Here's how we know Sarah Palin faked Trig's birth, and why the Palin birth hoax still matters 


Regular commenter Amy1 wrote the following in responding to another commenter:

... To me, the key piece of evidence is the Mar 14 photo (and the other photos that show SP to be not pregnant just weeks before the Apr 18 "delivery.") Even the wild ride did not seem like proof positive, to me. I can (just barely) imagine someone being deranged enough to risk such a flight as a pregnant woman, however unlikely all the info makes it. But the photos DO seem proof positive, proof that would stand up in court. At least, I have never heard ANY explanation for the flat profile on Mar 14 and a 6-pound baby 5 weeks later. Or the flat Mar 14 photo and the Gusty photo. It's either a medical impossibility or a miracle.

For me, the photos remove the need to speculate on the bioparents of Trig, how many babies were used, the relationship of Tripp's and Trig's birthdates, the dysfunctional family, the crooked police, the fake CBJ medical letter, and much else. To me (but not to everyone else), it's a matter of SP hoaxed us in that she was not pregnant.

Everything else is in the category of interesting but not essential. 

And of course, the importance is not in Palin's deceit so much as the enabling that the GOP and backers did, and the continuing suppression of the story in the MSM. It's way bigger than Palin, but it need not involve her family beyond herself. Just Palin, the GOP, and the 1%er-funders -- hoaxing us to affect an election.



I know you know all this, Ginger, but I'm long-winded so any newbies don't feel like our 3 years of data is written in code! 
While not proof positive on its own, the email with the draft of Trig's birth announcement (including the info that he was early) is certainly pretty damaging too, because that email was written before the fake birth.
 As others have said, we really don't know which detail will serve to burst the dam open. ...

Another open letter to John R. Lee, CEO of the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, concerning the hospital's role in the Palin birth hoax

John R. Lee, CEO

Mat-Su Regional Medical Center

Palmer, AK 99645-8984

Dear Mr. Lee,


You know who I am by now, but for the record, I am a journalism professor in Kentucky trying to make clear to the public that Sarah Palin almost certainly faked the birth of Trig on April 18, 2008, claiming (most of the time) that Trig was born at your hospital, the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.


You undoubtedly know whether Palin did or did not give birth there. However, as far as I can tell, your hospital has never said a word about the matter. The hospital did not list Trig as a baby born that day (unless it did so briefly on your web site, and then pulled the name, as some have suggested). And neither you nor the hospital's head of marketing, Mr. Sterling Grover, have responded to letters I have sent you, nor has anyone at the hospital responded to the numerous messages I have left using the hospital's feedback page.


In the the attached article, which I have posted at my blog, I argue that you, by refusing to comment on Palin's dubious claim of giving birth at your hospital, are tacitly complicit in a hoax that arguably violated federal law. I am going to expand that article for publication. And in that expanded article I am going to make clear that I informed you in advance of my intentions, and asked you yet again to respond to my queries. (While I am posting this first as an open letter to you at my blog, it will soon follow as a certified letter via the postal system.)


I've done a great deal of thinking, plus lots of research, on the question of what happened at the Mat-Su medical center the day of Trig's alleged birth there. I've reached the conclusion that Sarah Palin probably was not even registered as a patient.


So my first question to you is: Was Sarah Palin a patient at your hospital on April 18, 2008? If she was not, then there would be no HIPAA-related privacy issue. Your refusal to comment, if that is the case, would be truly inexcusable.


My second question is: Did Sarah Palin give birth to Trig Palin at your hospital on April 18, 2008? If she did not, then even if Sarah Palin was registered as a patient, she clearly committed a hoax, a fraud, and HIPAA restrictions do not apply in cases of fraud.


Again, if you do not respond in any way to my questions here, I will note that fact in the article I plan to publish. And that silence on your part would speak volumes about where the truth likely lies.


Please send your response to my questions to PO Box 17772, Fort Mitchell KY, 41017, or email me at brad.scharlott at gmail.com, or call me at 859-426-5309.


Sincerely yours,


Brad Scharlott

Palin Birth Truthometer Breaks $50,000 Mark!

As many of you know, I am offering a cash reward for definitive proof that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig. The generosity of many readers sending in pledges has now moved the reward to $50,228. To add to the reward, send your name and pledge amount to brad.scharlott @gmail.com. Do not send cash. If and when a winner appears, I will let you know.

If you have evidence that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig and wish to claim the reward, send it to Brad Scharlott, PO Box 17772, Fort Mitchell KY 41017.

Everyone is welcome to send in evidence, including – in fact, especially – Sarah Palin herself. Easy money for you, Sarah, if in fact you gave birth.

