http://www.sarahpalinsdefensefund.com/ few days ago, you would have seen that there is a place to donate to help Sarah Palin fight the numerous ridiculous ethics complaints law suits filed against her, law suits intended to make the Governor spend her personal money and bankrupt her in the process. It has been reported that Palin's family had to spend more than $500000 on legal fees fighting these ethical lawsuits which are partisan in nature, frivolous and politically motivated.

Palin had 10 ethics complaints filed against her recently. Out of the 10, 6 were considered as baseless and dismissed, while 3 are pending, and one concluded.

In a written response to questions from Anchorage Daily News about the lawsuits, Palin said: "I must defend against these baseless ethics accusations out of my own pocket as the use of public monies to do so could itself violate state law"

One example of a lawsuit is the ethics complaint that has been filed against her that claims a conflict of interest because she wore an Arctic Cat logo gear during the Iron Dog snowmobile race that her husband participates in. Palin replied:

"Yes, I wore Arctic Cat snow gear at an outdoor event, because it was cold outside, and by the way, today, I am wearing clothes bearing the names of Alaska artists, and a Glennalen Panthers basketball hoodie" and she went onto say "Should I expect to see an ethics charge for wearing these, or the Carharts I wear to many public events?"

Attorney Thomas Van Flein is representing her in these lawsuits. A private group called freeamericancitizens.org , without authorization from Palin, set up a defense fund to collect money that directly goes to Attorney Thomas Van Flein with the intention of helping Sarah Palin with the legal expenses. It is learnt that the man behind freeamericancitizens.org is Clayton Paslay, a big supporter of Sarah Palin. He had started a Political Action Committee last year to help conservative candidates like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and when he heard on foxnews Bill O'Reilly's show that liberals are trying to bankrupt Palin with ridiculous law suits, he had added this "legal defense fund" to help her out.

On April 8th, Meghan Stapleton, family spokesperson for Sarah Palin came out with the announcement on Sarah Palin's official PAC website, which said:

"The continuing generosity of Alaskans and Americans is overwhelming as many reach out to assist Governor Sarah Palin and her family with their legal bills. However, the official legal defense fund for Governor Sarah Palin has not been formed and the Governor cannot accept monies for those obligations from any other entity than the one in formation. Numerous federal and state laws need to be abided by and the official legal defense fund will have very strict donation guidelines. We thank everyone interested in helping the Governor. The best way to assist her will be through this official fund which will launch later this month."

Well, the intentions of Clayton Paslay were very good, but Governor Sarah Palin may only get into further legal troubles in the long run if she had accepted the money from the private defense fund set up by a private citizen to fight these lawsuits. Being a person of honesty and integrity, she politely rejected the money from this private defense fund and announced that an official fund will launch later this month. Conservatives, including Clayton Paslay can donate to the official fund legally if they choose to help Sarah Palin fight these baseless lawsuits.

Ref:

http://community.adn.com/adn/node/140324

http://www.adn.com/palin/story/731157.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

http://www.sarahpac.com/news/news14.aspx