Is she smart enough for the White House?

Sarah Palin will break off from the campaign trail today to be quizzed over allegations that she abused her power as Governor of Alaska but her critics are still more interested in the $150,000 spent dressing her up for her vice-presidential bid.

Ms Palin and her husband Todd are both to give depositions to a lawyer appointed to investigate an allegation that she violated state ethics laws when she fired her public safety commissioner in Alaska.

The lawyer, Timothy Petumenos, is also looking at an allegation that she tried to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper.

But the "Troopergate" case will not be the only thing on Ms Palin's mind 11 days out from the election. The Republican vice-presidential candidate also has to contend with "Saksgate" after the revelation on Wednesday that her party officials went on a spending spree after she was chosen to as John McCain's running mate in September.

In media interviews yesterday, Ms Palin insisted that she did not accept $150,000 worth of clothing from the Republican National Committee after being chosen by Senator McCain. In fact, she said, she preferred to buy her outfits at a "consignment" store back home in Anchorage that specialises in second-hand designer clothing.

“That whole thing is just, bad!” the 44-year-old said of the row over her clothing bill. "Oh, if only people knew how frugal we are."

Details of the bills claimed for clothing and hairdos emerged from the RNC's monthly financial disclosure report, where they were listed as "campaign accessories". They included designer outfits from luxury retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue as well as thousands spent on make-up and hair care.

But instead of a Fifth Avenue spending spree, Ms Palin said that the clothes in question were "loaned to us during the (Republican National) Convention. And I don’t think it was anywhere near ... What did they say... $150 grand? It wasn’t anywhere near that.”

She added: “Those are not ours. We give those back, those go to charity or they’ll be auctioned off or whatever. That’s not even my property. So to be criticised for that, that is not who we are."

“It’s kind of painful to be criticised for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported,” Ms Palin said. “Those clothes are not my property. We had three days of using clothes that the RNC purchased.

"If people knew how Todd and I and our kids shop so frugally. My favourite shop is a consignment [second-hand] shop in Anchorage, Alaska, called Out of the Closet. And my shoe store is called Shoe Fly in Juneau, Alaska,” she said. “It’s not.. you know, it’s not Fifth Avenue type of shopping."

The Out of the Closet website – selling such items as a Betsy Johnson Strawberry Shortcake dress for $85 or an ermine and velvet opera coat for just $350 – would seem to suggest that Ms Palin has rather more modest tastes.

But if that is the case, her critics have been asking, how did the RNC manage to spend quite so much on her campaign wardrobe.

The RNC also has yet to explain why more than $130,000 – including $75,062.63 spent at Neiman Marcus on September 10 – was reimbursed to Jeff Larson, a GOP consultant whose firm has been tied to the onslaught of negative "robocalls" emanating from the McCain campaign.

That sum also includes $4,902.45 charged for purchases at Atelier New York, an upmarket avant-garde men's store, presumably to kit out "the First Dude", Todd Palin.

The New York Times's Caucus weblog reported yesterday that Karlo Steel, part owner of the store, could find no sales that matched that amount, "nor any combination of sales that added up to the total".

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