The Johnston family speaks out. Update!

As many of you have no doubt surmised I have been speaking with Sherry and Mercede Johnston for some time now.  We have had a few casual conversations as well as three real fairly in depth interviews.

And this is what I learned.

On questions about Levi and Bristol's relationship, and the birth of Tripp.

Levi and Bristol started dating about three years ago.  They broke up a few times and there was a lot of jealousy, mostly from Bristol's side, but they always seemed to get back together. 

Levi was very much in love with Bristol and wanted to, not only marry her, but also start a family.  They began actively trying to make a baby way back in late 2007, early 2008.  This was also around the time that Bristol was staying with Sarah's sister Heather Bruce because, according to Mercede, she did not want to leave Levi and move to Juneau with her family. Of course she still saw Levi quite often during this time, and Mercede says that their friends knew that Bristol and Levi were trying to get pregnant and that THIS is why the rumors that Bristol was already pregnant began to circulate in the beginning of 2008. Mercede swears that Bristol was NEVER pregnant before becoming pregnant with Tripp.

There were also a lot of times that Levi stayed over at the Palin house, and he became like one of the family.  He was never terribly close to either Sarah or Todd, but he felt welcome in their home.

During the campaign, while Sarah and Todd were gone on the campaign, Levi essentially moved into the Palin home where he helped to care for the pregnant Bristol.  They definitely DID have constant Secret Service protection the entire time, in fact the Secret Service followed Sherry, Mercede, and Bristol as they drove to Valdez in the fall to visit Levi who had a job there for a short time.

Despite what many of us may have thought at one time or another, Tripp was indeed born on December 27, 2008.  As you learned in Sadie's post, things were kept on the down low and even Sadie herself only got to spend about a minute with her nephew before being given the bum's rush.   I asked Sadie WHY the Palin's would not have announced this birth to the world to help to permanently dispel the rumors that Bristol gave birth to Trig in April.  She told me that she did not think they cared about the rumors (I am not so sure about that) and that Bristol was adamant that the paparazzi be kept away from the hospital. 

And yes the delivery WAS at the Mat-Su hospital. (I cannot yet determine if CBJ was the attending physician.  There is still some confusion about that.)

It was less than a month after that when Bristol and Levi split up. 

This was NOT Levi's idea.

At first Levi was allowed to see his son either every Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Apparently Bristol WAS going to school at one time and this was when she needed somebody to watch Tripp) or he could have ONE overnight during the month instead. Bristol controlled things with an iron hand.

It was THIS strained relationship that caused Levi and his family to go public with their situation. (I don't KNOW why Levi and his attorney did not simply file for joint custody way back in April or May of last year.  I did suggest that a couple of times to Team Levi after they did Tyra and Larry King, but though I was heard, I obviously was not listened to.)

The Johnston family has NOT seen Tripp since March 6, of this year.  I asked, considering that there are websites reporting that Levi and Bristol are getting along and he can see his son whenever he wants, whether or not it is conceivable that Levi was seeing Tripp without their knowledge, and they unanimously said NO. Sadie reiterated that it makes Levi very sad that he cannot get his son, and that he feels like a failure when he cannot help Sadie and Sherry have more access as well.  He did not even see Tripp on his twentieth birthday this year.

Sarah's fifth pregnancy

Mercede did not see Sarah at all during the time that she would have been pregnant with Trig.  However she still believes that Sarah gave birth to him.  She tells me the reason provided by Sarah to her kids as to why she did not tell them, is because she thought they would be angry that she was pregnant again.

According to both Sherry and Mercede, Sarah did not tell the kids until the day before she told the public at large. (However I have heard from at least three other sources that Bristol herself learned of this on the news, and NOT from her mother.)

I showed Sadie the pictures of Sarah that clearly show her as being much too skinny to be carrying a baby, but though she finds them interesting it does not dissuade her from her opinion that Sarah did give birth to Trig. Sherry on the other hand finds the photos more compelling.

(I know that a lot of people believe the Johnston's were somehow paid to keep Sarah's secrets, but I can assure you that they are not lying on her behalf.  Recently Sherry had her home auctioned off from underneath her, and if she had any money at all she would never have let that happen. That is the same house they have lived in since Levi and Sadie were very small.)

Mercede's MySpace pictures and the "ruffled ear baby".

Sadie told me that when these pictures started making the rounds on the internet that ALL of the Palin's called her to demand that she take them down.  However the main reason given was not because they showed Trig as a newborn, but because there were also pictures of Mercede and her friends with alcohol, and people were confusing her with Bristol. (If you Google "Bristol Palin" today you will still find pictures of Mercede misidentified as Bristol.) So Mercede responded by making her account private.

I DID show both Sherry and Mercede the ruffled ear photo from the baby shower and asked what they knew about that baby. However they seemed not know anything at all about it and confessed that they never noticed a problem with the ear while they were holding the baby that day. (I at first thought this odd, but then I realized that really only ONE person in our group picked up on the ear deformity and knew to point it out to me, so it is conceivable that neither Sherry nor Mercede noticed anything amiss on that afternoon.)

