The suddenness of Sarah Palin’s resignation raises questions about whether a coming scandal caused her to leave office. Max Blumenthal looks at one possibility.

CNN and other major news outlets have reported that Sarah Palin has abruptly resigned as governor of Alaska. The suddenness of her announcement raises the question about whether Palin resigned to avert a major scandal. One logical place to start looking is the affair that has Alaska political circles buzzing: an alleged scandal centered around a building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies (SBS), with close ties to Palin and her husband, Todd.

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an addition $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

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Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors.
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Palin’s Husband, 9 Others in Contempt
Associated Press
Saturday, February 7, 2009; Page A07

JUNEAU, Alaska, Feb. 6 — The Alaska Senate on Friday found Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband and nine state employees, including some of her top aides, in contempt for ignoring subpoenas to testify in a legislative investigation.

The Senate said it would seek no punishment for the witnesses’ failure to appear before a committee last fall as it looked into the governor’s firing of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan.
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Obama’s NSC Will Get New Power
President Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council, expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues.
The result will be a “dramatically different” NSC from that of the Bush administration or any of its predecessors since the forum was established after World War II to advise the president on diplomatic and military matters, according to national security adviser James L. Jones, who described the changes in an interview. “The world that we live in has changed so dramatically in this decade that organizations that were created to meet a certain set of criteria no longer are terribly useful,” he said.
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A Military Tactician’s Political Strategy
By Thomas E. Ricks
Monday, February 9, 2009; Page A01

As Gen. David H. Petraeus flew into Baghdad in February 2007, preparing to take command of U.S. forces in Iraq, Col. Peter R. Mansoor, his executive officer, knelt alongside his seat. “You know, sir,” he said, “the hardest thing for you, if it comes to it, will be to tell the American people and the president that this isn’t working.”
The general said nothing in response. “But he heard it,” Mansoor remembers. And he nodded.
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Obama Confidant Plans To Meet Azerbaijani Leader
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 9, 2009; Page A04

David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and was cited by Obama as the “unsung hero” in his ascendancy to the White House, is expected to meet this week with Azerbaijan’s president, who has been accused of undermining democracy in that oil-rich country.

Plouffe does not work for the White House, but he remains close to top White House officials. His outreach to Democrats, particularly through new-media ventures, was credited with propelling Obama to victory, and he continues to play an integral role with President Obama’s grass-roots political operation, Organizing for America. Last week, he e-mailed that group’s 13 million addresses with a video from Obama that urged support for the economic stimulus plan.
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Wall Street Slams Plan With Sell-Off
By David Cho and Lori Montgomery
Wednesday, February 11, 2009; Page A01

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner vowed yesterday to bring the “full force” of the U.S. government to battle the financial crisis, assembling an unprecedented coalition of agencies and mustering federal resources on a scale rarely seen except at wartime. But the lack of detail in his plan dismayed lawmakers and investors, triggering a steep sell-off on Wall Street.
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Raided Firms Have Murtha Ties
By Carol D. Leonnig and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 11, 2009; Page A02

Two separate federal raids at the Virginia offices of a lobbying powerhouse and at the Pennsylvania headquarters of a defense contractor have one thing in common: Both businesses have made millions from federal earmark projects arranged by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.).
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Lawmakers’ Goal to Cap Executive Pay Meets Resistance
Congressional efforts to impose stringent restrictions on executive compensation appeared to be evaporating yesterday as House and Senate negotiators worked to fine-tune the compromise stimulus bill.
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Senate Will Vote On Labor Nominee
Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.) took a big step toward becoming President Obama’s labor secretary yesterday when a Senate committee voted to send her nomination to the full Senate.
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Peanut Executive Takes the Fifth
As salmonella illness began spreading across the country last fall, the owner of a Georgia peanut plant that was causing the outbreak railed against the cost and delays that the contamination was causing his businesses, according to internal company documents obtained by Congress.
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Panetta Confirmed
The Senate confirmed Leon Panetta as director of the CIA yesterday, placing the nation’s top spy agency in the hands of a government veteran valued for his skills as a lawmaker and policy manager rather than an expert at intelligence-gathering and analysis.
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Gregg Withdraws As Commerce Pick
Saying he “made a mistake,” Republican Sen. Judd Gregg withdrew yesterday as the nominee for commerce secretary, dealing a fresh blow to President Obama’s quest to fill out his Cabinet and dramatically undercutting his efforts to forge a new bipartisanship in the capital.
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