On March 11, 2008, Tom Irwin, then the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, writes Palin: "I was just listening to the news about the NY governor. It started me thinking about the trip to Barrow, the FBI letting you know about the legis's arrests, and about your comments on how we have such a responsibility to do things right. Wanted to let yo know that I was praising the Lord for you and asking Him to bless richly. God bless. Tom."
Palin responds to Irwin: "Thank you so much Tom. I'm very thankful for you and the team you've put together. God's got all this in control as we give it up to Him! Bless you and Sharon and the kids."
UPDATED 5:46 p.m. In a February 2007 exchange, a Palin adviser recommends that, when she is in Washington, she meet Pete Rouse, who was Obama's chief of staff when he was in the Senate and served briefly in the same job at the White House. "He's now chief-of-staff for a guy named Barack Obama," the aide wrote. The aide relayed information that Rouse "wants to help Alaska however he can," and also had predicted Palin would win election to governor. Palin responded: "I'm game to meet him."
UPDATED 3:30 p.m.: Emails released by the state reinforce the notion that Sarah Palin, during her time as the state's governor, used a political corruption scandal to set herself apart from her predecessor, Frank Murkowski. Bill Allen, the founder of VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil contractor, was indicted in May 2007 for bribing state lawmakers. The next day Palin sent an email to an aide asking for help to tie Allen's corruption to Murkowski, the former governor who she had defeated about nine months earlier in the state GOP primary. "FYI -- I've asked Frank Bailey to help me track down (some) evidence of past administration's dealing with Bill Allen," Palin wrote on May 8, 2007, according to CNN. (Bailey has since written a critical book about his time working for Palin.) CNN reports:
Palin aides replied that VECO had paid $15,000 to fly Frank Murkowski and Allen to a Council of State Governments meeting in Thailand in 2004. Palin aides also asked Allen to resign from a seat on a state board that cultivated ties with the Canadian province of Alberta, a request to which Allen -- who was later sentenced to three years in prison -- quickly agreed.
UPDATED 2:30 p.m.: Two March emails reveal a bit of conflict between Palin and Exxon Mobil Corp., with one dated March 7, 2007, from Sen. Lisa Murkowski's energy spokesman that says the CEO of Exxon was "slamming" Alaska in an analyst meeting. In another email dated March 12 of the same year, Palin addressed a rumor that she was actively attempting to prevent Exxon Mobil Corp.'s attempts at an Alaska natural gas pipeline. Rather, she mentions that she is in support of any Alaska gasline to reduce federal involvement in Alaska energy policy. She also said that "...Exxon does not have to be such stinkers to us in the press...Exxon has a duty to develop, etc."
UPDATED 1 p.m.: On Sept. 15 2008, Bill McAllister, then a spokesman for Palin after working for KTUU Channel 2, writes to Palin with a laundry list of press inquiries, questions ranging from how she's governing while campaigning to use of personal e-mail accounts to the tanning bed at the governor's house to Troopergate subpoenas to whether she believes dinosaurs and humans coexisted at the same time. In this email, McAllister accuses Anchorage Daily News reporter Lisa Demer of "secretly taping me" during an exchange about the personal email accounts, and accuses Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins of attempting to "sandbag commissioners" on talking about how state government could possibly work with Palin on the road. He concludes his email with "I continue to be dismayed at the media."
Palin writes back:
"Arghhhh! I am so sorry that the office is swamped like this! Dinosaurs even?! I'll try to run through some of these in my head before responding. And the old, used tanning bed that my girls have used a handful of times in Juneau? yes, we paid for it ourselves. I, too, will continue to be dismayed at the media and am thankful you and Sharon are not part of the strange going's-on in the media world of today."
UPDATE 12:45 p.m.: Here are some examples of emails we're coming across when Palin was running for vice president in September 2008:
UPDATE 11:55 a.m.: There are numerous congratulatory letters to Palin about her son, Trig, who was born on April 18, 2008, with Down's syndrome. The emails that she sent give a glimpse of trying to juggle a new baby with her governor duties. On April 25, 2008, she sent a message to her staff to let others know that a meeting that was scheduled with the mayor of Fairbanks, as well as other meetings, "are dependent on this baby's doc appts over the weekend." She wrote that there's "a need for major flexibility for awhile."
