Sarah Palin's Secret Emails *It's the banning of the Emails* with links!!

Sarah Palin's Secret Emails
The Palin administration won't release hundreds of emails from her office, claiming they cover confidential policy matters. Then why do the subject lines refer to a political foe, a journalist, and non-policy topics?

In June, Andrée McLeod, a self-described independent government watchdog in Alaska, sent an opens record act request to the office of Governor Sarah Palin. She requested copies of all the emails that had been sent and received by Ivy Frye and Frank Bailey, two top aides to Palin, from February through April of this year. McLeod, a 53-year-old registered Republican who has held various jobs in state government, suspected that Frye and Bailey had engaged in political activity during official business hours in that period by participating in a Palin-backed effort to oust the state chairman of the Alaska Republican party, Randy Ruedrich. (Bailey has been in the national news of late for refusing to cooperate with investigators probing whether Palin fired Alaska's public safety commission because he did not dismiss a state trooper who had gone through an ugly divorce with Palin's sister.)

In response to her request, McLeod received four large boxes of emails. This batch of documents did not contain any proof that Frye and Bailey had worked on government time to boot out Ruedrich. But there was other information she found troubling. Several of the emails suggested to her that Palin's office had used its influence to reward a Fairbanks surveyor who was a Palin fundraiser with a state job. In early August, McLeod filed a complaint with the state attorney general against Palin, Bailey, and other Palin aides, claiming they had violated ethics and hiring laws. Palin, now the Republican vice-presidential candidate, told the Alaska Daily News that "there were no favors done for anybody."

But more intriguing than any email correspondence contained in the four boxes was what was not released: about 1100 emails. Palin's office provided McLeod with a 78-page list (PDF) cataloging the emails it was withholding. Many of them had been written by Palin or sent to her. Palin's office claimed most of the undisclosed emails were exempt from release because they were covered by the "executive" or "deliberative process" privileges that protect communications between Palin and her aides about policy matters. But the subject lines of some of the withheld emails suggest they were not related to policy matters. Several refer to one of Palin's political foes, others to a well-known Alaskan journalist. Moreover, some of the withhold emails were CC'ed to Todd Palin, the governor's husband. Todd Palin—a.k.a. the First Dude—holds no official state position (though he has been a close and influential adviser for Governor Palin). The fact that Palin and her aides shared these emails with a citizen outside the government undercuts the claim that they must be protected under executive privilege. McLeod asks, "What is Sarah Palin hiding?"

The email boomerang
On Wednesday, an ethics complaint was filed against the Palin administration, accusing them of favorable treatment in hiring a campaign supporter of Governor Palin's.

The complaint originated from emails uncovered in a recent freedom of information request that was filed by local Anchorage resident Andree McLeod.

The governor and her staff quickly explained that there was no favoritism, and the emails were taken out of context and failed to represent the entire set of circumstances surrounding the hiring of Tom Lamal in Fairbanks.

Unfortunately, instead of simply explaining the misunderstanding to the press and leaving it at that, Palin did what she has become famous for; attempting to shoot the messenger.

According to Kyle Hopkins at the Anchorage Daily News, in an interview with Governor Palin about the complaint she said, "This is the same Andree McLeod that follows us around at public events and camps herself out in our waiting area and hounds us for a job, asking us if there's a way she can go around Workplace Alaska and not have to go through the system to get a job with this administration,"

Palin also tried to disparage Mcleod by referring to her as the "falafel lady".

Easy there governor, you're not the only one who has been keeping emails.

Between 2002 and 2005, McLeod amassed quite a library of emails from one of her biggest fans; Sarah Palin.

That was a great letter to the ed. this week Andree. I haven't had time to call but wanted to tell you it was, again, insightful & educational & good writing.

I'm still disenchanted with the whole issue of RR and state politics and am not even very optimistic about the call for an independent investigation. We'll see. I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

Hope you're doing well, staying warm & staying on top of all these state issues I'm hearing about on the news!

Love,
SP