TPR: Palins to testify in state ethics probe this week.

(h/t to Jason)

An attorney hired by Alaska’s personnel board to investigate whether Gov. Sarah Palin violated state ethics laws when she fired her public safety commissioner will depose the governor and her husband this week at an undisclosed location in another state.

Timothy Petumenos, the attorney hired by the personnel board, will spend about six hours interviewing Palin and her husband, Todd, said Thomas Van Flein, an attorney representing the Palins.

It’s unknown whether Petunmenos will release a report prior to the Nov. 4 election.

Last week, the Alaska Legislative Council voted unanimously to share with Petumenos more than 1,000 pages of documents collected by Steve Branchflower, the independent counsel who spent six weeks investigating Palin.

The documents collected by Branchflower have not been released publicly because of confidentiality concerns.

Petumenos's investigation is said to include at least two other ethics complaints filed against Palin, one of which is believed to be a complaint filed by The Public Safety Employees Union alleging Palin and her aides illegally accessed her ex brother-in-law's personnel files and improperly and illegally tried to get him fired from his job as a state trooper. Watchdog Andree McLeod filed the only other publicly known ethics complaint against Palin. McLeod alleges the governor secured a state job for one of her fundraisers.

Read on.

And this:

Alaska Rep. Calls for Probe Into 'Troopergate' Witness Tampering
A top Alaska lawmaker has called on the state’s attorney general to appoint an independent investigator to probe whether officials working for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign broke Alaska’s criminal witness tampering laws.

In a letter sent Monday to state Attorney General Talis Colberg, Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat, alleges McCain’s campaign staffers advised witnesses close to Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s vice presidential running mate, not to cooperate with the “Troopergate” probe that concluded two weeks ago. “I am concerned that the state’s criminal witness tampering laws have been broken by certain staff for Sen. McCain’s presidential campaign,” Gara wrote in his letter to Colberg.