JONATHAN TURLEY

Alaskan Investigator Kyle Young sent an e-mail to the Public Safety Employees Association claiming that political pressure delayed the arrest of Sherry Johnston — whose son Levi Johnston is engaged to Palin’s daughter, Bristol — until after the November election. Johnston was arrested Dec. 18 on six felony drug counts for selling Oxycontin.

Johnston’s arrest would have obviously had an impact on Palin’s campaign, which was based on her claim that she would bring needed “small town values” to Washington. Her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and the arrest of the future mother-in-law for drug dealing were probably not what the campaign was promising to replicate in terms of small-town values.

Young wrote that the investigation “was not allowed to progress in a normal fashion, the search warrant WAS delayed because of the pending election and the Mat Su Drug Unit and the case officer were not the ones calling the shots.”

Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters admits that he called Palin’s chief of staff, Mike Nizich, but insists that this was done only after the house was searched.

It is only the latest run in with the local law enforcement for Palin. She remained mired in a dispute over her firing of ormer commissioner Walt Monegan, whom claims to have been dismissed because he would not fire the estranged husband of Palin’s sister. A bipartisan legislative committee found that Palin abuse her office but that she nonetheless had the right to fire Monegan since he was an at-will employee.

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