"Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, 'Why on earth hasn't this, why is this guy still representing the department?' Bailey says in the recording, released last August.
At the time she released the tape, Gov. Palin said it was a "smoking gun." It flatly disproved her previous claim that her administration did not pressure the troopers to dismiss her brother-in-law.
Bailey's call was one of about two dozen times her staff made inquiries about why Wooten was still a trooper. "The serial nature of the contacts understandably could be perceived as some kind of pressure, presumably at my direction," Gov. Palin said at the time.
She denied knowing about or authorizing Bailey to make the call. In her account, Bailey was falsely claiming on tape to speak for the governor.
That should have been a firing offense -- end of story.
Instead, she put Bailey on paid leave shortly after the scandal broke. That wasn't even a wrist slap -- it was basically a paid vacation.
Barely a month passed, and Bailey was back at his $78,528-a-year state job, supervising board and commission appointments.
Bailey was also central to another ethics controversy during Gov. Palin's tenure. State e-mails showed that he was in the middle of an effort to change state hiring specifications so that a Palin supporter was able to get a state job in Fairbanks. In that case, a formal investigation recommended ethics training for Bailey.
Gov. Palin never explained why Bailey did not face stronger consequences for his unauthorized effort to get trooper Wooten fired. One of the great mysteries of Gov. Palin's tenure is why someone elected as an ethics crusader stood by a staffer who was caught red-handed in unethical behavior.
BOTTOM LINE: In the ethics realm, Frank Bailey was a blot on Gov. Palin's record.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.