Alaska Politics Blog : Palin e-mails show Todd Palin was active participant in administration (Updated with how to search)

Alaska Politics Blog

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Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

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When the FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, it publicly launched an investigation that ultimately reached the highest levels of Alaska politics, and continues to this day.

Palin e-mails show Todd Palin was active participant in administration (Updated with how to search)

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: February 5, 2010 - 7:57 am

Former Gov. Sarah Palin and husband Todd Palin after she gave a farewell speech prior to her resignation in Fairbanks last July. (Bill Roth/ADN)

UPDATE: Crivella West, the company that worked with msnbc.com on the public-records request that resulted in release of the Palin e-mails, has created a searchable database of the e-mails. Sean Cockerham, our reporter in Juneau, says people in Capitol offices were busily clicking away when he was up there earlier today. (You may need to hit the link a few times; evidently the site is getting a lot of traffic and is slow to load.)

The Associated Press, which had a parallel records request, has moved its own story here.

From David Hulen in Anchorage --

This from msnbc.com this morning, under the headline, Palin e-mails reveal a powerful ‘first dude’.

Excerpt:

Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor's husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked "confidential" from his oil company employer to a state attorney.

While 1,200 separate e-mails were released this week, 243 others were withheld by the state under a claim that executive privilege extends to Todd Palin as an unpaid adviser to the government....

The still-secret e-mails between Todd Palin and senior officials reach into countless areas of state government and politics: potential board appointees, constituent complaints, use of the state jet, oil and gas production, marine regulation, gas pipeline bids, postsecondary education, wildfires, native Alaskan issues, the state effort to save the Matanuska Maid dairy, budget planning, potential budget vetoes, oil shale leasing, "strategy for responding to media allegations," staffing at the mansion, pier diem payments to the governor for travel, "strategy for responding to questions about pregnancy," potential cuts to the governor's staff, "confidentiality issues," Bureau of Land Management land transfers and trespass issues and requests to the U.S. transportation secretary.

Also withheld: a discussion of how to reply to "media questions about Todd Palin's work and potential conflict of interests."