Frank Bailey wrote that he saw Sarah Palin after she gave birth to Trig at the Mat-Su hospital. Can we trust him? Absolutely not!

I and several of the regulars who comment at this site think it is likely that Sarah Palin was not registered as a patient at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center on April 18, 2008, the day she claims she gave birth there. Not a single picture has ever surfaced, for example, showing her in bed holding the supposedly newborn Trig – who definitely was not a newborn that day. In fact it is hard to find compelling evidence that she was at the hospital at all.

So, how do we account for the KTUU news story and video of the Heaths holding Trig in a Mat-Su maternity suite that day? The leading hypothesis is that the Heaths somehow got access to an unoccupied suite, and the news team from KTUU, perhaps in on the hoax, was led there by one of the conspirators. Keep in mind that Bill McAllister, Palin's soon-to-be press secretary, still worked at KTUU, and that his station was the only news organization in town that got to cover the story at Mat-Su.

For any newbies reading this, if the above sounds too fantastic to be true, ask yourself this: Why was it so important for Palin to get to the Mat-Su hospital, if she supposedly started having contractions in Dallas more than 3,000 away? No sane woman who was truly experiencing contractions would have traveled that far (nor would an airline have let her board the plane). What was so special about Mat-Su? Answer: as a former board member of the hospital, she had the clout to pull off a hoax there and not be called out on it.

So who, outside of family members and Levi Johnston (whose account cannot be trusted), claims they saw Palin at the hospital that day? Not many.

One of the most perplexing accounts comes from Frank Bailey, in his book Blind Allegiance. Our regular commenter "B" helpfully provided this background information:

"p.214 of his book, Bailey says at the hospital he saw Sarah (but just a glimpse), Trig, Todd, and Bristol. He also notes a 'good-wishes carousel spinning around the governor and newborn,' which suggests other people. If he is telling the truth, Bailey's account doesn't rule out staged:

" 'The morning of the birth, when escorted behind the hospital double doors, I caught a glimpse of Sarah and hours-old Trig. Dazed, I later joyously snapped a photo of Todd cradling Trig. . . . I left moments later. Passing though the waiting room, I saw Bristol lying on the couch. . . . she had NOT  just given birth.'

"Wonder why it is important for us or Sarah to know that he has a picture of Todd and Trig at the hospital? At any rate, he doesn't describe entering a birthing suite and chatting with Sarah, in bed holding Trig. He goes out of his way to say he could tell Bristol didn't just give birth, but doesn't say he could tell Sarah did.

"Again, IF the account is true, the photo op was staged behind the 'double doors' through which Bailey had to be 'escorted,' which sounds like a patient rather than public area."

Thanks, B! Keep in mind that Bailey confesses in his book that he lied on Palin's behalf numerous times. Thus, there is no reason to assume he is telling the truth here. In fact, I believe he has deliberately lied about Trig. 

In the book he claims he believes Sarah's ridiculous birth story. But he makes clear that he and Sarah and other members of her staff spent a tremendous amount of time combatting rumors that Bristol was Trig's mother and notes that Sarah never did the obvious thing: produce documentary evidence such as a birth certificate. He can't truly be so stupid as to realize the reason she didn't produce such evidence was that should couldn't. He must have known her birth story was false.

But why would he lie? I initially thought it was because of misplaced loyalty to Palin concerning something as important as the birth hoax. But Leadfoot_LA , a wonderfully clear thinker and leading lighting light among the Trig Truthers, provided what strikes me as a much more compelling reason:

"Of course Bailey isn't telling the truth. In fact, I'd add him to the list of people who could be charged in the conspiracy (which is exactly why he did not, and could not tell the truth in his book.)"

Bingo! So, if he was part of the conspiracy, what was his role? Here's my guess: Who would Sarah give the task of sneaking around the Mat-Su hospital to find an unoccupied maternity suite? That's just the kind of unethical activity that she seemed to count on Frank to do. 

If Palin was at the hospital that day, she was not in a bed, she was monitoring how the hoax was proceeding. And if that was case, then maybe Bailey did glimpsed her – but note how he did not describe her. If she had looked as if she had just given birth, he undoubtedly would have written that.

Nonetheless, even if he  did see her, by saying she was with the "hours-old Trig," he still was lying by trying to give the false impression that she gave birth that day. One way or another, his intent was to deceive concerning Trig's birth.

To Officer Dave Parker of the Anchorage PD: Are you incompetent? Or a fanboy willing to do anything for Sarah Palin? Or simply corrupt?

Malia Litman, an attorney, had Officer Dave Parker just where she wanted him: on the phone, and apparently under orders to answer all question she put to him.

And then in a awesome display of lawyerly skill, she took him apart.

