The state of Alaska today released more than 24,000 pages of emails from Sarah Palin’s first 21 months as governor.
Reporters from national television networks and newspapers converged on Juneau earlier this week. By 8 a.m. Friday morning they were crammed into the small Administrative Services office at the Court Plaza Building, also called the Spam Can.
The printed emails were not released until shortly before 9 a.m., when each news outlet loaded their six boxes on hand trucks and hauled them to hotel rooms or the airport.
Governor Parnell’s Press Secretary, Sharon Leighow, says more than 14,000 records were reviewed and more than 13,000 released, most without redactions. The former governor did much of her state emailing on a private Yahoo account.
News organizations and private citizens began requesting the emails in 2008. Leighow gives one reason why it took three years to go through the records:
“When her email account was hacked in 2008, her Yahoo account was closed, and we were able to retrieve less than 100 documents. So we were relying on the state documents system.”
Twenty-one percent of the documents have been redacted.
Public copies will be released at 1 p.m. this afternoon. MSNBC.com has already uploaded many of the emails, which can be found at http://palinemail.msnbc.com.
Gavel Alaska recorded the document release and spoke to the electronics investigation company Crivella West, which is uploading the emails. That can be seen on 360 North Television tonight at 6 p.m.
Photo courtesy of GavelAlaska
Rosemarie Alexander is a reporter at KTOO in Juneau.
