Legal Costs Spurred Palin’s Resignation, Official Says
Alaska’s lieutenant governor says Sarah Palin is resigning from her post as governor because of the mounting legal costs of defending herself in ethics investigations.
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell of Alaska told FOX News Sunday that Palin told him of her resignation on Wednesday, the New York Times reports. “I think what I heard from the governor,” Parnell said, “really had to do with the weight on her, the concern she had for the cost of all the ethics investigations and the like—the way that that weighed on her with respect to her inability to just move forward Alaska’s agenda on behalf of Alaskans in the current context of the environment.”
At a Friday news conference announcing her resignation, Palin said she was hit with $500,000 in legal fees defending 15 ethics complaints, all of which were dismissed.
Parnell said records requests in the ethics probes had cost Alaska $2 million in staff time, according to the story. “That was just over the top, and I think she used the word insane in her remarks,” Parnell said.
