Palin and Co. have stonewalled the Troopergate investigation and many are wondering if this will declaw it enough to get through the election.  People are also wondering if the intense  effort put towards hiding information may actually be worse than the crime.  Why such fuss and legal muscling?  Why refuse to release 1100 emails?  What are they hiding?  Actions were taken by Palin, her husband and staff that go beyond verbally pressuring Monegan to fire Wooten and beyond firing Monegan for not bowing to the pressure.  Those actions almost got buried, but someone had a tape recorder.

If you listened to the tape of the conversation between Frank Bailey and a member of Monegan's staff Bailey can be heard talking about a workers' compensation claim that Wooten filed and claiming information he put on it is false.  The claim information that Bailey had is confidential information from Wooten's personnel files.  Those confidential files were brought to the Governors office and gone through by Palin's staff in an effort to block Wooten's workers' compensation benefits and some testimony was made just last week regarding that.  From an opinion piece in Saturday's Anchorage Daily News:

The real damage to Palin from Troopergate comes with an injury claim involving trooper Wooten when he hurt his back while in the line of duty.

Independent investigator Steve Branchflower testified recently he believes someone in the governor's office tried to block Wooten's workers' compensation injury benefits.

Harbor Adjustment Services, the company hired by the state to process, evaluate and decide on workers' benefit claims, had great financial incentive in bowing to pressure from the governor to deny Wooten's injury claim.

Obviously, the state is Harbor Adjustment Services' largest client. The owner of the company denies the governor's office pressured her to deny Wooten's benefits. Why wouldn't she? Ratting out the governor could cost her the lucrative state contract.

But Branchflower says an employee with Harbor Adjustment Services contradicts the owner and has testified the governor's office did apply pressure to deny Wooten his benefits.

Branchflower says the unnamed employee testified, "I don't, you know, care if it's the president who wants the claim denied. I'm not going to deny it unless I have the medical evidence to do that,"

We know the governor's office was very interested in Wooten. Dianne Kiesel, a state employee with the Department of Administration, tells me former Palin chief of staff Mike Tibbles instructed her to walk Wooten's personnel file over to the governor's office.

And there is the governor's aide, Frank Bailey, caught on tape admitting he has information that came from Wooten's workers' comp file.

The very file that includes pictures, taken by none other than Todd Palin, of Wooten riding a snowmachine trying to prove the trooper was not injured.

Here's why this is all so damaging to the governor. It's one thing to try to get a trooper fired because you believe he is a danger to the public. But using your considerable power as governor to block the benefits of a former family member you have a long-running dispute with moves this scandal into a new realm.

It becomes about one thing and one thing only, revenge. Not public good, but settling a score.