Alaska set to release Palin e-mails

June 02, 2011|Associated Press

JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska is poised to release more than 24,000 pages of e-mails sent and received by Sarah Palin during her time as governor, providing an inside look into her rise to a spot on the national stage.

The release is being coordinated as Palin conducts an East Coast bus tour and contemplates a run for president.

The e-mails cover a majority of her short term as governor and could provide the most insight into how she governed. Her only other elected office was as a two-term mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, which has a population of about 7,000.

The state is withholding another 2,275 pages for reasons including attorney-client, work product, or executive privilege; an additional 140 pages were deemed to be “nonrecords,’’ or unrelated to state business.

The e-mails cover the first 21 months of Palin’s tenure, ending in September 2008. That is when news organizations and citizens first requested her e-mails, after John McCain picked her as his vice presidential running mate.

Subsequent requests were made for the remainder of Palin’s e-mails. The volume of those records and timing of their release is not clear; Linda Perez, the administrative director for Governor Sean Parnell, said she’s waiting for the records to be delivered by the group that runs the state’s servers.

E-mails set to be released by June 10 are from Palin’s private and state accounts, Perez said.

READER COMMENTS »

View reader comments » Comment on this story »