Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Sarah Palin's friends and supporters in Alaska on Friday set up a legal-expense fund to help her pay more than $500,000 in legal bills racked up defending ethics complaints -- including one she filed against herself when she was a Republican vice presidential candidate.

One of Palin's longtime friends, Kristan Cole, will serve as the trustee of the legal-expense fund, which launched its Web site Friday.

The Alaska Fund Trust is modeled after the legal-expense funds of other well-known political figures, including former first lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Kerry and former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Cole said they decided to start the fund to help Palin defend herself against what she described as "the onslaught of frivolous attacks against her."

"These baseless accusations are designed to inhibit her ability to focus on the issues Alaskans truly care about and force massive personal debt on her and her family," she said.

The trustees have capped donations to the fund at $150. The fund will disclose each quarter the names of all donors -- something Cole said it does not have to do. Lobbyists, corporations, labor unions and non-U.S. citizens cannot donate to the fund.

Money raised by the expense fund will go to legal bills incurred by Palin, her family and her staff, Cole said. They picked a $150 cap, Cole said, because they wanted a lower amount that would "make it available to as many Alaskans as possible."

Although some of the ethics complaints against Palin date before Sen. John McCain tapped her as his running mate last August, most were filed after the Alaska governor shot to national fame as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Palin owes more than a half million dollars to an Anchorage law firm that has been defending her against some of the ethics complaints -- which Palin herself said last month had become "political blood sport" allowing "only the independently wealthy or those willing to spend their income on legal fees" to serve in office.

ETHICS COMPLAINTS MOUNT

The debt came to light last month in her annual financial disclosure filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. Most appears to be owed to the Anchorage law firm Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen and Thorsness; the firm defended her in the "Troopergate" controversy, which grew from her dismissal of the state's public safety commissioner in July.

The most recent ethics complaint against the governor came this week, from Sondra Tompkins of Anchorage, who describes herself as an advocate for children with disabilities and mother of a special-needs child. In her complaint, she says Palin abdicated her duties by attending out-of-state political events at a critical time -- the end of the legislative session. Palin last week went to Indiana for two events, a Right to Life banquet and a breakfast for families with Down syndrome children. Her political action committee, SarahPAC, and the hosts of the events paid Palin's way, said a spokeswoman.

Palin decided to allow the legal-expense fund after one of her fans, Clayton Paslay, whom she doesn't know, said he would use his own political group to help her. Paslay's organization, called Free American Citizens, was created to support conservative leaders and his favorite causes, including Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Paslay said he decided to ask people to donate to his fund after hearing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly make a pitch to help Palin pay her legal bills.

But Palin's own political action committee urged supporters to hold off on donations until her friends in Alaska could set up something that would funnel contributions directly to the lawyers handling ethics complaints in Alaska.

"Governor Palin is truly humbled by the tremendous outpouring of support from her fellow Alaskans and the wonderful people across our great country," said Meghan Stapleton, who worked for the McCain-Palin campaign and now serves as a spokeswoman for the Palin family and the governor's political action committee.

FUNDRAISER IS OUT

That committee, SarahPAC, on Friday officially ended its relationship with Campaign Solutions, a Virginia company headed by one of the pioneers in online campaign contributions, Rebecca Donatelli. The company handled online fundraising for the McCain-Palin campaign and had set up the online fundraising mechanism for SarahPAC. Donatelli also was involved in establishing Palin's online presence on social networking sites such as Facebook.

But Donatelli severed the relationship with SarahPAC on Friday morning, after Palin's legal-expense fund chose to use another company to host its Web site and process donations. Donatelli did not respond to a request for an interview.

Stapleton said that Palin had one request when she agreed to allow Cole to launch a legal-expense fund: keep it in Alaska. To that end, they chose a company named Krobar.

"Campaign Solutions is not based in Alaska," Stapleton said. "We appreciate Donatelli's good work for us, but as we have been saying all along, the governor is focused on Alaska and Alaskans."

The governor's political action committee now directs people to donate to her legal-expense fund instead -- on an Alaska-based Web site run by an Alaska-based company.

Campaign Solutions will no longer process donations for the political action committee or host its Web site, Stapleton said, and the committee will be looking for a new Alaska-based Web host for SarahPAC.

Find Erika Bolstad online at adn.com/contact/ebolstad or call her in Washington, D.C., at 202-383-6104.

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