A drug investigator says authorities delayed the arrest of a woman tied to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s family until after the November election, in which Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate, a newspaper reported.
Sherry Johnston — whose son Levi Johnston is engaged to Palin’s daughter, Bristol — was arrested on Dec. 18 on six felony drug counts.
She is accused of selling Oxycontin, a strong prescription painkiller, and pleaded not guilty on Monday.
Investigator Kyle Young sent an e-mail to the Public Safety Employees Association saying the search warrant of Johnston’s house was delayed for political reasons, the Anchorage Daily News reported on Monday.
“It was not allowed to progress in a normal fashion, the search warrant WAS delayed because of the pending election and the Mat Su Drug Unit and the case officer were not the ones calling the shots,” Young wrote in the Dec. 30 e-mail.
The warrant was delivered the same day as Sherry Johnston’s arrest.
Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters insisted the case was handled fairly and said no one in the governor’s office knew troopers were investigating until Sherry Johnston’s house was searched.
After the house was searched, Masters said he called Palin’s chief of staff, Mike Nizich, to alert him of a potential media frenzy.
Colonel Audie Holloway, the troopers’ director, also vigorously disputed that there was anything irregular in how the case was handled.
A message left for Young with his union was not immediately returned on Monday.
Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin recently announced the birth of their son. The baby, Tripp, is the governor’s first grandchild.
Also on Monday, Levi Johnston’s father, Keith Johnston, said his son quit his job as a North Slope oil field worker after questions arose in a weekend newspaper column about Levi’s eligibility to work as an apprentice electrician without a high school degree, the Anchorage Daily News reported on its Web site.
There was no phone listing for Keith Johnston.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in