Mercede at first thought that Down's syndrome children with oddly shaped ears was normal, until I pointed out that this kind of deformity was not.  However Sherry, being a mother, was more easily convinced that something was wrong with the fact that THIS baby appeared to have the deformity and the Trig we see now does not.  (Now Sherry has not seen Trig in person since that day in the Palin kitchen, and Mercede has  not seen him for a very long time either, so neither one knows when, or if, a trade was in fact made.)

I think that is enough for one post.  I realize that much of this information will be very unsatisfying to those who have waited for a bombshell to come from the Johnston family, and I share that disappointment.  In fact the first time I interviewed Mercede was almost one year ago in a midtown mall in Anchorage.  She told me the exact same thing then, that she has told me recently. The reason I did not report it way back then was because I was getting conflicting information from another source, who led me to believe that Sadie did not know ALL of the facts. (There are still unanswered questions about that source but I hope to have them cleared up soon.)

So where does this leave us?  Well Audrey and Bree pretty much proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Sarah did NOT give birth to Trig in April of 2008.  So that much we accept as gospel.

However the question that now presents itself, is WHY Sarah faked a pregnancy if in fact it was not to cover for Bristol as was first reported in Daily Kos way back on August 30, 2008.  And to that I do not have a good answer.

As always there is plenty of speculation, but no facts to back it up. We do know that having Trig cemented Sarah's pro-life cred and made her the darling of the evangelical wing of the Republican base, but the idea that she would have done this solely for that purpose, seems too far fetched even for me. 

So the questions that remain are:

Why did Sarah fake a pregnancy?

Who knew and helped her to pull it off? (Besides Cathy Baldwin-Johnston of course!)

Who is the baby with the ruffled ear and what happened to him?

And how long will those that do know remain quiet?

For those of you are losing heart that we will ever get to the bottom of the Palin family obfuscation I did ask Sadie if it were even possible for Levi to know something explosive about the Palin's that he would not have shared with her at some point. Her response was as follows:

 “Levi is a very closed off individual. Really hard to crack. He only opens up to me if it is something really major. He probably knows a lot. He could probably shut her down if he told people what he knows. He just does not want to get involved.”

So I asked if it were possible that even if Levi knew there had been another baby that he would not have told anybody, including his family: “Yes, he is very secretive.”

Well that should be enough for all of you to digest for one post.  I do have some other information about the computers, the McCain campaign, Bristol's current love life, and other behind the scenes tidbits, but that is for a later time.

Update in response to some questions:

The "baby brother Triggybear" and "Mommy in law Trig and myself" captions under Mercede's MySpace pictures.

This actually kind of embarrasses Mercede.  You see when she put those captions on her pictures it NEVER occurred to her that anybody except her friends would ever seen them.  She referred to Trig as a baby brother because she absolutely believed that her Levi and Bristol were going to someday get married, and she called Sarah "Mommy in law" for the same reason.  The cutesy names and stuff is just part of Sadie's personality.  You now like girls that use hearts to dot their "i's". 

She was only sixteen years old after all.

The "B.S." factor.

A year ago when I first interviewed Sadie, I kind of thought she might be lying to me as well. To accept her version of things was to completely upend my working hypothesis.  Not to mention that I was receiving other information that did not match, and that my friends were convinced that she could not be telling the truth. However of ALL of the people who shared information with me, Mercede was the most believable.

Her story has never changed in the year since and she has never demonstrated any reason to lie to me. And as for Sherry? I don't think Sherry even knows how to lie!

In other words they are not bullshitting anybody.  And just for your edification, Mercede is NOT afraid of much!  If she knew anything that she thought would expose Sarah Palin for what she really is, she would have announced it to the world.  The only reason she stayed quiet this long was out of love for her brother.

Now to the question of COULD Bristol have been pregnant before and Mercede and Sherry not know. It is possible, but it means that Bristol was being kept from ALL of her friends, because NOBODY in Wasilla seems to be able to keep a secret. Not to mention the fact that Mercede DID see Bristol during the time that  she lived in Anchorage (And so did Sherry), and she never appeared pregnant.  But like I said, not completely impossible, especially if it happened even earlier.

Update: Well as expected this post has resulted in a lot of mixed emotions.


Believe me I understand completely.

However I feel that what we must remember is that NOBODY has ever talked to Sherry and Mercede about these things on the record before. So as much as people might be upset that they did not reinforce our individual theories that is not their responsibility.

I asked them for the truth of what they had observed or heard from Levi and Bristol, and I firmly believe that is what I received.

Somebody had to ask the Johnston’s these questions eventually and I guess it fell to me. What I reported was EXACTLY what they said. I did not shape it, nor did I edit it to fit my theory. And believe it or not this is what I have done in ALL of my interviews.

Now remember this does not mean that this is the last word on babygate, it isn’t. Sherry and Mercede were kept at arms length to some degree and cannot be expected to answer all of the questions that we have.

This has certainly not changed my mind about Sarah and her fake pregnancy (in fact tomorrow I have yet another promising lead to follow) but it does allow everybody to finally understand what Sherry and Mercede do, and do not know about the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy. So now people can stop accusing them of covering for Sarah and accepting bribes for their silence.

Because that, simply put, is bullshit.

Believe it or not.