The government paid $2500 to fly Todd Palin to Knoxville, Tennessee to sit on his ass during a trial that sent David Kernell to prison for guessing his wife's Yahoo account password. Your tax dollars at work.

"Look, she says jump, I say how high."

Courtesy of the AP:

The government paid nearly $2,500 for Sarah Palin's husband to come to the trial of a Tennessee college student who hacked into her email — even though Todd Palin never testified, court records show. 

In all, the government paid more than $29,000 to fly members of the Palin family and other witnesses to Knoxville, send a prosecutor to Alaska for research and pay other travel expenses, according to the Department of Justice records obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request. Air travel totaled about $18,600, and hotel bills amounted to nearly $3,300. 

The thousands of dollars spent by prosecutors helped them win a conviction on one felony and one misdemeanor charge against David Kernell, who finishes his 10-month sentence on Wednesday. Prosecutors have said that Kernell's punishment for the hacking during Palin's failed 2008 vice presidential bid should deter any hackers who considered targeting candidates in next fall's presidential election. 

The former Alaska governor, her daughter Bristol and an aide were among the witnesses called to the stand, but the chief prosecutor said he decided Todd Palin's testimony wasn't needed. Sarah and Bristol Palin told jurors that they felt harassed and their lives were disrupted after Kernell hacked into Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email account and made screenshots public that included personal email addresses and cell phone numbers. 

Records show Todd Palin received $2,244.30 as reimbursement for airfare from Alaska to Tennessee, along with $122 for meals and incidentals and an attendance fee of $120. He was listed as a fact witness. 

"We subpoena a lot of witnesses that we think we might need," Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle said, adding that about a dozen witnesses in all were subpoenaed. "We decided his testimony was no longer necessary for purposes of trial."

So let me get this straight.

The Us Attorney thought he MIGHT want to put Toad on the witness stand, but then later on decided he did not need his testimony? You know usually I would buy that, but THIS is a family that is famous for milking the government for all kinds of travel and hotel expenses, even going so far as to charge the state of Alaska to have Sarah Palin sleep in her own bed.

Something smells fishy here, and it is NOT just the Grizzled Mama's unwashed "ambiance."

So is it normal to fly family members to a trial at government expense and not have them testify? 

J. Tom Morgan of Decatur, Ga., a former district attorney, said that when former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis made a comment about sunshine as the best disinfectant "he wasn't talking about the federal court system." 

"It sounds like a lot of money on a hacking case, but once you go to trial you've got to be prepared for anything and everything," he said. Morgan said prosecutors have discretion in spending and typically if they have a family member tag along they will also have them testify to justify it. 

Though Morgan couldn't speak to the circumstances of the Palin case, he said sometimes family members do get a "free ride."

A "free ride" boy doesn't THAT sound familiar?

I'm sorry, perhaps I am just overly jaded from dealing with this family of unconscionable grifters, but this feels to me as yet ANOTHER incident where Sarah Palin, and her band of Wasillabillies, fucked our government out of more of our hard earned tax dollars.

And they did it while lying on the witness stand about the impact Kernell's guesswork had on their family which cost this young man a year of his life.

In my mind at least our tax dollars were NOT used to pursue the cause of justice.