The office of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has told a state public employee union that if it wants to gain access to previously undisclosed emails from the Palin’s office they’re going to have to pony up some serious cash.

Palin’s office wants $88,000 to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request filed recently by the state’s Public Safety Employees Association, the union that represents the governor former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, an Alaska state trooper, who was involved in a bitter divorce and child custody suit with Palin’s sister.

The union alleges Palin’s office illegally accessed the trooper’s personnel and workers compensation file and disseminated confidential information to a top Alaska state trooper official in an attempt to get Wooten fired.

In August, the union filed an ethics complaint against Palin alleging unauthorized access to Wooten’s personnel files.

John Cyr, the director of the PSEA, also filed a FOIA request for emails after an audio recording surfaced in July that showed Palin’s director of state boards and commissions, Frank Bailey, telephoned police Lt. Rodney Dial last February to inquire about union issues involving state troopers and outlined disparaging details about Wooten’s finances and personal behavior that appear to have come from his personnel file.

Bailey said he had gotten the information from Todd Palin, the governor’s husband.

“I did not become aware of the [taped] Bailey conversation until it became public,” Cyr said. “But Bailey complained to a bunch of our other members, the airport police who we represent, that I refused to fire Wooten. This was the middle of last winter. One of my members said to me ‘hey John, what’s going on with you and Frank Bailey.’ I remember thinking ‘who is Frank Bailey?’”

Cyr said he believes more than 1,000 e-mails were exchanged between Bailey, and Sarah and Todd Palin, and other officials from Palin’s administration that, if released, would show that Palin and her aides kept tabs on Wooten and perhaps discussed information about the trooper that could only have been obtained by illegally accessing the trooper’s confidential files.

Cyr said he filed a FOIA request on behalf of the union to obtain the e-mails, but the governor’s office said in a written response it would cost the union $88,000 for the documents.

“That seems a little steep,” Cyr said. “And suspicious.”

Palin has refused to voluntarily release the e-mails.

Still, the allegation that Palin got unauthorized access to Wooten’s personnel records — by whatever means — is moot, according to Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg, who said Palin has an unlimited right to pry into the personnel records of all state employees, including Wooten’s.

Palin’s position was summed up in a Sept. 9 letter from Colberg to the state legislature. Colberg’s argument is that Palin can access confidential files of any state employee she chooses and thus

“It does not violate the State Personnel Act for Department of Administration Staff to provide confidential personnel information to the governor or her staff — or for the governor or her staff to receive that information — in the course and scope of their official duties,” the attorney general wrote.

“The governor or her staff may, in the course and scope of their official duties, review a confidential personnel file to ensure, for example, that an employee is adequately supervised, appropriately evaluated, and appropriately disciplined. In appropriate cases, the governor may also direct the termination of a state employee.”

Palin’s new defense line became necessary when it turned out that an earlier claim that Wooten’s personnel file was public record through his divorce/custody case with Palin’s sister turned out to be untrue.

Palin, her private attorney Thomas Van Flein and McCain campaign officials had said Wooten released his confidential medical and employment records as part of those proceedings. Palin’s office even posted Wooten’s Feb. 7 agreement to release those records as part of the case discovery.

Palin and her husband, Todd, presumably learned some derogatory information about Wooten from her sister, Molly McCann, who received the information via the discovery process.

However, the Palins appear to have been mistaken that Wooten’s personnel record had been released into the official court record where it would become public information.

Wooten’s personnel file was never introduced as evidence in the divorce/custody case because he entered into a settlement agreement with his ex-wife over custody of their young children, according to Palin’s sister’s attorney, Roberta Erwin.

“It doesn’t become part of the court record unless you file exhibits; we never got that far,” Erwin said in an interview.

Gov. Palin’s handling of the Wooten matter and her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan are under investigation by independent counsel Steve Branchflower, who was appointed by Alaska’s Legislative Council. Monegan said he believes he was pressured by Palin, her husband Todd, and several of her senior aides to fire Wooten.

While the probe centers on whether Palin abused her power in firing Monegan in July, the investigation also involves claims that the governor’s office peeked at Wooten’s personnel records illegally.

In July, Gov. Palin vowed to cooperate with the probe. However, since her surprise selection as the Republican vice presidential nominee, she — as well as her husband and senior staff aides — have balked at giving depositions.

On Sept. 2, just a day before she accepted the GOP nomination, Palin also took the unusual step of filing an ethics complaint against herself — to move the investigation to the state personnel board whose three members are appointed by the governor — and to make the argument that Branchflower should stop his investigation.

Last week, The Alaska Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit filed by six Republican lawmakers who launched an effort to block the release of a report on whether Palin abused her power when she fired Monegan.