Parker, the department's public information officer, had written and disseminated a press release seemingly clearing Todd Palin of whoring by rebutting Shailey Tripp's allegation that Todd had paid her for sex. The New York Daily News then contacted Parker, who told the paper: "It was just guilt by innuendo, nothing else. There's not one scintilla of evidence that Todd Palin had anything to do with this."

Litman asked Parker why he wrote that press release. Because, he explained, Sarah Palin's lawyer had asked the department to send out such a press release if Todd was not mentioned in materials relating to Tripp's arrest. Items the police had confiscated during her arrest included office calendars, her laptop computer, and her cell phone.

Litman asked if Parker was aware that office calendars had been taken, and if he had reviewed them. No, Parker said, he was not aware that office calendars had been taken, and he had not review them.

She asked if he knew that Tripp's laptop computer and cell phone had been taken. Yes, he thought those items had been taken, but no, he had not checked them for information relating to Todd.

So what did you look at? Litman asked. "Dave Parker reviewed the records regarding the arrest that were readily available to him on his computer," is how she summed up his response. He also looked at a loose leaf notebook (but of course would not know if pages had been removed), and spoke with a member of the vice unit.

Let's reflect on this for a moment. Parker told the press "there is not one scintilla" of evidence that Todd had been involved with Tripp, but he had failed to look at her office calendars, her laptop and her cell phone, and he restricted himself largely to what was readily available on his computer.

Three possibilities can account for Parker's behavior:

1. He is so incompetent he did not realize that calendars, cell phones, and computers are where one would logically expect to find evidence of who the johns were that a prostitute had serviced.

2. He is such a fanboy of Sarah Palin that upon getting a request from her lawyer, his normal mental processes shut down and he robotically did everything in his power to help her.

3. Corruption exists at some level in the Anchorage Police Department.

Tilting the odds towards option 3 is the fact that the police have refused to return the laptop and cell phone to Tripp, in violation of the judge's order in June that they do so.

However, Shailey Tripp yesterday wrote at her blog: "Judge Washington has issued an order for APD to return my property and has given 10 days for them to respond. The order was dated Nov. 30, 2011."

I think we can take it as a given that Todd's name appeared somewhere in those calendars and electronic devices when the police confiscated them. It will be interesting to see if his name is still there if and when Tripp gets her property back.

It's also a good bet that Officer Parker engaged in a form of willful ignorance by not looking in the obvious places for evidence relating to Todd. And if that is the case, then he effectively lied in the press release he sent out and the interview he gave the Daily News.

The real question is: Did Parker engage in possibly corrupt behavior on his own account, or was he following orders?

Note to Ms. Karen L. Loeffler, United States Attorney, Anchorage Office, U.S. Department of Justice: If you won't investigate likely corruption in the local police department, to whom can the people of Alaska turn for justice?

How possible misconduct by the Anchorage police relates to Todd Palin and a prostitute's laptop, and why a federal inquiry is needed

Just when things were getting dull, Sarah Palin felt a need on Sean Hannity's show Thursday to compare Herman Cain's fidelity problems with stories about Todd's prostitution peccadillos. And then she heatedly alluded to Shailey Tripp's statement that she did not appear pregnant when Tripp gave her a massage in early 2008. While Palin did not specifically name Tripp, it was clear that's who she was talking about.


For those of you new to this, Shailey Tripp pled guilty to engaging in prostitution at her massage parlor (although charges were later dropped), and she claimed that Todd was one of the johns who paid her for sex. The National Enquirer in its January 31 issue ran that allegation:

The Anchorage Police Department confiscated Tripp's laptop computer and cell phone when they arrested her. Amazingly, that department sent out a press release claiming they could attest that Todd was not a john because they found no evidence he was. That press release was the basis of the following story in the New York Daily News: 

It's odd that the Anchorage police were acting like PR agents for the Palins. What interest should the they have in rebutting stories about the Palins in a national tabloid magazine? Moreover, the police later admitted that there was no firm basis for the assertion of Todd's innocence, because the police had not examined the contents of the laptop or the cell phone.

Furthermore, the police since June have refused to give Tripp her laptop and cell phone back, despite explicit instructions from the judge that they do so. The police department could face contempt of court charges if it continues to defy the judge. Their refusal to release the property raises the question of whether the police are trying to hide something.

