JUNEAU, Alaska — 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.