Friday morning at the Alaska Legislature's office building in Anchorage retired prosecutor Steve Branchflower delivered his Troopergate report. Troopergate is the local Alaska name for the investigation that the members of the Legislative Council, which runs the Legislature during its off-season, voted unanimously (Republicans and Democrats alike) to direct my friend Hollis French, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Alaska Senate, to hire Branchflower to conduct. The allegation the Legislative Council directed Branchflower to investigate is that Sarah fired Walt Monegan, her Commissioner of Public Safety, because, despite having been leaned on hard and repeatedly by Sarah and her people, Walt would not violate the Alaska State Personnel Act and fire Sarah's ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, from his job as an Alaska State Trooper.

Sarah first agreed to cooperate with the Troopergate investigation. Then when John McCain selected her as his running mate, she began stone-walling in order to try to run out the clock until after the election.

The principal means to that end was for Sarah to direct Talis Colberg, her boy attorney general, to sue the Legislative Council to try to quash subpoenas that the Judiciary Committee had issued to Todd Palin and seven members of Sarah's staff. Then attorneys from Liberty Legal Institute, a Texas-based "public interest" law firm that takes its direction from James Dobson and his evangelical Focus on the Family organization, flew into Anchorage to sue the Legislative Council on behalf of five Republican members of the Alaska Legislature to try to obtain a court order prohibiting Branchflower from delivering his report.

On Oct. 2, Alaska Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski dismissed both lawsuits in a written decision that not only was a defeat, but, for the attorneys who had filed the cases, a public humiliation. At that point Talis Colberg had the presence of mind to fold Sarah's cards and slink back into the inconsequentiality that has been the hallmark of his embarrassing tenure as Alaska's chief legal officer. But the Liberty Legal Institute appealed Judge Michalski's decision to the Alaska Supreme Court. Last Wednesday the Court heard oral argument on the appeal. The next day, by a unanimous vote, the Court gave the Liberty Legal Institute the back of its hand, thereby clearing the way for Branchflower to deliver his two-volume report.

When they received it, the members of the Legislative Council evicted the reporters and cameramen who had crowded themselves into the Council's meeting room and went into executive session. Several hours later they emerged and by a unanimous vote (eight Republicans, four Democrats) voted to release the first volume of the Troopergate report to the public.

On July 28, 2008 when it authorized the Troopergate investigation, the Legislative Council directed Steve Branchflower to "investigate the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public Safety Commissioner Monegan and potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch."

There are two problems with that charge. For the past month the McCain-Palin campaign attempted at every turn to spin the first problem to its advantage by disparaging the Troopergate investigation as a partisan witch hunt that the Democratic members of the Legislative Council somehow managed to create on their own for no reason other than to politically embarrass America's favorite hockey mom. With her usual cheerful mendacity, yesterday Sarah tried to take advantage of the second problem by doing her own spinning to try to blunt the political impact of Steve Branchflower's findings regarding her conduct in office by dismissing her misbehavior as inconsequential.