Possible misconduct by the Anchorage police is suggested by these articles at Malia Litman's blog: http://malialitman.wordpress.com/category/anchorage-police-department/

  

The ability of local authorities to deal evenhandedly with events that may relate to the Palins can no longer be taken for granted. A federal investigation of the Palin-Tripp issue, plus others involving the Palins, is needed because the Palins may have compromised or corrupted the Anchorage police, and perhaps other law enforcement bodies in Alaska as well

The genius – and the demons – of Sarah Palin

The sheer daring of Sarah Palin in undertaking the birth hoax is breathtaking. In March of 2008, she made a political calculation about a series of events that could make her president of the United States, the most powerful person on earth. With "end days" coming, which she was certain would happen in her lifetime, she could as president enable untold millions on earth to reach salvation, just as Queen Esther of the Bible had saved her people.

This was her manifest destiny. Surely God would not have provided a path to the presidency if taking that path was not His intention. And that path involved claiming Trig as her own. 

I believe Sarah faced a choice in early March of 2008. She could have convinced Bristol to allow Trig to be adopted or fostered by others until McCain made his VP pick; I imagine that was the original plan. (I'm assuming Bristol gave birth to Trig quite prematurely around January.) But once Sarah learned Trig had Down syndrome, God's mind became clear to her. As Trig's mother – a mother who chose life over abortion – she knew her appeal as a potential VP pick would increase tremendously by making her a star among the right-to-life wing of the Republican Party. 

So on March 5, she started a staggeringly ambitious hoax. As a sitting governor who already had to endure press scrutiny comparable to a that of a rock star, she had little privacy. How could she possibly hope to convincingly stage a birth? The enormity of the prospect did not daunt her. God had opened the door; he would show her the way.

A normal person, by which I mean someone not hounded by the demons of narcissistic personality disorder, can barely comprehend the thinking that would lead someone to undertake such a hoax. And that has been Palin's best weapon in keeping the truth at bay: most Americans find unbelievable the idea that Palin could be so disturbed as to try something that outrageous.

The fact that she did commit the hoax is a measure of her mental illness, of how disordered her personality is. The key to understanding someone with NPD is to realize that their inner image of themselves is grandiose, magnificent, perhaps of world-historical importance. That grandiose projection is a defense against profound feelings of worthlessness. Most NPDs suffer a tremendous disconnect between the grandiose way they see themselves internally and the mundane circumstances of their lives and the pedestrian nature of their accomplishments.

But occasionally some combination of hard work, talent, serendipity, and sheer will can allow an NPD to achieve a measure of greatness that matches the inner ideal. But doing so does not bring a cessation of the inner demons saying still more is needed. Lyndon B. Johnson probably was an NPD. He in fact achieved greatness as president of the United States and was responsible for the landmark civil rights legislation of the mid-60s. But despite his accomplishments, his press secretary Bill Moyers wrote of "the exquisite emptiness" at the center of his being. 

Sarah Palin is no LBJ. He was a master politician and clearly had a fine mind. But Palin has a shrewdness that I think borders on genius. She knows what her gifts are and how to use them. She knows how to befriend and beguile and use people – the "friendship" she seems to offer being a hook to ensnare the gullible, whom she then exploits and ultimately disposes of when their usefulness is gone. She knows she is pretty and sexy, and she has used that to great advantage with men. She knows how to promote herself ceaselessly.

And she knows how to spot the gold ring and go for it. It was her remarkable shrewdness that allowed Palin, a woman of ordinary (and largely underdeveloped) intellectual abilities, to rise from unemployed housewife to VP candidate of the United States in two decades. Time and again in her rapid rise, she saw how to use her current position as a stepping stone to the next. And she used the gifts her biblical God gave her, her physical attractiveness and personal charm, to help her travel the world-changing road He had laid out before her.

On March 5, 2008, the inner demons told Sarah to roll the dice, and that even if she needed "snake eyes" to win, God would make sure she got them. And despite astonishing odds, the hoax is still, for the most part, working. I'm in awe of her daring, and of her amazing insight that no matter how poorly disguised the birth hoax was, virtually nobody – especially not the press – would call her on it.

An Open Letter to Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, Concerning Sarah Palin's Fake-Birth Conspiracy

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Holder:

I am writing to ask your office to determine if there is cause to look into the curious circumstances surrounding the birth of Trig Palin (the baby Sarah Palin claims she delivered on April 18, 2008) in relation to a larger picture that includes the activities of SarahPAC and possible arson-related cases in Wasilla.

As you may know, many questions surround the alleged birth of Trig. I am enclosing an article I wrote that was published on September 20 at BusinessInsider.com. The article does a roundup of many of the oddities relating to Palin’s account of how she gave birth to Trig. I want to be clear that I have no specific knowledge of wrongdoing by Sarah Palin or her associates, beyond almost certainly staging a birth hoax. And the evidence for that is circumstantial but overwhelming.

