Trooper in Palin probe tells his side

Source: CNN

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- The Alaska state trooper at the center of a probe into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power says he has "made mistakes, and I've learned from those mistakes."

But in an exclusive interview with CNN, Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law, also denies some of the biggest allegations against him, including drinking while driving.

"I made mistakes. I fessed up to them. I was punished appropriately, and I'm moving on," said Wooten, 36, who went through a long, messy divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister.

...

He said that he was a new Taser instructor, and his stepson was asking him about the equipment. "I didn't shoot him with live, you know, actual live cartridge," Wooten said.

Instead, he said, he hooked his stepson up to a training aid "with little clips. And, you know, the Taser was activated for less than a second, which would be less than what you would get if you touched an electric fence. ... It was as safe as I could possibly make it."

He said his stepson was on the living room floor surrounded by pillows, that he "was bragging about it," and that the family laughed about it.

Asked whether it was a dumb decision, Wooten told CNN, "absolutely."



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/05/palin.trooper/index.html

Palin defenders try to suggest that he tasered the boy for punishment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUE1Cu04Jzo

Welcome to DU.

The RWers are making it like, 'OH HE'S THIS DANGEROUS PERSON....HE WAS THREATENING TO KILL THE FATHER" BLAH BLAH>>>

But how does FIRING him make the father or anybody else safer? If he's really a threat, go through the proper channels, if he's really not suited for that job, have his superiors address that. How does that make her back-door actions OK?

Troopergate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOBWZ7Jocc8

My neighbor would like those :)

Monegan is ever so careful and diplomatic in choosing his words. I wonder what he's really thinking ...

Suits her persona.

This is definately going to bite her

He's backtracking on the story, deflecting blame from Palin. What happened?

blame. Sounds more like he's saying that what he did was stupid but is nowhere near the evil thing that the Palin publicity machine is making it out to be.

I thought there would be more of a smackdown. He ends the interview by saying how great it is for Alaska that she got the nomination--which at least stops short of an all out endorsement. But then I suppose he could be getting advice from attorneys so he may not be speaking "from the heart".

That is disappointing.

completed some time ago, and he was subsequently disciplined by the state agency after an investigation (which confirmed some but not all the allegations). The investigation of Palin centers around the fact that, after becoming governor, she continued to press to reopen all these old wounds and in particular tried to get him fired, even though the matters in question had already been administratively resolved: when she failed at that, she fired a higher level state employee whom she had earlier pressured, offering him no severance compensation, and replaced him with another person (who lasted only a few weeks, due to a history of sexual harrassment, and who was granted something like $100 000 severance)

John Cyr, executive director of the Public Safety Employees Association, said Thursday a British media organization has offered Wooten $30,000 for an interview.

"Mike Wooten is not accepting those offers," Cyr said.

But Wooten did an interview Thursday for CNN television anchor Anderson Cooper for a story to air soon, and that's the only interview Wooten plans to do, Cyr said.

Mike Wooten on CNN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7YWNKj3Y50