Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Political activist Andree McLeod has filed ethics complaints against two of Gov. Sarah Palin's top aides, alleging they misused their positions to promote the governor's political ambitions.

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Kris Perry

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Bill McAllister

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McLeod is making the charges against Palin's communications director, Bill McAllister, and Kris Perry, who directs the governor's Anchorage office. McLeod is asking the state personnel board to investigate the allegations.

McAllister said the claims are just part of an ongoing vendetta by McLeod, a former state employee.

"This is a person who I think was disgruntled because she wasn't considered for a (Palin administration) job, has some time on her hands, apparently, and wants to wreak havoc with people's lives and reputations," McAllister said.

McLeod said the issue is what McAllister and Perry did while on the state's time. It is against the executive branch ethics act for a state official to do partisan political work on duty.

McLeod's complaint against Perry focuses on time Perry spent traveling with the governor on the vice-presidential campaign trail and afterward. The governor's office said Perry was Palin's liaison to state officials back in Alaska, making sure she was in contact about what was going on in government.

McLeod alleges several examples of what she says is McAllister doing partisan work on state time. One is an e-mail McAllister sent to Palin on Aug. 27, shortly before the Republican National Convention and two days before John McCain picked Palin as his running mate.

"The convention itself is requesting you to act as a surrogate for McCain for national media. Available blocs of time, daily, are 5-9 a.m., 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. Within those, they ask when you might be available for this purpose," McAllister wrote in the e-mail, which he copied to Perry and other staffers.

McLeod said that shows McAllister in "an ongoing collaboration with Republican National Committee convention staff." McAllister said he was just passing on information.

"I wasn't soliciting that stuff and I didn't report to the RNC or the McCain campaign or to any partisan organization. These requests were coming in, and I was basically informing the governor of the traffic I was getting," McAllister said.

The ethics complaint also flags an interview McAllister did with Anchorage KTUU Channel 2 from the convention hall in St. Paul, Minn.

In it, McAllister said Palin was receiving foreign policy briefings, preparing for her convention speech and feeling good about how it was going to go. "The McCain folks definitely know what they want. They're working with her all day long on various aspects of how this is going to go," McAllister said in the television interview.

McLeod charges that shows that McAllister was involving himself in partisan convention activities. McAllister responded that he was just answering questions regarding what he knew about the governor. He said Alaska media were trying to interview the governor and he was asked about what she was doing. He's said he was at the convention to help Palin with state business -- not for the campaign.

McLeod includes in her claims complaints about McAllister from after the vice-presidential campaign. They include interviews McAllister gave Alaska media in which he criticized statements made by Bob Poe, a Democrat who is running for governor.

Palin hasn't said if she'll run for re-election in 2010. McAllister said he didn't talk about Palin as a potential candidate or about whether Poe would make a good challenger.

"The only thing I responded to was when he criticized her job performance," McAllister said. "So I think I can do that. In fact, I think I would be awfully remiss if I did not defend the governor's job performance."

McLeod said it should be up to the state personnel board to decide whether she or McAllister is right.

McLeod's ethics complaint against Perry focuses on Perry's travels with Palin. Perry accompanied Palin on the vice-presidential campaign trail, then later on trips to the Republican Governor's Association meeting and on a trip that included a swing through Georgia to campaign for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

McLeod's complaint includes photos of Perry standing next to Palin at what appears to be a Chambliss campaign event in Georgia. The pictures show Perry there as Palin signs autographs and has her photo taken. "She appears to provide services that are campaign related, not state related," the complaint said.

McAllister said there's "an inconsistency to the criticism we get." People complain Palin was gone. But when it's pointed out that Perry was there to make sure Palin stayed in contact with state government, they then charge Perry with campaigning, McAllister said.

Perry said in a written statement that if McLeod were truly concerned about ethics, she would honor the confidentiality of the complaint process as intended by state law rather than sending out a press release and "seeking more national media attention."

"As it is, she is simply resorting to character assassinations through her false allegations," Perry wrote.

McLeod's ethics complaint first appeared over the weekend on the national liberal blog Huffington Post. She sent out a press release on Monday, saying she'd just filed the complaint.

While the ethics law calls for confidentiality, that doesn't mean the attorney general can throw out a complaint because the person who filed it spoke out, according to Assistant Attorney General Judy Bockmon.

McLeod said how she released the information has nothing to do with whether there was wrongdoing.

McAllister said McLeod has taken her vendetta against Palin into a "bizarre netherworld."

"And this comes with a price tag," he said. "She has filed, and this is a conservative number, at least 10 Freedom of Information Act requests of the administration since last summer. And we are close to $100,000 now in costs of dealing with those ... and that's a running tab."

McLeod questioned that amount. Besides, she said, if Palin had used her government e-mail instead of a private account, it wouldn't have cost so much to get correspondence.

"Public record laws and ethics complaints are the mechanisms in place for citizens to find out about the inner workings of their government as well as to address and redress the wrongdoings of their public officials," McLeod said in a written statement.

McLeod has filed at least one other ethics complaint in recent months against the Palin administration. She charged in August that the governor's office used its influence to get a Palin supporter a job. Investigator Tim Petumenos said Palin did not do anything wrong but recommended ethics training for one of the governor's close aides.