Palin and Gifts: The Mining Connection

POSTED: 12:10 PM ET, 09/26/2008 by The Editors
Wshington Post

About a quarter of the 41 gifts that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has received since taking office in December 2006 have a link to one of the state's most influential mining lobbyists. That's one of the findings in a report today by The Post's James V. Grimaldi and Robert O'Harrow Jr.

Among the items on the list are:

* A $2,200 ivory puffin mask from an Alaska Native Corporation called Calista, which has mining interests in southwestern part of the state.

* A $1,200 gold-nugget pin from the city of Nome and which Palin said she would keep for "personal use."

* More than $1,000 in gifts from the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

* A note apparently hand-written by Palin on an ethics form saying that the mining lobbyist, Wendy Chamberlain, had taken one of Palin's daughters on a trip.

Chamberlain has been hired by Calista and Nome as a lobbyist; several representatives of Chamberlain's clients are on the heritage center's board, including Calista, which promoted a ceremony with the governor in its newsletter.

In all, Palin's 41 gifts from mining industry executives, visiting dignitaries, municipalities and the nonprofit cultural center were worth $25,000, records show.

The list of gifts, which was compiled from ethics disclosure forms filed by the governor, provides a window into Palin's public life, which is under scrutiny since she was named Sen. John McCain's vice presidential running mate on the GOP ticket. The gift list touches on lobbying, public events, politics, the role of mining as a burgeoning industry in the state, as well as Alaska Native Corporations, which are increasingly involved in a wide array of endeavors in Alaska and across the country.

(Continued here.)