Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (41 page)

A short while later, Todd phoned. “Frank, I hear you're still trying to quit. Don't. Sarah, she's all over the map on this, but she'll come around. One minute she's on your side, the next minute she's listening to Nizich and she's agreeing with him that you need to go. Jeez, Frank, we need you. Hang in there. You'll see.”

As luck would have it, my friend Phil offered up his property in the Mat-Su Valley, and shortly after Todd's latest call, I prepared to escape and take the family camping. While refueling, my wife texted Sarah, asking her to call and discuss an idea for handling the media storm. When the phone rang, Neen put the call on speaker. Sarah was sobbing and trying to catch her breath. She had something confidential to share but was so upset she couldn't get it out. She hung up, telling us she needed a minute or two to recover. Whatever Sarah had to say was important enough to cause the governor of Alaska to break down into an emotional mess. I prepared for the worst. Maybe some of our earlier behaviors during the campaign were being uncovered and wrapped around this latest nightmare. Possibly another phone call—as there'd been nearly two dozen by at least four insiders—had been recorded, maybe even one from Sarah or Todd directly. Clearly this was the old Sarah, needing to reach out to the Frank Bailey who had been the original Palin-bot and Rag Tagger. Someone whose blind allegiance had known no limits and who, even now, was arranging to have incriminating investigator's documents commissioned by her husband hustled from Juneau to his house. Thursday she'd said that if I quit, she'd leave. Friday she'd turned course and seemed ready and willing to see me gone. Now on Saturday, August 16, 2008, she was in need of sharing a piece of shockingly confidential information and wanted my wife to listen in as well.

What could it be? If I'd been forced to guess, there would not be enough days in eternity for me to get it right. Just when it seemed that our fan could not possibly handle any more, we found ourselves dodging tons more flying scat.

26
 

If You Go, I Go—Maybe

T
hat Saturday morning, desperately in need of getting out of town—away from the media and the images of me being ripped to shreds on the television—I had thoughts of utilizing my fast-food-fueled overweight self to smash my smartphone, which no longer seemed so smart. Next I'd toss my BlackBerry under a tire and see how flat its microchips might get beneath the weight of a fully loaded camper. When Sarah first rang, too distraught to speak, I was gassing up, buying thirty gallons that would take the Bailey family hours and hours away from the scandal and to a place where news didn't roll on an endless cycle and people didn't yet know enough to ask, “Oh, so you're the Troopergate guy, huh?”

It was my failure to destroy my electronic connection to the world that allowed the governor to make a return call. Still distraught, she managed to say, “Bristol—”

What happened? I waited for the governor to catch her breath. Was Sarah's daughter injured? This seemed beyond Lyda Green or Halcro or Syrin spreading some nasty rumor. Those things sent us into a frenzy, but this was more. Although Sarah was an emotional creature, she didn't cry often, and when she did, she had the ability to recover quickly and transform hurt into anger. Now she sounded wounded and completely defeated.

“Bristol,” she began again. “She's pregnant . . .”

Immediately, my reflex was to reassign myself the role of protector. I knew that all of those who'd earlier spread rumors of Bristol being pregnant when it was a lie would now crow, and that pissed me off. The Bristol I knew was a kind child, thrown into the cauldron of politics against her will. She likely had the least desire to see her family life exposed. My heart bled for her. I thought back to Todd, months ago, telling me how unimpressed he was with this boy who had been hanging around. In his blunt but prescient manner, he'd remarked, “Bristol doesn't have to fall for the first guy that sniffs up her skirt.”

Of the pregnancy, Sarah said that only Neen and I, along with Kris Perry and Sharon Leighow, knew.

“I left the decision to her,” Sarah explained, “and Bristol wants to keep the baby.”

“Bristol is a strong girl. She'll get through this,” I said.

Sarah eventually returned to the topic of Todd, Wooten, and Troopergate. She reiterated that Todd had worked behind her back.

For Sarah, if she said something often enough, she'd come to believe its truth and, in her mind, so would others. Her current pain drove me to temporarily not care about truth.

Completing her round-trip on whether I was in or out of favor, she begged, “Frank, I'm telling you again. If you go, I go, we all go. This is unjust.” We spoke for ninety minutes before finally hanging up. She said she and Todd loved me. As for me, despite frustration and disappointment, I'd never stopped loving them.

On the recommendation from my friend and then pastor Karl Clauson, I phoned and “hired” an attorney, Greg Grebe, that same day. More than a mere lawyer, Greg shared my faith and reminded me that God was a God of truth, and I needed to lay everything out there and trust in Him. After the previous two and a half years, resting on the rock of truth was a very hard thing to comprehend. I had drifted so far. I explained the basics of what happened, saying, “Yeah, I spoke out of turn, Greg. I said I was speaking for the governor, but she did not know I was making the call.”

Greg listened and afterward gave me the best news I'd heard yet. “Frank, I can't see how you have any criminal exposure here.” He then advised, “And do not say anything more to the media.” Greg refused
to take a dime of payment for his time and expertise. He felt that at this particular time, it was his duty to be there for me and speak truth to me. That gesture is something that will stick with me forever.

The next day, Sunday, August 17, Sarah invited my family to her house for another heart-to-heart talk, choosing to meet face to face because Todd feared the phones were tapped and their attorneys warned there should be no colluding over evidence in the ongoing investigation.

We drove down the gravel drive, past the thick trees shielding the Palin house from the road, wondering whether supportive Sarah or hostile Sarah awaited us. With the sun hanging low in the early evening sky and reflecting off the lake that ran to the back of the redplanked house, we were greeted by Todd. He was mowing the lawn. “Hey, man,” I said.

