Wasilla Project: Sarah Palin: The email scandal

On a personal note, all of us here at the Wasilla Project have been overwhelmed at the response to our videos. We've been surprised at the number of former friends and colleagues of Palin's who have come out of the woodwork to send us emails of support and appreciation. We started this project with the idea that we'd spend the weekend in Wasilla and come back with enough footage to create a short citizen's essay video about Palin and her hometown.

In that short weekend (which stretched to 3 days) we met many great Wasillans who gave us their interviews and tons of support to produce what became 4 complete and separate videos. We have enough footage to produce at least 2 more compelling videos, but all of us have had to get back to our day jobs! And I have to say, we are a little tired of making videos about Sarah Palin... as fascinating as she is.

We hope that this series of videos have helped people to understand a bit more of who Sarah Palin is and some idea of what she might be like as a Vice President or even President. Today, as we launch the description of our 4th and final video, we've hit 100,000 views on YouTube.

For all of you who have spent countless hours forwarding links to our videos across the web, thank you! You've made it all worth it. For those of you who haven't, well, there is 24 hours in each day as my grandpa in Nebraska used to say.

With the election less than a week away, the Wasilla Project posts it's 4th and final video. This video is on Governor Palin's use of a personal Yahoo email account to conduct state business. Palin and her aides have been found to be in violation of a state ethics law during the Troopergate scandal by a bipartisan Alaskan ethics investigation. They released a 300 page report early October as a result of an investigation that began before McCain picked her as his running mate. Part of the investigation of the committee centered around emails that Palin and her aides traded back and forth, emails that also included Palin's husband, the Alaskan citizen Todd Palin.

In our video, Andrée McLeod, a government watchdog, contends that using a Yahoo account for state business and keeping those emails from the official record of state business is unethical. In early October of this year, Alaska State Superior Court Judge Craig Stowers agreed. While he didn't ban the use of Yahoo or other 3rd party email accounts for state business, he ruled that e-mails sent or received through Gov. Sarah Palin's personal e-mail accounts are public records if they concern official state business. Palin and her aides have gone to great lengths to make sure that the mails they've released have had large sections withheld or redacted. Emails that Palin or her aides cc'd to her husband Todd, who is a state citizen and not an elected official, should have been part of the public record and were withheld or redacted as well.

With the controversy of the $150,000 clothes shopping spree, and her appearance on SNL dominating coverage of Governor Palin, this story has been seriously underreported. We feel that it's very important for people to know that on even the most basic level, Sarah Palin has not been transparent or reform minded in her time as governor and that she has had serious ethics problems at home.

In this video we interview:

Anne Kilkenny – longtime Wasilla resident and government observer.
Zane Henning – is a Wasilla resident, politically conservative, and active as a researcher and government watchdog.
Andree McCleod – is a government watchdog who has been investigating Palin’s use of Yahoo email while governor.

We look forward to your comments and ideas. Thank you for watching!

Paul Lundahl

Wasilla Project

October 29, 2008

Resources

Sarah Palin's powerful "First Dude"

Palin, like Rove before her, stayed off government e-mail servers

"Cracks appearing in Palin's "reform" facade" by Alex Koppelman

ADN Recent Story on the Case

ADN Editorial

Comments

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Sarah Palin has no business promoting open and transparent government. In fact, she has no business being in office.

Posted by: Melinda Mitchell | October 28, 2008 at 12:30 PM

Is there no way to get this information out there so others can see, before it is too late????
Call Keith Obermann or Rachel Maddow at MSNBC.

Posted by: Pat | October 29, 2008 at 06:46 AM

Thank goodness for people like you who take the time to investigate someone running for vice president who claims she would be transparent in her government dealings. You have shown us that she hasn't shown transparency as Governor of Alaska and there is no reason she would be any different as vice president or president. She would follow ing the footsteps of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Let's hope that the American voters are wise to her.

Posted by: Joanne Cadkin | November 02, 2008 at 12:32 AM