Randy Evans: 'The endless harassment of Sarah Palin is incredible'

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Randy Evans is the Georgia attorney who helped set up the Alaska Fund Trust, the defense fund for Sarah Palin that was ruled a violation of state law by the Alaska Personnel Board. He comments on the fund and the board's decision in a recent op-ed:

It took one year, two independent counsels, and tens of thousands of Alaska taxpayer dollars to conclude that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did nothing wrong in connection with a legal defense fund created to pay legal fees resulting from allegations related to her service as governor. Indeed, the story of the endless harassment of Sarah Palin is incredible.

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The language of the proposed trust fund was drafted to directly mirror the language and provisions used by the John Kerry Trust fund.

Indeed, former Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Kerry's trust was drafted by Perkins Coie, President Barack Obama's law firm.

On cue, within minutes of the announcement of Governor Palin's trust, a complaint was filed. And, the first "independent counsel" selected to investigate the trust was none other than the Alaska office of Perkins Coie.

Apparently before realizing that Governor Palin's trust was nearly identical to the trust Perkins Coie prepared for John Kerry, the Perkins Coie "independent counsel" found in a detailed nine page “CONFIDENTIAL” letter -- that was promptly leaked to the media — that Gov. Palin's trust was illegal.

Ridicule ensued. In addition, once the conflict of interest between representing President Obama and investigating Gov. Sarah Palin became public, the Perkins Coie "independent counsel" resigned. And so, a new second "independent counsel" (with no background or expertise in the area of legal expense funds) began the investigation anew.

In an unprecedented move of total transparency, Governor Sarah Palin waived her attorney-client privilege so that she and her lawyers could answer every question regarding the creation and formation of her legal expense fund trust. After months of flyspecking every document, e-mail, and statement, the second independent counsel issued a new nine page detailed report citing two new supposed violations of the Alaska Ethics Act that were, interestingly enough, not even mentioned in the Perkins Coie report...

Read Randy Evans' complete commentary on the fund and the harassment of Sarah Palin here.

- JP

Representing Governor Palin... or not (Updated)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution political blogger Jim Galloway reports via Political Insider that Randy Evans has resigned his position as legal consul for the Georgia Republican Party to go to work for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin:

During a spare moment, we were able to ask Evans if he had negotiated Palin’s book deal. He declined to answer — but acknowledged he is now doing legal work for Palin. "I'm not going to say what I'm doing," he said. "I represent a lot of people."

Indeed he does. Among them are Georgia's own former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and fomer four-term Congressman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma.

The ADN's Alaska Politics bloggers checked Gingrich's website and found Evans listed as chairman of Gingrich Communications.

Update: Now ADN 's Sean Cockerham says he spoke to Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton, who denies that Evans will come to work for Gov. Palin.

According to Stapleton, Evans was consulted to only to assist in setting up the governor's legal defense fund:

That's the extent of his work for Palin and there's no job for him, she said.

ADN has updated its blog with the new information. As of this writing, the post on Galloway's blog has not been corrected. Galloway had identified Georgia GOP chairwoman Sue Everhart as the original source who said that Evans was leaving his job with the Georgia Republican party  to go to work for Gov. Palin.

- JP