Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal The Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal, also known as Troopergate, involves the possibly illegal July 2008 dismissal of the Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan by Governor Sarah Palin for not firing Alaskan State Trooper Mike Wooten, who was in a bitter divorce with Palin's Sister. On October 10, 2008, the twelve-member bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council hired investigator Stephen Branchflower to investigate the matter. The Legislative council voted unanimously to release the so called, Branchflower Report, which found that Palin had violated the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act covering state executive employees when she dismissed
Alaska one week before the election. The conviction was set aside in April 2009 after evidence of prosecutorial misconduct emerged. Republican Frank Murkowski held the state's other senatorial position. After being elected governor in 2002, he resigned from the Senate and appointed his daughter, State Representative Lisa Murkowski as his successor. She won full six-year terms in 2004, 2010 and 2016. Alaska is not divided into counties, as most of the other U.S. states, but it is divided into "boroughs". Many of the more densely populated parts of the state are part of Alaska's 16 boroughs, which function somewhat similarly to