Nonetheless, if Palin lied about giving birth to Trig, then she arguably committed a kind of fraud against the American people, because that alleged birth became a central plank of her political identity. By itself, that apparent lie perhaps broke no laws. I am wondering, however, if a lie in that circumstance might be seen as part of a web of factors that warrant considering whether RICO or similar statutes might apply.

I think that after reviewing the facts in my attached article, you will agree that the only possible explanation for Palin to fly 3,000-plus miles on April 17, 2008, to an inadequately equipped medical facility while allegedly in labor with a premature special-needs child was to stage a hoax.

Perhaps you are aware that a church Palin attended, the Wasilla Bible Church, was set on fire on December 12, 2008. People at blog sites speculated that the fire may have been set to destroy records relating to Trig, such as adoption records, but offered no evidence. Then the following month, a woman named Darlene “Dar” Miller died in a fire at her home in Wasilla. Bloggers made much of the fact that Miller had been a neonatal nurse but offered no evidence that she had been connected to the Palins.

Unexplained questions surround those fires. One oddity is that the Wasilla fire chief told reporters that Miller seemingly started the fire at her home by smoking – but there is reason to believe she was not a smoker. A woman in Alaska told me that when she tried to get access to the investigation records for the Miller fire, she was told they had been turned over to the Wasilla police department and were not available to the public.

I’m not going to suggest theories here. The fact that those two fires happened so soon after the 2008 presidential election in a small community, with one fire involving a church frequented by Palin, should by itself spark the interest of law enforcement officials on various levels.

You also perhaps know about SarahPAC. It has collected millions in donations since it was created in 2009. I have no idea if its spending would pass an audit. I understand the PAC hired her parents for certain services, and there may be nothing irregular in that, or in her bus tour/vacation last summer, where Paul Revere became a subject of interest.

A cursory examination of the PAC’s filings with the FEC and that agency’s requests for additional information suggests there may be significant questions relating to the actual recipients of large amounts of money. Of particular interest might be Pie-Spy LLC, a marketing firm started by Sarah Palin herself that allegedly provides marketing services for the elderly.

My question is whether all the above, taken together, would seem to warrant a closer look at what happened with Trig’s birth. The central hypothesis might be that Palin used a hoax to create a political persona that then enabled her to enrich herself. It can be documented that Palin in many venues since 2008 has repeated the lie that she gave birth to Trig (although sometimes changing facts, such as what city the birth took place in).

A strong case could be made that the frequent repetition of the lie was meant to enable her to continue soliciting millions of dollars in contributions. What seemed especially egregious, from the standpoint of bilking donors, was Palin’s stringing out her decision concerning whether she was going to run for president. Her daughter Bristol said in late June that Palin had already made up her mind. But in late September, SarahPAC sent out a letter that said:

“Gov. Palin is on the verge of making her decision of whether or not to run for office. It’s one of the most difficult and important decisions of her life. And I want her to know that she has our support … Send your best, one-time gift to SarahPAC today to help her elect more common-sense conservatives – and show her that we support her if she decides to run."

I am enclosing copies of letters I have sent to John R. Lee, CEO of Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, where Palin claims she gave birth to Trig; and Wayne T. Smith, President and CEO of Community Health Systems (Mat-Su’s parent company), Franklin, TN 37067.

About me: I am a concerned citizen who has done considerable research on Sarah Palin's alleged birth of Trig Palin. I am, on behalf of the public, seeking to find the truth in this matter. As a professor at a public university, I believe my job encompasses contributing to the public welfare in this manner.

Sincerely yours,

Brad Scharlott, PhD

brad.scharlott@gmail.com

Chuck & Sally Heath, Sarah Palin's Parents, Most Likely Were Part of the Birth Hoax Conspiracy – Here's How They May Have Staged It 


KatieAnnieOakley says ...
The more I think about it, there more I think she never stepped foot in that hospital that night or day. Remember, EVERYONE still thought Sarah was in TEXAS. 

Most likely nobody stepped foot in that hospital until shortly before Sally & Chuck were interviewed late Saturday morning. A hallway with no patients was used. I also don't think Levi was there at daybreak. It's the middle of the morning. Breakfast is done, meds have been passed out, beds are made, lunch isn't coming for another hour or so, and only two patients are birthing babies - it's a slow time in the hospital, before lunch. Trust me, if I had Frequent Patient Miles, I'd be WEALTHY. Hospitals are DEAD on weekend late mornings. Physicians come and go, and CBJ in the maternity ward could go down a hall with a nod and a hello - she had privileges after all. "Hi guys - just getting ready for an interview. Do you have an empty room we could use?" Levi strolls into the hospital with a gym bag... and opens a door for the Heaths because THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN RECOGNIZED walking through the front door. 