UPDATE 11:15 a.m.: Here's a note about TransCanada, the Calgary-based pipeline company that Sarah Palin and the Alaska Legislature supported by providing up to $500 million in state subsidies to spur construction on a long-sought, multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline project. The email is in response to a congratulatory note from Marty Rutherford, deputy commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources and a former TransCanada consultant, who was heading up Palins "gasline team." Aug. 29, 2008: "Thank you-you rock-i love you-hold the fort down for me and kick TC (TransCanada) in the butt as they hustle towards our gasline," Palin writes.
UPDATE 11:05 a.m.: On Aug. 29, 2008, after the pick, her Department of Revenue Commissioner emailed her to congratulate her. She wrote back the next day, "Can you flippinbelieveit?!"
(ORIGINAL STORY) The media descended on Alaska's capitol city Friday to review thousands of emails from Sarah Palin's time as governor. The correspondence spans Palin's time as governor until September 2008, when she was in the midst of running for vice president. Palin at times used private email accounts to conduct state business. Emails sent from her private addresses to state employees at their state addresses are included in the 24,199 printed pages of emails turned over to reporters. Taken as a whole, the email dump should provide a glimpse into the inner workings of Palin's administration.
The six boxes of documents, weighing about 300 pounds, includes emails about bears, the budget, oil and gas issues, as well as "Troopergate," an abuse-of-power inquiry over firing Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan in mid-2008.
Troopergate: 'biased and unfair'
Monegan said he was dismissed for refusing to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was involved in a divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister. In October 2008, a state legislative investigator found Palin abused her authority and violated state ethics rules by letting her husband use her office to press for firing Monegan. A separate investigation by the state Personnel Board in November 2008 found the governor didn't violate ethics rules.
On Aug. 15, 2008, Palin said the media was reporting the issue "incorrectly." Five days later, she calls reports on her budget and potential trooper layoffs "biased and unfair."
"It is appalling to see and hear the untruths being spewed about the DPS (Department of Public Safety) budget and contract results," she wrote to some of her staff on Aug. 19, 2008, 10 days before it was announced that she was running for vice president.
Who conducted this search?
She also asked her staff questions about someone going into her bedroom in the governor's mansion in Juneau to get emails from her computer. In an Aug. 19, 2008, email, she wrote, "(W)ho, when, etc conducted this search of my bedroom's computer and the other house computer? And what were the reasons given and responses given to whomever must have officially entered the resident on whatever day it was that this occurred."
A legislative commission was investigating Troopergate in that month of August. Erika Fagerstrom, Palin's residence manager and assistant, wrote back to Palin, telling her that the Department of Law wanted access to her emails before "the investigators have access to it," Fagerstrom writes Aug. 20, 2008. This seems to infuriate Palin. On that same day, she wrote, "It's unacceptable that whomever is in charge of this 'investigation' did not inform me nor grant me approval before proceeding. I'm dumbfounded by the way this is developing."
State officials say 2,373 emails have been released with some redactions. Another 18,532 emails will be released with no redactions.
The records release is the result of almost three years of pursuit and legal challenges by media and members of the public, an effort initiated when Palin became U.S. Senator John McCain's running mate during the 2008 presidential election. The email dump comes at a time when Palin's national profile is again high, with the former governor having yet to announce whether she plans a 2012 presidential run.
More than 24,000 emails from Sarah Palin's time as governor in Alaska were made public June 10, 2011.
Palin's private email account
In early 2010, Alaska Dispatch reported a two-part series on Palin's private email account while governor. The stories included leaked emails. From that story, we reported that in a Feb. 2, 2007 email, just a couple of months after she was sworn in as governor, Palin told her inner circle, including family members, advisors and her chief of staff:
My NEW personal/private/confidential account will now be: gov.sarah@yahoo.com All other people will be emailing me through the state system at governor@gov.state.ak.us and that is NOT a confidential/private account so -- warning -- everyone and their mother will be able to read emails that arrive via that state address.
Alaska Dispatch reporters will be updating this story throughout the day with what they find in the Palin emails, as well as compiling a narrative of how her administration unfolded from the time she was sworn in as governor, in late 2006, through September 2008 when she was crisscrossing the nation as McCain's running-mate.
Palin, 47, has said there is nothing new to learn about her. She did acknowledge on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace on June 5 that the emails released today "weren't meant for public consumption," adding that the public will "never truly know" their context.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com and Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com.