Author of a Sarah Palin tell-all is fined for publishing e-mails deemed confidential

A former aide to Sarah Palin, who wrote an unflattering tell-all about working for her while she was governor of Alaska, has paid the fine he was charged for including in his book e-mails considered to be confidential.

According to the Alaska Department of Law, Frank Bailey, whose book was titled “Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin,” broke Alaska’s ethics laws by profiting from the use of confidential state e-mails, one of which concerned a candidate for state attorney general.

Bailey, who worked as the director of Boards and Commissions for Palin’s administration, had showed a manuscript of his book to the Attorney General’s office before it was published. When the AG's office indicated that some of the material that he was including would be considered confidential, he took some – but not all – of the material in question out of the manuscript.

Bailey was charged with the $11,900 fine after Andree McLeod, an activist who had been seeking the e-mails Palin sent from her personal e-mail to a state account. McLeod has told the press that every e-mail in Bailey’s book should be released to the public.

McLeod first complained in 2010 and wrote that she and various media outlets had all tried to get access to the e-mails, without success.

“Yet, it seems that a former Palin aide and two others who remain anonymous have free access to Palin's emails ... all because Bailey worked for her in the governor's office,” she wrote in her official complaint.

In the text of Bailey’s settlement with the state of Alaska, he states that some of the e-mails he used in the book were in fact confidential.

Molly Driscoll is a Monitor contributor.

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