Palin aide publishes a "tell all" book... copy already leaked to media

From Aol.com:
JUNEAU, Alaska - One of Sarah Palin's trusted advisers is planning a tell-all memoir, drawing upon thousands of personal e-mails during his time with the former Alaska governor to paint what his agent calls an expose of the inner workings of her operation.

Frank Bailey rose from a campaign volunteer to administration official and figure in the "Troopergate" scandal that fixated the public's attention during Palin's vice presidential bid in 2008. A preliminary draft of the unpublished book, tentatively called "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of our Tumultuous Years," was leaked to reporters, with excerpts making the rounds on the Internet.

According to the Alaska Dispatch:

Frank Bailey: Sarah Palin knowingly broke election law
Patti Epler | Feb 18, 2011
In 2006, Sarah Palin's political rivals accused her campaign of breaking the law by coordinating a campaign ad with the Republican Governor's Association that independently opposed the election of Democrat Tony Knowles. Complaints were filed with the state campaign finance agency but no violation was ever proved.

Now, Frank Bailey, a top Palin campaign aide, says the coordinated effort did happen and that although he resisted what he thought to be an illegal activity, others on the staff went along with it and that Palin herself participated in an anti-Knowles TV spot paid for by the RGA.

In an unpublished manuscript that has been widely circulating among media and politicos, Bailey recounts events surrounding the RGA's entry into the Alaska governor's race and includes what he says are e-mail excerpts that he believes back up his story.

This is purportedly an excerpt from the email that distributed the manuscript illicitely to the news media:

In BLIND ALLEGIANCE TO SARAH PALIN: A Memoir of our Tumultuous Years, Bailey explores such key events as Palin’s gubernatorial victory, Troopergate, illegal coordination with the Republican Governor’s Association, never-before-revealed scandals such as a judicial appointment as payoff for a favorable child custody ruling for Palin’s sister, the vice presidential campaign and the bizarre vetting process, and Palin’s resignation. Drawing on thousands of emails from the personal accounts of Sarah and Todd Palin as well as key members of the staff, Bailey reconstructs how the Palins’ pathologies became apparent, and how he and other members of the team rationalized Sarah’s increasingly erratic behavior and their commitment to a cause that was changing shape before their eyes. Bailey’s stories and representative emails—which are not subject to FOIA requests and therefore will not be included in the email correspondence scheduled to be released by Alaskan officials this May—sketch a disturbing portrait of Sarah Palin and her inner circle. Given the recent news that Palin’s political action committee has hired Michael Glassner, a veteran of both Senator Bob Dole’s and Senator John McCain’s presidential campaigns, as chief of staff, the revelations and insights of Frank’s story are more necessary than ever, as the public will seek to learn as much as possible about the woman who seems to have her sights set on the national stage. Both a chilling expose of the inner workings of Palin’s circle and the story of one man’s slow drift from his most cherished beliefs and his ultimate redemption, BLIND ALLEGIANCE TO SARAH PALIN is sure to strike a chord with readers on both sides of the aisle.

Frank Bailey was the first outside volunteer for Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial primary campaign, and served as a staffer and member of her inner circle until his departure from politics in the fall of 2009. He now runs a small coffee-stand business, having turned down an appointment from new Governor Sean Parnell in order to spend more time with his family. Ken Morris, a former Wall Street executive, has written for the San Francisco Chronicle and Jim Cramer’s RealMoney.com, and has appeared on Cramer’s former show Kudlow and Cramer as well as dozens of radio shows. Jeanne Devon is the editor and proprietor for The Mudflats, one of the most influential blogs in Alaska, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, where she has an open invitation to post lead articles. She contributed a chapter to GOING ROUGE: An American Nightmare (Health Communications, 2009). She is a regular guest on Shannyn Moore’s popular Anchorage radio show, and has appeared on Rachel Maddow.

So how did it get leaked and by whom? Here's what the Alaska Dispatch says about that:

An electronic copy of the book was forwarded to Alaska Dispatch reporter Craig Medred by author Joe McGinniss, who asked nothing be published prior to obtaining comment from Bailey and Devon. Bailey declined to comment Thursday night, referring questions to his agent. Devon could not be reached for comment.

McGinniss, in an e-mail, said he was passing the manuscript along because it "has been widely distributed in (New York) without any request for confidentiality." A best-selling author, McGinniss is writing his own Palin book. Last summer he rented the house next to hers at Lake Lucille in Wasilla, which caused a huge uproar.

It's unclear how McGinniss got a copy of the manuscript. And it's also unclear whether any copyright laws have been violated. Still, Dannay, the lawyer who specializes in publishing, said there could be legal issues with distributing a copyrighted work without permission. "If someone gives me a manuscript of an unpublished work, and I make a copy and give it to someone and I'm not authorized to do so, it means I distributed it," he said. "There's at least a possibility if he was unauthorized to distribute it, there may be a problem."

In case you don't know who Joe McGinniss is: