THE so-called Troopergate investigation into Sarah Palin’s conduct as Alaska governor has blown a hole in John McCain’s White House campaign and called into question the role of her husband Todd as “first dude” should she become vice-president,writes Sarah Baxter.

Palin’s breezy, shoot-from-the-hip style on the stump was just as evident in the way she managed Alaskan affairs. An ethics report to Alaska’s legislative council, released this weekend, found that she had abused her power as governor by pressurising officials to sack a state trooper involved in an ugly divorce from her sister.

The blurring of boundaries between the governor’s public and private life prompted questions about her suitability for the second-highest office in the land. Time magazine asked yesterday: “Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so.”

The McCain campaign was left reeling by the evidence that Palin might be rather less of a reformer and more of a maverick than it had claimed. It had known about the scandal when she was picked as McCain’s running mate but had chosen to look the other way, hoping to stall the inquiry until after the election.

Palin has left a trail of sacked and disgruntled employees from her days as the small-town mayor of Wasilla. The enemies she made along the way were put down to her attempt to cleanse the corrupt “good ol’ boys” in Alaska, but could remind voters of the way that President George W Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney have pushed their executive authority to the limit in the White House.

The investigation began when a Republican-dominated bipartisan committee of lawmakers in Alaska inquired into the sacking of Walt Monegan as public safety commissioner after he insisted he had become the victim of a vendetta by Palin for refusing to fire Mike Wooten, her former brother-in-law.

The 263-page report concluded that it was “likely a contributing factor” after establishing that Monegan was subjected to a barrage of demands to dismiss Wooten by Palin, her husband and members of her staff.

“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda . . . to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired,” the report found.

The McCain campaign took comfort from the fact that Monegan’s refusal to sack Wooten was not the only reason for his dismissal and that Palin had the “constitutional and statutory authority” to hire and fire top officials.

“We feel the governor is vindicated . . . She had the authority and acted with the proper authority,” Meghan Stapleton, a spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, said.

However, it will not be easy to live down the troubling evidence of a cavalier, dysfunctional government in which Palin’s husband was an ever-present force. The report found that: “Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in ‘official action’ by her inaction, if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired”. It added: “There is evidence of her active participation” and concluded that it was a violation of ethics.

Lyda Green, president of the state senate and a Republican, said: “I would not want that report to my credit. The problem with power is that it’s very easy to use in the wrong way. We have to leave personal business at home.”

The pressure from the Palins was exerted in the most ham-fisted way. Members of the governor’s entourage – including her chief of staff and the state attorney-general – repeatedly badgered officials by e-mail and in person about Wooten. They were told that they could be sued for improper interference in personnel matters but carried on regardless.

Todd Palin, 44, spent half his time in the governor’s office, according to the head of security, working at a long conference table with his own telephone. The governor’s husband began demanding Wooten’s dismissal only days after his wife took office in 2006.

The Palins appear to have been obsessed by their brother-in-law, who is still working as an Alaska state trooper. They claimed Wooten had threatened to kill Palin’s father, had driven on duty while drunk and had used a stun gun on his 11-year-old stepson.

Palin last week called the scandal “Tasergate”, the term adopted by right-wing chat show hosts who insist she was merely defending her family with the same determination with which she stalks a moose. But the report paints an unorthodox picture of family values that could cause severe problems for McCain.

The sacked commissioner said yesterday that he felt relieved. “I feel that my beliefs and opinions that Wooten was a significant factor, if not the factor, in my termination have been validated,” Monegan said.

“I was resisting the governor from the very beginning on the Wooten matter to protect her from exactly what just happened to her here – being found to have acted inappropriately.”

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