Or, the Heaths could have exploited their stature in the valley: they could have walked right through the front door, saying they were there for an interview. REMEMBER: Sarah, as everyone "thinks" they know, is STILL in Texas. Sally used to be on the board (maybe she still was at that time) so they would defer to her. Oh, yeah - she's also the GOVERNORS MOM. They could freely set up the scene with the TV crew and run with it - cause Sarah's still in Texas... 

And, I'm now fairly certain Chuck knew about what was going on at some point; he could see his daughter not growing bigger, as she had done with her previous 4 pregnancies. Bristol had delivered Trig weeks / months earlier. "Its how its gotta be, dad". It also explains his over-indulgence in the details of leaking amniotic fluid: say anything to get the media off his back and out-of-his-face, particularly if its off-putting to delicate mores (talking about "woman things"), to get the questioner to back-off. It also sounded "credible" - to a man. It also explains his hostile, in-your-face defensive belligerence later when asked about Palin faking her pregnancy: "You can't prove that!" He fairly spit that statement out. He was incensed, and it just bubbled up to his mouth and came out.

Was Sarah Palin officially at the Mat-Su hospital April 18, 2008? 

Yesterday I reached the conclusion that Sarah Palin probably never officially got a room at the Mat-Su hospital on the day she claims to have given birth, April 18, 2008. And it's just not clear whether she was actually at the hospital at all that day.

In her autobiography she claims she and Todd arrived at the hospital quite late on April 17, after the 3,000 mile trip from Texas. This seems like a lie. If she did not officially get a room, where would she have slept? Of course, a hospital official could have given her access to an empty room unofficially, but what would have been the point? She and Todd lived close to the hospital and would have been more comfortable at home.

Yesterday I wrote that Andrew Sullivan anonymously quoted a journalist who I assumed was Lori Tipton of KTUU saying she saw Palin at the hospital. That indeed was Tipton he quoted, but she did not say she saw Palin. Here is the full quote:

"Sarah [Palin] was in another room, and they said that she was sleeping when we arrived.  And so, we got a little bit of footage of Sally [Heath] holding Trig, and Chuck [Heath] standing next to her. And Bristol [Palin] was in there, and I said to Bristol, "We should get some footage of you and your brother and your grandparents." And she’s like, "No I really don’t like to be photo-graphed." And I said, "Are you sure?"  And she’s like, "Yeah, yeah, no."  And she didn’t have any make-up on or anything, but she was dressed in typical teenage attire, a tight shirt, low-cut jeans, you know, and we had heard the rumors before the delivery of this baby also, that Bristol was pregnant, and so, when my photographer and I got to the hospital and we saw her, I thought, well, clearly there’s no way that that girl just delivered a baby seven hours ago."

I'm guessing Tipton had been tipped off about the hoax before she arrived that day, and that in the quote above she's doing her darnedest to help back up Palin's story without telling an outright lie that could bite her later. (If you think about it, how could any real reporter who watched Palin's shape-shifting over the previous six weeks not know about the hoax?) So she stated as a fact that Palin was in another room, not qualifying the statement by saying that she was merely told Palin was there, and then focused on Bristol's appearance as a way to negate the birth hoax rumors. 

As I said yesterday, it would have been terribly risky to let Tipton into that maternity suite without prepping her first – how else to keep her from asking why a supposedly four-weeks premature baby who should have been in a sterile environment wasn't – and I'm guessing McAllister and Palin decided it would be best to bring Tipton in on the scheme, on the theory she would then do all she could to help them. Likewise, if Tipton's cameraman was Carpenter, he probably already was in the know, as I have explained in earlier posts. (Incidentally, Palin worked as a sports anchor for KTUU in 2008, so her connection to the station was long-standing.)

That leaves Frank Bailey as the only non-family or quasi-family (i.e., Levi) member I am aware of who says he saw Palin at Mat-Su that day. Here is what incisive commenter Ivyfree wrote about Bailey and his book yesterday:

"I never trusted Bailey, and I don't believe his alleged regrets and spiritual renewal stuff, either. He wrote a whole book to show what he was willing to do for Palin, including lying and taking the blame for her behavior, and it all sounds like all she'd have to do is call him and he'd be right back doing the same thing. He said he saw Sarah at the hospital, and Bristol, and that Bristol hadn't given birth that day, but he didn't say that Sarah had. No: that whole section of Bailey's book is written in such a way that when the truth comes out, he can make it work for either side of the issue."

I don't trust Bailey either. In his book he backs up the idea that Sarah gave birth to Trig, but he provides lots of evidence that suggests just the opposite – especially that Palin and her staff, himself included, spent a tremendous amount of time trying to rebut the rumors that Bristol gave birth to Trig instead of just doing the obvious: producing the birth certificate. So he makes himself look either hopelessly obtuse or willfully ignorant.

