Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg filed a lawsuit Thursday in Anchorage superior court asking a judge to invalidate subpoenas issued by the state Legislature two weeks ago as part of an ethics probe of Gov. Sarah Palin, the latest development in the ongoing legal battle between Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate and state lawmakers.

The probe centers on whether Palin and several of her senior aides pressured Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper who was engaged in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Gov. Palin’s sister. Initially, Palin said she would be “happy to comply, to cooperate” with the investigation, but now – after becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee – she, her husband and several of her top aides are resisting requests for depositions.

Colberg’s lawsuit claims Alaska’s Senate Judiciary Committee does not have subpoena authority. The Senate Judiciary Committee authorized thirteen subpoenas Sept. 12 and five were served to officials in the Palin administration. Palin’s husband, Todd, also received a subpoena. The emerging public record shows that Gov. Palin and her husband Todd – who calls himself Alaska’s “First Dude” – have been waging a vendetta to get Trooper Mike Wooten fired since shortly after Palin took office in December 2006.

Last week, Sen. Hollis French, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, recommended that Todd Palin, and two state officials, be held in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas.

A Judiciary Committee hearing was scheduled Friday morning for witnesses who were subpoenaed last week. But none of the six witnesses who received a summons showed up. French, who has been overseeing the Palin investigation, has been accused by the McCain-Palin campaign of acting in a partisan manner.

French sent a letter to Senate President Lyda Green, stating refusal to respond to the subpoena requires the Alaska Legislature to decide whether to impose fines against the First Spouse or pursue contempt charges, which could lead to Todd Palin’s arrest.

French wrote that Todd Palin, and the two state officials, “all having been served with subpoenas through their legal counsel, have neither given statements nor appeared today in compliance with their subpoenas.”

“Alaska statute 24.25.030 sets out our procedure in this particular situation,” the letter says. The statute says, French wrote, that “if a witness neglects or refuses to obey a subpoena…the senate or the house of representatives may by resolution entered on its journal commit the witness for contempt. If contempt is committed before a committee, the committee shall report the contempt to the senate or house of representatives, as the case may be, for such action as may be considered necessary. Please consider this letter as satisfying the dictates of the statute.”

However, the senate does not convene until January so any action taken would be well after November’s presidential election unless a special session is called.

Seven of the subpoenas were not immediately served because Alaska’s Assistant Attorney General Mike Barnhill told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hollis French in a Sept. 9 letter the witnesses would testify voluntarily.

However, Colberg reneged on the promise last week. French said those witnesses were scheduled to testify today but have indicated they would not comply with the summonses.

In a letter Thursday to state Sen. Kim Elton, the head of Alaska’s Legislative Council, Colberg said “I do not, of course, believe that responding to properly issued subpoenas is voluntary.”

“But I do believe that subpoenaed persons have the right to challenge the validity of the subpoenas when that validity is suspect,” Colberg wrote.

The refusal by Palin’s aides to comply with the subpoenas led to accusations of pressure on the witnesses by the McCain-Palin campaign. The campaign’s attacks on the investigation prompted a request to the state police from state Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat, for an investigation into possible witness tampering by people associated with the McCain-Palin campaign.

“Starting after Aug. 29, certain staff for the McCain campaign came to Alaska in an effort to block this investigation,” Gara wrote in a letter to Audie Holloway, director of the Alaska state troopers.

“There are rumors that upwards of 30 staffers have come to the state since that date,” Gara said. “Campaign representatives Ed O’Callaghan and Meghan Stapleton have held numerous press conferences in Anchorage to block the investigation. Since then three witnesses have failed to comply with legislative subpoenas, and up to seven more may do the same …

“Something has caused, or in the words of the statute, may have ‘induced’ these witnesses to change their position. … It seems a witness would not risk possible jail time that comes with the violations of a subpoena without advice of others.”

