A private Anchorage attorney named William Evans was contracted to investigate. (Did the State AG hire him or did the Legislature?) Attorney Evans was unable to review any actual IT evidence (the State IT folks didn't have a way to collect this type of data) so he relied primarily on his interviews of 1) Ms. Bakalar and 2) Ms. Bakalar's supervisor (i.e. ally). Not surprisingly, he found that Ms. Bakalar's blogging/social media/political activism activities during work hours were acceptable. A one-sided "investigation" with no actual data is not going to produce a truthful or accurate or fair determination.
NOTE: Attorney Evans didn't contact me for his "investigation." I had no idea that such an investigation took place until I read about it in the ACLU's legal complaint. And while I have no desire to get into the details here, Ms. Bakalar's emails (which are attachments to her legal complaint) mentioning me are not truthful at all. Attorney Evans and/or AG Jana Lindemuth (who received those emails) should have taken the time to contact me to ask me about the accusations Ms. Bakalar made about me. Their failure to do so is highly problematic. I stood up and called out a conflict of interest. I do not think it is right or just for a partisan political activist to be working as the State's election attorney and I do not think it is ethical for a State employed Attorney to be blogging/tweeting/using Facebook during work hours. And for taking this stand and filing a ethics complaint, I have been personally attacked and lied about repeatedly by Ms. Bakalar. I have been called a "fucking nitwit," a white supremacist, a racist, a redneck, a stalker, and an underemployed attorney etc. It is awful actually and it proves my original point that Ms. Bakalar has no business working as an attorney for the State of Alaska.
Common Sense says Ms. Bakalar WAS blogging during work hours. She posted 731 blog posts in 2015. Think about that - she wrote 731 essays over 365 days. In 2016, she posted 667 blog posts. In 2017, she posted only 471 - but this is the year she was investigated, so she curtailed her blogging a bit. NOTE - in 2014, she only posted 187 blog post - but she only started the blog in Oct 2014. She posted 69 post in Oct 2014; 65 in Nov 2014, and 57 in Dec 2014.
That is a LOT of blogging. And no, I am not buying her excuses that she wrote all these blog posts at home (or on her phone at lunch) and that the time stamps are not accurate. The time stamps clearly show that she was posting them during work hours. These time stamps are accurate. I know because I use blogspot too. And it is very, very difficult to do an image search and post images on blogspot using a smart phone. Which is why I believe it is highly likely that she was using her work computer for her blogging and other social media activities.
Beyond the time stamps, a review of her blog posts shows that she must have been writing and posting them during work hours.
Here is an example - March 16, 2016...Four blog posts. 9:58 a.m.; 12:10 p.m.; 1:29 p.m. and 5:23 p.m. There is no way that Ms. Bakalar wrote all of these posts prior to coming into work (and if she left work at 5 p.m., did she write the final essay on her phone as she was driving home?)
And here is another example - April 26, 2016: Blog posts at: 9:30 a.m., 1:34 p.m., 3:48 p.m. and 8:28 p.m. The only one she didn't write at work was probably the 8:28 p.m. one.
The investigator didn't look at Libby's Twitter activity. She was (and is) a prolific user of Twitter and has been for many years.
Here are some recent examples...These tweets are from AFTER the 2017 "investigation" but they still prove my point that I believe that Ms. Bakalar was extremely distracted by her social media activities while "working."
And (as a former federal and state employee), I am really upset about someone using social media all day long or intermittently all day long (to write current events tweets, you need to spend a lot of time reading through your twitter and other online news feeds) while at work in order to push their POLITICAL VIEWS when my tax dollars are paying their (extremely high) salary and benefits. It is obnoxious and wrong to tweet so much when you are supposed to be working. Never mind the fact that when you are so partisan, people who do not share your political views DO NOT TRUST YOU to do a good job representing the State of Alaska. It is so arrogant to tweet out your partisan political views when you are at work! For the State! As an attorney! Who was supposed to be working on sensitive political matters such as election cases and APOC issues and Ballot Initiatives. Nobody believes that you are able to easily switch gears into neutral nonpartisan professional in btw. tweets. (And clearly, Libby was not as evidenced by her political protest at a work event in Philly. See previous post.) Libby was not the only AAG to do this. Which is why I pointed it out on my Facebook page. (Thank you Rick Allen for sharing my Facebook post on this issue.)
Monday, September 24, 2018...Lots of political tweets throughout the day PLUS a blog post about Brett Kavanaugh..(Did she write that at home and post it later? Doubtful.) Check the time stamps of these tweets. So. Much. Tweeting. All. Day. Long.
Another example - Tuesday, Sept 25th, 2018. Poetry and pleas for everyone call Senator Murkowski:
And here is September 27, 2018 (the day Brett Kavanaugh testified in front of the Senate Judiciary committee.) I didn't have time to watch any of this because I was working, but Libby (who was also apparently working) seemed to have plenty of time to watch it and tweet about it and find GIFs to post about it. (Note - the hearing ended by about 1 pm Alaska time.)
And in October 2018, Libby seemed to have no problem getting time off work at the last minute to travel to Wash DC for several days with the ACLU to lobby Senators Murkowski and Sullivan to vote against Brett Kavanaugh. (This goes to my point that perhaps we don't need so many AAGs on the payroll in Labor and State Affairs; they don't seem overly busy.)
I won't post her tweets from her trip in early October because she was on vacation time...but here is another day later in October - where Libby tweeted so much, that either 1) she must have had a sick or vacation day or 2) her supervisors clearly don't care that she is spending all of her time on social media. WHICH IS WHY I FILED MY ETHICS COMPLAINT. I do not find this acceptable at all.
Libby's twitter activity October 29, 2018:
