In addition to the two Yahoo accounts that were already known -- including one that was hacked earlier this month -- the Washington Post has learned that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had a third private e-mail account on a closed network that she and her staff used to communicate outside of the government's official e-mail system.
The owner of ITS Alaska, a tech company based in Wasilla, told the Post that an e-mail system was set up last spring under the domain that Palin had used for her campaign for governor -- PalinForGovernor.com -- and that access to the system was confined to "her closest confidants and coworkers and advisers and the person she sleeps with."
An ITS worker said there appeared to have been 10 to 15 addresses set up under the domain, but they were all shut down on September 17 after a hacker penetrated one of Palin's private Yahoo e-mail accounts and posted some of its contents online.
Frank Bailey, a Palin aide who was said to maintain the system before it was closed, denied that the domain was being used for Palin and aides to communicate, and said the domain hadn't been used at all for a long time. But the McCain-Palin campaign contradicted his claim with a statement it released to the Post.
"As a champion of government accountability and transparency, Gov. Palin was exercising an abundance of caution to ensure that all state and personal business matters were being kept separate," said Meghan Stapleton, Palin's press secretary. "Gov. Palin is committed to serving with the highest regard toward ethics."
Stapleton was one of several close Palin aides who had sent correspondence to a Yahoo account of Palin's that was hacked last month. The contents of that e-mail are not known but a screenshot of Palin's inbox that was posted online showing the subject line of Stapleton's e-mail to Palin indicated that it was about the "Motor Fuel Tax Suspension."
With regard to the third account that has now been made public, an ITS worker said that Bailey wanted an e-mail system that Palin's group could control, and that Bailey had asked about encrypting e-mail passing through the private system but had opted against installing encryption after being told the cost would be $1,000.
Palin has been under scrutiny for routinely using a private e-mail account -- gov.sarah@yahoo.com -- to conduct official government business, raising questions about transparency and whether she and aides used the account to bypass a public records law.
After news reports in early September disclosed the existence of the gov.sarah@yahoo.com account, a hacker discovered a second private account -- gov.palin@yahoo.com -- and accessed it by resetting the password on the account. Screenshots of that account, which the hacker posted online, included a number of e-mails from Stapleton and other Palin aides that appeared to be work-related.
The subject line of an e-mail from Randall Ruaro, Palin's deputy chief of staff read, "Draft letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger." The subject line from other e-mails from Ruaro indicated they were about "Court of Appeals Nominations" and employee and budget issues for the DPS. DPS is how Alaska refers to its Department of Public Safety.
Palin's chief of staff, Michael Nizich, sent her an e-mail August 22 with the subject line, "Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans." The subject line of another e-mail from Nizich read, "CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter."
Since June, Andree McLeod, a Republican and former legislative staff member in Alaska, has been seeking to obtain more than 1,000 e-mails that Palin has refused to hand over in a public records request examining possible ethical lapses by Palin.
"By withholding these e-mails, Sarah Palin has broken on her promise of being open, honest and transparent," McLeod said in a statement a week before Palin's Yahoo account was hacked.
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