After Sarah Palin complained she "may be pretty wimpy about this family stuff" and "hurtful gossip about my family," an aide, Rosanne Hughes, replied: "Governor, do you know how loved you are?" Then she offered prayers for the Palin family. Bristol Palin, who wrote from her mother's email account (so the governor wasn't texting while driving), then responded with heartfelt thanks for her "faith in God. We share it..."

Related stories from ABC News

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The Palin Effect – This Week with Christiane Amanpour

June 18, 2011 09:32pm

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Sarah Palin has never pressed environmental issues as priorities in her political campaigns, and an email exchange in January 2007 shows just how little she cares (or knows) about the effects of global warming. Palin sent an email to her aides with an embedded letter from Mary Walker, the head of an Anchorage environmental group, which rebukes the governor for requesting that the federal government not include the polar bear on its list of endangered species. The environmentalist wrote in her letter that Palin's written request to the government "had several clear factual errors such as the statement: there is no scientific evidence.... that these polar bear populations are declining." Walker then provided the scientific evidence to counter Palin's claim, and wrote that Palin's claim that there was "no discrete human activities that can be regulated" when it came to the effects of global warming on polar bears' habitat. The part of the email that followed Walker's embedded letter was removed and replaced with the note: "Privileged or Personal Material Redacted." We can only see that she addressed aide Mike Tibbles in the email, whose response was also redacted.

Read more from The Daily Beast's Shushannah Walshe and ABC News' Michael Falcone about Palin's squabbles with environmental activists.

June 12, 2011 08:10pm

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Palin Courts BP's Tony Hayward

Sarah Palin was desperate for BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward to back a 1,700-mile gas pipeline across North America in June 2007. This despite the March 2006 Prudhoe Bay oil spill, the worst in Alaska's state history, which saw more than 5,000 barrels of crude spew from BP's corroded pipes. Palin was pleading to Hayward to support her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which was supposed to get energy companies to build a multibillion-dollar pipeline to deliver natural gas from Alaska's North Slope fields to the mainland U.S. But even BP refused to back the plan, believing it was a bad deal. A few years later, in April 2010, BP was responsible for the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and caused the biggest oil spill and environmental disaster in U.S. history. Hayward was forced to resign after he came under heavy criticism for a series of gaffes that included complaining about the spill because he "just wanted his life back" and suggesting that the Gulf was a "big ocean" and would be fine.

Mixing Professional Matters With Private Email Account

It was also revealed that Palin maintained another private email account for most of her time in office, and that she mixed personal and professional matters on the account. Emails that passed between private accounts are not included in the release because only emails (at her official state account and a frequently used Yahoo account) that passed through the state server in some fashion were included. But Palin used a sp@hslak.com to conduct business with her aide Frank Bailey, raising concerns that some of her official business communications were not captured in this release. Bailey, of course, would later sour on Palin and write a memoir called Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin. 

June 12, 2011 02:30pm

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In the days before Sarah Palin's unveiling as Sen. John McCain’s running mate, she was busy with the everyday business of governing. She approved future press requests and meetings at the Republican National Convention—meetings that she would later have to cancel—and received words of encouragement from supporters hoping she would be chosen as McCain’s vice-presidential pick.

She did all of this while keeping her location—Arizona, not Alaska—a secret even from some of her closest aides. Many members of her stunned staff wrote congratulatory notes to Palin once the news broke, some saying they watched her convention speech on television with tears in their eyes.

On August 27, the day Palin traveled by private jet to Arizona to meet the next day with McCain at his Sedona ranch, the governor’s press secretary, Bill McAllister, emailed Palin her schedule for the RNC.

The email was also sent to her scheduler, her deputy press secretary, and aide Kris Perry, the only Palin staffer who went with her to Arizona. The subject line of the email read: “current media itinerary in Minnesota” and includes a Newsweek breakfast, a spot on NPR’s All Things Considered, and two Fox News segments, among others. McAllister also wrote that a PBS program “has canceled without explanation.”

That same day, John Katz, who worked in the state of Alaska’s Washington, D.C. office, emailed Palin and several staff members to alert them to an article published in Congressional Quarterly reporting that drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge didn’t make it into the Republican platform.

Despite support from platform writers, it was seen as potentially undercutting McCain, who was famously against drilling there. Palin, on the other hand, was and is a vocal supporter, and it was one of the areas of disagreement between the governor and McCain.

Also on August 27, Palin sent a message to members of her staff asking them to announce Mike Nizich’s promotion from acting chief of staff to chief of staff.

She ended the email with an enthusiastic, “Thanks Mike Nizich! WhooHoo!” When Nizich thanked his boss for the note, she replied, “Yeah right… Thank YOU!!!”

Later the same day, Palin’s scheduler, Janice Mason, emailed to say the governor had been invited to an event on Sept. 1. Not knowing if she would be chosen by McCain, Palin returned the messaging, writing: “If I am back though—yes, I’d love to do this!!!”

The next day—August 28—was the day she would meet with McCain for just over an hour before being selected. That morning, her deputy press secretary, Sharon Leighow, emailed about a guest segment on CNN.

“Larry King would like to know if you are interested in talking about McCain’s VP choice tomorrow at 5 p.m.” Leighow wrote, “If you would like me to pursue this, I can see if they can link up from the State Fair.”

She replied about 30 minutes later, “That should work. We’ll firm up tomorrow a.m. I need to juggle some things around.”

Meanwhile, a prophetic Alaska supporter emailed urging her to take the vice-presidential slot if McCain offered it.

“I am convinced the only way possible for John McCain to win the Presidency is for you to be his running mate.” Lee Grothe wrote, “Please reconsider running for vice president if it is even hinted at.”

The next day at 5:02 a.m. Alaska time, just as news was starting to break in the Lower 48 that Palin might indeed be McCain’s pick, Leighow emailed Palin with the subject line, “Are you still in AK?” (It’s clear even Leighow did not know that Palin had been gone since the 27.)

The email went unreturned.

Once she was announced, Palin was inundated with congratulatory notes from staff, all surprised and ecstatic.

"You sure knew how to wake me up from a dead sleep this morning!" wrote aide Mindy Rowland. "You must have been busting at the seams wanting to tell us all... Tell Piper that she did great and that her hairstyle shows really good on TV :)."

"I'm telling Piper that right now!" Palin wrote back. "Thank you, I love you guys!"

Staffers Rosanne Hughes and Kelly Goode both wrote that Palin’s speech in Ohio brought tears to their eyes. Palin wrote back to Goode, “I love you!!!”

"Wow governor! Just watched you on TV!" wrote budget director Karen Rehfeld. "You knocked their socks off!"

"Can you believe it!” Palin wrote back, "He told me yesterday—it moved fast! Pray! I love you."

Palin’s commissioner at the Department of Labor, Click Bishop, colorfully sent his congratulations along, “The cream always rises to the top god bless click.”

Palin replied, “Thank you so much! Give Darlene a hug from me and Todd!

Despite the sudden and intense national interest, Palin still wanted to speak with the local Alaska press, even it was brief.

McAllister scheduled a press conference with her lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, to field questions about her nomination and she replied to the press release asking, “Should I call in for ONE minute?"

June 11, 2011 08:45pm

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