according to the legislative inquiry, the "first gentleman's" influence was so pervasive that senior staff members began to be uneasy about his constant phone calls about Wooten. Former legislative director John Bitney, the report said, took several calls a day from Todd Palin on his cellphone.
"Todd . . . would call me about once a day, sometimes two or three times a day, just on a myriad of things" -- very often about Wooten -- Bitney testified.
"You were kind of caught in the middle here?" Branchflower asked him.
"Yeah, but I didn't want to tell him I wasn't going to do anything . . . I didn't think that was appropriate, but I didn't want to tell Todd that."
The 'first gentleman' also read official correspondence and went to closed Cabinet meetings, records and an investigation indicate.[/color]