ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) — Alaska lawmakers voted Friday to subpoena Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband, several aides and phone records in their investigation into Palin’s firing of her public safety commissioner, setting up what one senator called a "branch-versus-branch smackdown."

Gov. Sarah Palin is fighting allegations she improperly tried to force the firing of her former brother-in-law. acheter cialis

Gov. Sarah Palin is fighting allegations she improperly tried to force the firing of her former brother-in-law.

Todd Palin has been a "principal critic" of his wife’s ex-brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten, and had "many contacts" with Department of Public Safety officials about his status, said Steve Branchflower, the former prosecutor hired by the state Legislature to investigate the firing.

Sarah Palin, now the Republican nominee for vice president, is battling allegations that she and her advisers pressured then-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Wooten and that Monegan was terminated when he refused.

Palin has said she fired Monegan over budget issues and denies any wrongdoing.

Branchflower said 16 of the 33 people he planned to interview have given statements. But since last week, when Palin’s attorneys began to argue that the state Personnel Board should handle the investigation, numerous witnesses have refused to cooperate.

"While we will hopefully get over this little bump in the road, there may arise others," he said. "And so the subpoena is always a good thing to have standing by."

Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein told reporters after the vote that the Democratic lawmaker managing levitra bestellen the investigation, state Sen. Hollis French, "has partisan motives for doing this." And Palin’s lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, repeated claims that the investigation was "a political circus."

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"Using subpoenas like this looks like an abuse of power, and it’s become a circus," Parnell said. Friday’s action goes "well beyond the pale of a legislative committee’s normal responsibilities," he added.

Palin’s lawyers say the investigation — which the Legislature commissioned on a bipartisan basis in July — belongs before the state Personnel Board, which met to consider the request Thursday.

In a lengthy memo distributed to reporters, the McCain campaign said Palin "remains committed to cooperating with a fair, non-partisan investigation." But French is a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and the McCain campaign accused him of turning the investigation into a partisan attack "to achieve his and the Obama campaign’s political agenda."

"With today’s action, the investigation has devolved into a full-scale political circus overseen by what amounts to a discredited kangaroo court," the campaign said.

French largely declined to comment after the hearing, but told CNN he was "absolutely not" working on behalf of the Obama campaign.

One Republican senator — Charlie Huggins, of Palin’s hometown of Wasilla — joined the two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 3-2 vote supporting the subpoenas. Huggins said h


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