Money & Politics | Daily Report

The Turlock educators who allegedly ordered the shredding of public documents to conceal Sarah Palin’s speaking fee now are facing an “expanded inquiry” from the state attorney general’s office.

On Tuesday, hours after state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, presented him with the evidence – bags of shredded papers salvaged from a college dumpster by inquisitive students – Attorney General Jerry Brown ordered his charitable trusts section to begin a “broad investigation” into suspected financial improprieties at CSU Stanislaus.

Photo by Roger H. Goun

Investigators will seek to learn whether the CSU Stanislaus Foundation, which booked Palin for a June fundraising event, “is spending its money to benefit the campus, as it promised donors, the university and the public,” Brown said in a news release.

The attorney general also wants to get to the bottom of the shredding incident reported to Yee on Friday by two CSU students, Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs. They retrieved a trove of documents – including several pages of Palin’s contract – from a university dumpster after friends tipped them that administrators had ordered a shred-a-thon for “furlough Friday,” a day on which the campus was shut down.

Palin’s insistence that her speaking fee should be kept secret – and the university’s attempts to sidestep the state Public Records Act to comply with her wishes – has now brought on a full-blown law-enforcement probe.

Initially, Yee had simply inquired about Palin’s speaking fee, which he had heard was more than $100,000. When the university balked, two First Amendment organizations filed Public Records Act requests, seeking a copy of Palin’s contract. The university claimed it didn’t have the contract, saying it was in the hands of the foundation. But that story was at odds with the evidence the students found in the trash outside the administration building.

The university wouldn’t give interviews, but it released a statement attributed to Russ Giambelluca, vice president of business and finance.

“There is generally some staff working on campus on furlough Fridays,” he said. “That said, we should be clear that no one has been instructed to destroy vital documents on anyone’s behalf.”

In his statement, Brown said Palin had every right to speak in Turlock. “The issues are public disclosure and public accountability in organizations embedded in state-run universities,” he said.