A spokesman for Joe Miller, the Tea Party-backed Republican challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said he resigned from his assistant attorney job with the Fairbanks North Star Borough in 2009.

On Monday night, Alaska political pundit and blogger Andrew Halcro posted an interesting tidbit. Under a picture of Joe Miller and Sarah Palin, who endorsed Miller in early June, Halcro wrote: "U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller was fired from his job as an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Why?"

Miller is running against U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary. He has also been endorsed by the Tea Party Express, a national group headquartered in California that has pledged to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to knock out Murkowski.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said Halcro's allegation that Miller was fired is a "fabrication." DeSoto claims Murkowski is using Halcro to draw attention away from the real issues of the race.

"He was not fired, nor was he asked to resign," DeSoto said.

Miller worked for the borough as one of four assistant borough attorneys from September 2002 to September 2009. During that time he was also practicing law privately.

Rene Broker, the borough attorney who was Miller's boss when he was with the borough, declined to comment on why Miller left the borough, saying she wasn't comfortable speaking about his work performance without Miller signing a release allowing her to do so. While at the borough, she said, Miller mostly worked on larger assignments, such as the suit over the state's assessment of the trans-Alaska pipeline's value.

Jim Whitaker, a Republican who was borough mayor from 2003 to 2009, also declined to comment on Miller's departure.

Miller is a graduate from Yale Law School, earned a Bronze Star for his service during the first Gulf War, and owns his own law practice. His legal work for the borough, however, is not mentioned in the bio posted on his campaign website.

DeSoto, who attended West Point with Miller, said campaign staff will send out a press release debunking the rumor as soon as the borough sends over a document they want to review prior to issuing the release.

"The bottom line on all this is that it's a fabrication," he said. "He left on his own accord."

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com.