Frank Bailey fined $11,900.00 for using state e-mails in book. If you see Sarah Palin walking around with a big smile, now you'll know why.

This from ADN:

Frank Bailey, the former Sarah Palin aide turned tell-all author, has agreed to pay an $11,900 civil fine for violating the state's ethics laws by keeping, disseminating and profiting from confidential emails he obtained while serving in Palin's administration. 

The Alaska attorney general's office disclosed the settlement today in a letter to ethics campaigner Andree McLeod, who initiated the complaint against Bailey in 2010 after reading about Bailey's plans for a Palin book in the Daily News' gossip column, The Ear. 

At the time she filed the complaint, McLeod had been trying for two years to get the state to release Palin's emails. She said it was improper for one person to have access to at least part of the public records trove when the general public were unable to get them. 

"This settlement is just the beginning in straightening things out," McLeod said in a prepared statement announcing the settlement. "Justice has yet to be served as the state now has to reveal Palin's public documents and emails that Bailey confiscated when he left state employment."

Okay so here's the thing. I understand Andree McLeod's point here, but the facts are we would NEVER have seen those e-mails if Bailey had not put them in that book.

Oh we may have seen bits and pieces, but the majority of them would have been redacted completely out of existence.

You know I tried to get Bailey to release all of the e-mails before the book came out, or even after, and he has refused to discuss to do so, or even discuss it with those who have asked.

I doubt seriously that the state is going to release the next batch of Palin e-mails intact, so the only way to REALLY know what she is hiding is through Bailey. What do you think the chances are NOW that he will risk giving them to the public?

Dammit why is getting the truth out so fucking hard?