Palin on Alaska job: ?I can?t take it anymore?

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) ? Fed up with mounting legal bills and rattled by intense scrutiny of her family and work, Sarah Palin was ready to step down as Alaska?s governor months before she left office in July 2009.

Emails released Thursday, most from the last 10 months of her time in office, show she told her husband in April, ?I can?t take it anymore? and complained to spokeswoman Sharon Leighow and aide Kris Perry in March that she had been the target of ?many frivolous suits and charges since the DAY I became VP candidate.?

?I can?t afford this job,? she wrote.

She flirted with a presidential run last year, but told supporters she instead was dedicating herself to ?God, family and country.? She currently serves as a commentator on Fox News.

In a March 19, 2009, email, Palin complained that more than 150 freedom of information requests had cost the state more than $1 million, adding: ?and who knows what all the bogus ethics charges have cost the state.?

She expressed anger at having to pay for her own defense, with a bill that at that point totaled more than $500,000, and said her husband had to go back to work on the North Slope to help deal with the growing costs.

?We?ve all had to pay for our OWN legal defense in this political bloodsport ? it?s horrendous ? why do you think Todd is on the slope today?? Palin wrote. ?I am paying to defend in my capacity as GOVERNOR ? actions taken in my official position. This is unheard of anywhere else.?

By the spring of 2009, the emails show, Palin was regularly butting heads with lawmakers of both parties over her absences from the Capitol.

Palin said a series of ethics complaints filed against her contributed to her decision to step down. In an April 2009 email, she commiserated over a story indicating another ethics complaint was to be filed: ?Unflippinbelievable... I?m sending this because you can relate to the bullcrap continuation of the hell these people put the family through,? she wrote to aides Ivy Frye and Frank Bailey.

Later that day, in an email to her husband and two top aides, on the issue, she said: ?I can?t take it anymore.?

Earlier, after a Feb. 18, 2009, Washington Post story titled, ?Back Home in Alaska, Palin finds cold comfort,? was pointed out to her, she emailed her husband. ?Would you pray for our strength. And for God to totally turn things around... Enough is enough. May we see victories and feel His hand of mercy and grace.? He replies, ?I did.?

Emails show she faced rumors about her family long before she became McCain?s running mate.

In a Sept. 26, 2007, email to Kris Perry and her husband Todd, titled ?Marital Problems,? Palin writes: ?So speaking of... If we, er, when we get a divorce, does that quell ?conflict of interest? accusations about BP?? Her husband was a former BP employee on the North Slope.