Still, there was no clear reason for him to say he saw Palin at the hospital if he did not. And there is no clear reason for Palin to avoid being at the hospital from early morning on that day. After all, by being on hand she could better react to unfolding events. What I suspect is true is that Palin indeed was in an adjoining room as the interview took place and perhaps throughout the day until the family left en mass – but that she was not in bed and made no effort to look like she had just given birth. So I also think that if Bailey saw her that day, he did so as one who was fully in the know of what was happening.

Let's examine the pros and cons of Palin checking into the hospital and getting a room vs. just appropriating an unused maternity suite with the help of an insider. If she checked in to a maternity suite, there would be significant expenses that could not legally be covered by insurance – and the Palins were not rich at that time. Moreover, keeping a lid on all possible leaks would have been more difficult. For example, the custodial crew that got the sheets from Palin's bed would know no birth took place – and folks at that level perhaps feel less bound by HIPAA than nurses and doctors. Also, checking in would leave a longer paper trail and thus involve more employees who might spill the beans.

On the con side, not checking in and not officially getting a room meant Sarah could not pose as a beaming mother in bed holding her newborn; the conspirators decided they would take that hit, and no such pictures have ever surfaced. Also, staging any pictures of Trig would entail risk. They apparently could not appropriate a cradle or an incubator in the newborn section, so they had to show off Trig in a place he did not belong. And because of that, they probably had to take Lori Tipton into their confidence. But because she was quite young (like Gusty), they probably figured they could seduce and control her with the promise of future access to the governor.

There's one more thing I'd like to note. Someone at Mat-Su seemingly put his (or her) foot down and said, in effect, we will go along with this charade so far, but not to the point of committing outright fraud on Palin's behalf. At one point, Trig Palin's name seemingly appeared on the hospital’s newborns web page, but then got yanked. Someone had searched the underlying html code of the newborns page and Trig's name appeared. However, those who searched in the usual way found nothing. A programmer at another site explained that the page would "remember" all names that had been on it, even if one got deleted.

It's hard to know for sure, but my take is this: one of the Palins or maybe their Mat-Su insider friend requested that Trig's name and picture go on the web page, and that happened for a short while – but when someone high up, maybe the top administrator, saw what had happened, he yanked it. So someone apparently was not afraid to say no to Sarah.

Was Sarah Palin ever at the Mat-Su hospital on April 18, 2008? Maybe not–at least not officially

Well, I feel like an idiot. After writing most of a column on what must have happened before and after Sarah Palin arrived at the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center the day she claimed to give birth there, the likely truth hit me in the face like a wet mackerel. 

I’m surely not the first person to hypothesize this – it’s too obvious – but what if Sarah Palin never stepped foot in the Mat-Su hospital on April 18? What do we know for certain? We (seemingly) know that Palin's parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, were there on April 18, because they appeared in a KTUU-TV newscast that day holding Trig. We can dissect that shortly.

But first, something that has always bothered me is the lack of photographic evidence that Sarah Palin was at the hospital. If she in fact had a room, why wouldn’t she get into bed, muss up her hair, and get her picture taken holding Trig?

Correct me if I am wrong, but there are no reliable eyewitness accounts of Sarah Palin being in the hospital at all – right? Nor, as far as I recall, is there any other kind of evidence, documentary or otherwise, that she ever stepped foot in the hospital that weekend.

        Another possibility is that Palin was at the hospital, but never actually got a room. In that case, the point would be that she was never officially at the hospital. More on that possibility later.

Now, back to that KTUU-TV newscast. Where was Bill McAllister working on April 18? – KTUU, of course! My last post is about how McAllister was probably a central figure in the hoax. And I pointed out how he, with the help of KTUU cameraman Dan Carpenter, probably took the Gusty-interview photos of Palin looking more pregnant than ever before, which were later used to quash rumors of the faked pregnancy.

Is it just a coincidence that (1) McAllister, who likely signed a contract in early April to become Palin's PR secretary, worked at KTUU, and that (2) KTUU was the only news organization in town tipped off that baby Trig was at the hospital just waiting to be videotaped? I don't think so. In fact, the odds seem excellent that McAllister, fully aware of the unfolding hoax, directed the activities of the KTUU news crew. And who was in that news crew? Lori Tipton was the reporter, and I would not be surprised if Carpenter was the cameraman, since he already must have known some of the details about the hoax. 

What do we know about Lori Tipton? Andrew Sullivan wrote a few years back that he spoke to a journalist anonymously who said she walked into Palin’s room at the hospital that day and saw Palin in bed; I always assumed that was Tipton, since no other journalist seems to have been there that day. And I always wondered about the truthfulness of that comment, since no one outside Palin's family and Levi (a compromised source), has claimed to have seen Palin in bed  at Mat-Su (or at least that is my memory – correct me if I am wrong).

Still, in fairness to Tipton, let me stress that this is just a hypothesis. But let’s assume that Sarah Palin never got a maternity suite at Mat-Su. Let’s also assume that Bill McAllister directed the KTUU news team to go to the Mat-Su facility, and further that he either let them know about the hoax or at least placed strict limits on the questions they could ask the Heaths.

So, for example, maybe he told Tipton not to ask why, if Trig was four weeks premature, he wasn't in an incubator or at a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit. There would have been no good answers to such questions.

Since there is no compelling evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to think Sarah Palin was never there that weekend – or if she was, she had not officially checked into a room. If I am right about that, then a key question becomes: How is it that the Heaths came to be in a maternity suite holding Trig that day? Well, they could have just walked in and found an empty suite, and invited the news crew in. After all, Sally Heath, like Sarah, was a former member of the hospital's board, and maybe she had the clout to do something like that. 

But that seems like it would have been too risky – what if an employee who did not know Sally asked what they were doing? What seems more likely, if Sarah Palin did not actually get a room, is that an insider at Mat-Su made arrangements for the Heaths to temporarily be given access to an empty maternity suite, and later to have the news crew taken to that suite. If that is what happened, it would explain why Sarah Palin absolutely had to get back to her hometown the night of April 17 – no other hospital would let itself be used that way.

Again, the key point isn't whether Sarah Palin was there or not there – rather, whether she truly checked into a room or not. If she got a room, there would have been bills, plus records of various sorts, etc. Thus, not getting a room would have been very attractive both because it would be cheaper and would eliminate paperwork that could prove troublesome.

A commenter below writes that Frank Bailey said in his book that he saw Palin at the hospital. Was she in bed? If so, that would imply she had checked in. Or was she just sitting or standing somewhere? In that case, maybe she was "trespassing" in a room, but with the knowledge and tacit permission of a Mat-Su insider. Of course, Bailey could have lied. He strikes me as less than trustworthy insofar as Babygate is concerned.

Can Sarah Palin and employees of the

Mat-Su medical facility be found guilty of criminal conspiracy? Most definitely.

Here is the relevant federal law:

US Code 
Title 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure 

§ 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.

How are U.S. attorneys to interpret that law? The United States
 Attorneys'
 Manual, deals with that question at length here:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00923.htm

The summary statement at the end that section says those activities that fall under 18 U.S.C. § 371 affect the government in at least one of three ways:

1.              They cheat the government out of money or property;

2.              They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or

3.              They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality.

Is a community hospital that takes Medicare and Medicaid payments a “government instrumentality”? Of course it is.

So let’s review. Somebody at the Mat-Su medical facility allowed Sarah Palin to obtain a maternity suite late in the evening on April 17, 2008. Palin did not give birth, and the top administrators at Mat-Su surely knew that. Palin the next day sent out a press release on official letterhead of the office of the governor claiming she gave birth, when in fact she had not.

The statute says a crime is committed if “two or more persons conspire … to commit any offense against the United States …” Palin announced she was seven months pregnant on March 5, the day after McCain wrapped up the nomination for the Republican Party, even though, almost comically, a reporter wrote of her that day, “the governor … simply doesn’t look pregnant.” Moreover, this AP picture of her appeared on March 14 showing her without the least sign of pregnancy:

A strong case can be made that the intent of the fraud was to fool McCain, the Republican Party, and the American people to allow Palin to become, by means of an elaborate hoax, the vice president of the United States. Can this hoax therefore be construed as “an offense against the United States?”

It damned well should be construed that way! The Feds have a far more compelling, not to mention fantastically newsworthy, case against Palin than they had against John Edwards – and he's going to trial on felony charges.

So who exactly was the top administrator at Mat-Su on April 18, 2008? Sir, get yourself a lawyer.

Was Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson on hand at the hospital that day? Doesn’t matter, really – her public comments make her part of whatever happened. I would hate to think of her facing criminal conspiracy charges, but she and her lawyers need to think very carefully about her options, as long as she still has some.

And now it’s time for the U.S. attorney in Anchorage, Karen L. Loeffler, to move forward on this. (In fact, I have reason to believe she is already preparing her case.)

Sarah: Talk to your lawyers. Find a way to come clean before the Feds come after you ... before they start looking at where all that SarahPAC money went.


Anyone with information relevant to this case, please send it to: Mary Francis Rook, FBI, Special Agent in Charge, 101 E. Sixth Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501, anchoragefbi@ak.net, (907) 276-4441.