But Colberg’s lawsuit claims the state’s Legislative Council “did not authorize the Senate Judiciary Committee to play any role in the investigation” when the governing body unanimously authorized an independent counsel to investigate Palin and several aides to the governor.

Colberg’s involvement in the case would appear to be a conflict-of-interest. Colberg was one of the officials who called Monegan and allegedly pressured him about terminating Wooten, Monegan has said. Monegan said he also received telephone calls from then-chief of staff Mike Tibbles; and Commissioner Annette Kreitzer of the Department of Administration.

Colberg acknowledged making the call, after an inquiry from Palin’s husband, Todd Palin about “the process” for handling a threatening trooper, and then relaying back the response from Monegan that the issue had been handled and nothing more could be done.

While Palin denies that she fired Monegan because he balked at firing Wooten, some of the newly available evidence confirms Palin’s obsession with her ex-brother-in-law who she claimed had threatened physical harm to her family during heated arguments about the divorce.

Palin sent an e-mail to Monegan on July 17, 2007, with a copy to Attorney General Talis Colberg, regarding proposed handgun legislation that would bar weapon sales to people who had made violent threats.

“The first thought that hit me,” Palin wrote, “about people not being able to buy guns when they’re threatening to kill someone went to my ex brother-in-law, the trooper, who threatened to kill my dad yet was not even reprimanded by his bosses and still to this day carries a gun, of course. …

“We can’t have double standards. Remember when that death threat was reported, and follow-on threats from Mike [Wooten] that he was going ‘to bring Sarah and her family down’ – instead of any reprimand WE were told by trooper union personnel that we’d be sued if we talked about those threats.

“Amazing. And he’s still a trooper, and he still carries a gun, and he still tells anyone who will listen that he will never work for that b*tch (me) because he has such anger and distain [sic] toward my family.

“So consistency is needed here. No one’s above the law. If the law needs to be changed to not allow access to guns for people threatening to kill someone, it must be applied to everyone.”

Several Democratic state lawmakers said Colberg’s involvement in the scandal shows he has a bias.  

In his letter to Elton Colberg said he confirmed with state “bar counsel that my contact with former Commissioner Monegan did not create a conflict-of-interest.”

Part of the investigation also centers on whether Palin and/or her aides improperly accessed Wooten’s personnel file and then disseminating confidential, and damaging, information to Wooten’s superiors in an attempt to get him fired.

Colberg, however, in a Sept. 9 letter to the state legislature said Palin  has an unlimited right to pry into the personnel records of all state employees, including Wooten’s.

Colberg’s argument is that Palin can access confidential files of any state employee she chooses and thus the allegation that she got unauthorized access to Wooten’s personnel records — by whatever means — is moot.

“It does not violate the State Personnel Act for Department of Administration Staff to provide confidential personnel information to the governor or her staff — or for the governor or her staff to receive that information — in the course and scope of their official duties,” the attorney general wrote.

“The governor or her staff may, in the course and scope of their official duties, review a confidential personnel file to ensure, for example, that an employee is adequately supervised, appropriately evaluated, and appropriately disciplined. In appropriate cases, the governor may also direct the termination of a state employee.”

The legal analysis appears to be an attempt to provide Palin and her staffers with legal cover for allegedly disseminating confidential information about Wooten in a campaign to get him fired.

Palin’s new defense line became necessary when it turned out that an earlier claim that Wooten’s personnel file was public record through his divorce/custody case with Palin’s sister turned out to be untrue.

Palin, her private attorney Thomas Van Flein and McCain campaign officials had said Wooten released his confidential medical and employment records as part of those proceedings. Palin’s office even posted Wooten’s Feb. 7 agreement to release those records as part of the case discovery.

However, the Palins appear to have been mistaken that Wooten’s personnel record had been released into the official court record where it would become public information.

Wooten’s personnel file was never introduced as evidence in the divorce/custody case because he entered into a settlement agreement with his ex-wife over custody of their young children, according to Palin’s sister’s attorney, Roberta Erwin.