“Hey, Frank.” Todd broke away from his mowing, and we shook hands. I knew him well enough to see in his face relief that we'd come. He clearly felt a need to clear the air and lessen the tension we all felt.

Willow and Piper shot hoops off to the side while Bristol watched. Her shirt was too short and her round belly showed, but only if one knew what to look for. (Later I was informed her youngest sister was unaware of the pregnancy.) She came over and gave Neen and me a hug. “Look at you,” I said, catching the glint in her eye. I couldn't help but worry that while only seventeen, she had a massive secret that would soon be revealed to the world.

Inside, we removed our shoes while Sarah, tending to Trig and still dressed from church with her hair piled high, greeted us. Our kids broke away to play with the two younger girls. Todd joined us inside.

Sarah and my wife and I sat in the kitchen at their island table while Todd stood across from us, behind the sink. Earlier that afternoon, Sarah had met for four hours with her newly hired personal attorney, Thomas Van Flein. She said, “I told Tom after leaving church today, dedicating Trig, that this whole thing is all bullshit.” She then said, “If they,” meaning Monegan and DPS, “had just cleaned out their own mess, none of this would have happened.” For the first time, Sarah spoke the truth. She was finally admitting that if Monegan had only gotten rid of his bad apple trooper(s), he'd still have his job, and
she wouldn't be in the middle of this crap cluster. She continued, “The DPS is always more interested in covering up for their brothers in blue and not crossing that blue line than in dealing with people like Mike and Spitzer.” For someone who swore she never discussed any of this with her husband, the two of them spoke in nomenclature lock step. Never spoke to him? How, if true, had all of us, including Sarah, come to parrot one another as if reading from the same script?

Rather than ask these obvious questions, I again volunteered to resign for the greater good. Sarah shook her head no and said, “I'll get rid of you when they get rid of Wooten.”

That day, in their kitchen, just the four of us, the truth finally filled the air. No pretense about Wooten not being the central issue. He was front and center, and Sarah was as much on board as Todd. Sarah let us know, without any doubt, that had Monegan taken care of his own lousy troopers (or at least Wooten), none of this would have happened. Todd claimed, yet again, that “Lt. Wall shut off the tape recorder just when he was interviewing Bristol, right at the point when he asked if Wooten really tased his stepson. He didn't want to hear the frigging answer and have it on record. Cover up for what? A loose cannon, a ticking time bomb . . .” Now, in danger of being caught in the act, Sarah needed me to continue playing along. She and Todd fed me the “Sarah didn't know” line again and again and again until the line from Shakepeare's
Hamlet
sprang to mind: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Little wonder Todd did not want this conversation conducted over a potentially bugged phone. Even today, they will likely deny the truth of what was said in those unguarded moments. For the record, I say wire each of us to a lie detector, and let's see who has truth on their side.

Sarah soon drifted back to the immediate problem. She dropped the news that the state's Department of Law did not believe that Todd had provided me all the information I'd relayed to Lieutenant Dial about Wooten. Law suspected that I'd illegally accessed Wooten's personnel file. Since both Todd and Sarah knew the truth of the matter, it struck my wife and me as weird that she'd offer this information as if it were a topic of debate. We all knew that what The Department of Law thought was dead wrong.

My wife and I asked why we didn't just have a press conference together and sort this out. Nobody could blame Todd for going after Wooten. Unfortunately, only Neen and I thought that this joint mea culpa was a good idea. Todd didn't add much except to say repeatedly that this was all “ass backward.” I'd have greatly appreciated it if he'd said something about admitting to the state's lawyers that he was, in fact, the source of every tidbit of Wooten intelligence I possessed. When I asked him why he couldn't be more forthright, he managed to grunt nonanswers that translated into noncommitments. He did insist, however, that we were a team and that “we need to stick together. Our enemies want us to fall apart.” I read that to mean, “We need you, Frank Bailey, to cover our backsides.”

Sarah nodded sympathetically throughout but continued to insist she couldn't comment either way, since she was not involved. She did say several times, “God brought us together.” In other words, suggesting that “What God has brought together, let no man put asunder.” My wife and I missed the unstated fine print indicating this was a one-way commitment.

Sarah eventually turned the conversation to her financial plight. “Tom,” her attorney Thomas Van Flein, “said defending against this investigation could cost us lots of money.” She mentioned something about a legal defense fund.

“I say we have a huge dinner, five thousand dollars a plate,” Todd said. After a brief pause, he pushed further and, without a hint of humor, added, “Then we make a list of those who pay up, and we give 'em board position on
good
boards.”

Sarah laughed for maybe the only time that day. “No, we don't operate like that, but Bink and Murky would, in a heartbeat.”

The governor expressed additional concerns as well. Just a few weeks earlier, she had called for her loyal attorney general, Talis Colberg, to conduct his own investigation, a clear means of gutting whatever Branchflower would find. She complained to us there were those in the legislature who said her efforts amounted to “tampering with witnesses,” and that he made her plan to disclose these “findings” problematic.

Just before exhausting ourselves of new topics after nearly five
hours, Sarah said as she walked us to the front door, “Don't tell anyone, but I am not running for governor again. I'm not sure what is going to happen with Trig . . .”

My wife interrupted and asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, but he won't be like other kids, Neen. He will need us forever, and that is a new concept for me.”

With that new nugget, we departed, managing to suddenly feel sorrier for Sarah than for ourselves. Her ability to snatch sympathy from the jaws of blame is nothing short of genius.