Timeline of Parnell administration’s response to National Guard scandal emerges

(Creative Commons illustration by Jared Rodriguez/ t r u t h o u t)
(Creative Commons illustration by Jared Rodriguez/ t r u t h o u t)

While the governor’s office is now being told to provide more records or explain the reasons for withholding them, the administration did provide a 352-page log of records that could be relevant earlier this week. Hints of a timeline emerge in the document that outline the Parnell administration’s response to the allegations.

The log begins from the day that Gov. Sean Parnell took office in 2009, and was produced using search terms like “National Guard,” “misconduct,” “fraud,” and “assault.” Many of the 12,000 emails do not seem relevant to the request, and cover things like Arctic policy meetings and disaster response. But about 60 pages in, the name of a whistleblower shows up in the subject line of an email between the governor in and his scheduler in November of 2010. From that point on, Alaska National Guard chaplain Matt Friese sent 30 separate emails to the governor’s office through the end of 2011.

While Friese could not be reached, his colleague Rick Cavens says those correspondences began after chaplains teleconferenced with the governor four years ago and that they were a group effort.

“We then started conversations through Mike Nizich, who worked for the governor,” Cavens says. “And we were to go through him and not go through the governor.”

Cavens says many of the complaints specifically concerned National Guard leadership and did not name victims. The subject lines are vague, but many contain subject lines like “Request you forward the attached” or “Please forward to the Governor …” and “Toxic Leadership.” Nothing in the log indicates that those records were directly forwarded from Nizich’s account to Parnell.

The Governor’s Office declined to comment on the log and did not clarify if the governor was provided physical copies of emails or briefed on them, but Parnell has previously said he was informed of every complaint.

Cavens says one of the specific requirements the chaplains had in dealing with the governor’s office is that their communications not be shared with then-adjutant general Thomas Katkus — who was asked to resign in September — for fear of reprisal.

“We didn’t want leadership involved. We had tried to talk to leadership, and it hadn’t gone anywhere,” Cavens says.

At the end of 2011, communications between the chaplains and Chief of Staff Mike Nizich suddenly broke down. On December 22 of that year, Cavens sent an email with the subject line “Compromised.” He shared a copy with APRN, and in it, he accused Nizich of violating confidentiality.

Cavens wrote that Adjutant General Katkus told one of the chaplains that he was aware that a group of them “have been a conduit to the governor.” Cavens believed Nizich had identified them to Guard leadership. He wrote:

“You understood that confidentiality for chaplains is dear and that we all have tried our chain of command and why Chaplain Friese contacted you in frustration. At this point in time I do not see you as a trusted agent for positive change and growth in the Alaska National Guard.”

“The only way that they would know it was that individual and us is because we had given that information to Nizich,” Cavens says. “Nizich, in a rebuttal email, became quite agitated but clearly – and I wrote that email – I wasn’t going to communicate with that man anymore. I did not trust him. And if he was giving information to the governor, it was compromised information.”

Nizich strongly denied breaching confidentiality in his response, saying he was “disappointed” and “extremely frustrated” by Cavens’ suggestion. Nizich also emphasized that progress had been made with the Guard that year, and that was because of the work of the Governor’s Office.

Cavens disputes that.

“No, it actually got worse,” Cavens says. “There was more leadership that was installed that had a tendency to bully. We were distanced, or I felt I was. I didn’t see any positive changes and I don’t feel that there were any really instigated.”

After the emails from the chaplains stopped at the end of 2011, there was a lull in obviously relevant communication about the Guard’s problems to the Governor’s office. But at the end of 2012, subject lines that directly relate to complaints about the National Guard begin popping up again. They are forwarded emails delivered by Nancy Dahlstrom, who was then a special assistant with the Department of Military and Veterans affairs. She passed on nearly a dozen complaints between December 2012 and February 2013.

One email specifically mentions National Guard whistleblower Ken Blaylock in the subject line. Some are colorfully titled, like “Another example of theft – Ghost Employees” and “Imprecatory Prayers and ‘that Racist Holiday.” One forward is just labeled “Kodiak Entertainment Group,” a pornography company owned by one of the leaders of the Guard’s recruitment unit.

“There were allegations of different kinds of sexual assault, fraud, theft, drug smuggling, gun running, really serious things like that,” Dahlstrom says.

Major General Thomas Katkus
Alaska National Guard Major General Thomas Katkus was asked to resign in September. (Official  photo)

Dahlstrom says that when she first reached out to Nizich about complaints about the Guard and its leadership, she was directed to involve Adjutant General Katkus and told that the Administration had already addressed these types of allegations.

“When I first brought these emails to the attention of the chief of staff, I was told some similar things had come up before and that they had been checked out and that there was nothing to them,” Dahlstrom says. “But when the different allegations kept coming to me, I kept on sending them up the chain, and I was not privy to any information on who had investigated or what. I was just told it had been done.”

Dahlstrom says that one of the people who regularly emailed her was perceived as having an axe to grind.

“Well, I was told that one of the people that was complaining was a former employee who was disgruntled and that most likely played into why these things were being said,” Dahlstrom says.

Dahlstrom says that even so, she continued to pass on the complaints and at one point delivered a package related to the National Guard to the Federal Bureau of Investigations. She says that while she can only speak for herself, she took the complaints seriously.

“I knew it needed to be dealt with one way or another. If it was true something needed to be done, and if it wasn’t true, something needed to be done,” Dahlstrom says.

Once Dahlstrom left her position with the Department of Military Affairs, there was again a drop-off in clear communication about misconduct in the National Guard. Obvious emails only pick up at the end of 2013, when the Anchorage Daily News first published a story about problems with the Guard that October. Communication within the Governor’s office about misconduct within the Guard appears active from that time on, with subject lines referring to news stories, records requests, and involvement of the National Guard Bureau.

[“Compromised” e-mail]
[E-mail log provided by Alaska Department of Law]

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