AG Kane fires head of criminal appeals, James Barker (is he Fina's mole?)

[WeR0206]

Interesting development (did Kane find Fina's mole?): AG Kane fires head of criminal appeals, James Barker, who testified at the investigative grand jury looking into Kane. Armed agents took him from office.

James Barker is the same guy who read the JVP, Curley, & Schultz GJ testimony into the record at 12/16/11 hearing p173 (thanks to @JmmW on twitter for finding this fact!). Link to 12/16/11 prelim.

That's a heck of a coincidence...perhaps Barker may have purposely mis-read of some that testimony to have the record help Fina's case (specifically Joe's "it was a sexual nature" part)??? I wouldn't put anything past him....

 

[psu00]

She better have good grounds to fire him. The fact he testified at the Grand Jury about her and then she fires him leaves plenty of room for accusations.

I have to say- she just seems like a complete mess. I can't remember an Attorney General office in such disarray. She's had 4 staffers quit in the last year including her chief of staff last week (who was only on the job 4 months) and fired 5 spokespeople since 2013?

 

[WeR0206]

Originally posted by psu00:
She better have good grounds to fire him. The fact he testified at the Grand Jury about her and then she fires him leaves plenty of room for accusations.

I have to say- she just seems like a complete mess. I can't remember an Attorney General office in such disarray. She's had 4 staffers quit in the last year including her chief of staff last week (who was only on the job 4 months) and fired 5 spokespeople since 2013?

Yeah. She certainly seems to be overwhelmed. Welcome to the big leagues. Im not her biggest fan but someone needs to take that corrupt scumbag fina/Corbett down. I think she fired him bc he was finas inside guy he used to sandbag her.

This quote from former Corbett cronie says all one needs to know about this guy and where his loyalties most likely lie:


"He's an excellent appellate lawyer," said Kevin Harley, former press secretary for ex-governor and former attorney general Tom Corbett. "(Barker) was an asset to the office. He will be missed."

I bet he was quite the "asset"...especially while working in Kanes office...

 

[Aoshiro]

Kevin Harley is the same guy who declared that The Second Mile "was never under investigation."
The obvious question being - why the hell not?

 

[jjsocrates]

Originally posted by psu00:
I have to say- she just seems like a complete mess. I can't remember an Attorney General office in such disarray. She's had 4 staffers quit in the last year including her chief of staff last week (who was only on the job 4 months) and fired 5 spokespeople since 2013?

I have two comments about Kathleen Kane:

1) I can't look at anything that surrounds Kathleen Kane and not wonder how much of it is being manipulated by Frank Fina. All of these scandals, all have Fina's scent on them. So I have to take everything with a grain of salt.

2) She does seem like a complete mess. Mostly because she decided to tangle with Frank Fina and she really underestimated him. In short, she played the Game of Thrones - and she lost. Because she didn't play as dirty as he did. Now, he's outfoxed her and she looks bad.

She walked right into this trap that Fina set for her. She's either terribly naive, or terrible at playing dirty politics. She's been on the defense for a year after trying to go on the offensive. If she doesn't have something to fight back with, she's going to lose this little war, and look really bad doing it.

 

[lionlurker]

Her own party should have helped her, and it didn't.

The Democratic Party has allowed her to be burned at the stake, and sat back and watched. Either they all want her gone because of porngate, or for some other reason they just want to be rid of her.

I'll make the wild assumption that she has bad stuff on everybody, and they are going to make sure she never gets to use it.

 

[WeR0206]

Re: Her own party should have helped her, and it didn't.

Originally posted by lionlurker:
The Democratic Party has allowed her to be burned at the stake, and sat back and watched. Either they all want her gone because of porngate, or for some other reason they just want to be rid of her.

I'll make the wild assumption that she has bad stuff on everybody, and they are going to make sure she never gets to use it.

Yeah I was wondering about this as well. She doesn't seem to have many friends right now on either side of the aisle.

She really did embarrass a lot of people and ruin a lot of people's careers with the porn gate emails being exposed to the light of day. So it wouldn't surprise me if people in her own party want her out.

I'm sure there was a lot more than just the porn emails recovered in the 20+ MILLION emails that Corbett tried to get rid of. God knows what else was in there.....

 

[jjsocrates]

Re: Just Curious

Originally posted by Nittany Ned2:
I wonder if any of those 20mil emails would attract or have attracted the attention of the Feds?

One of two possibilities why Kane isn't going on the offensive (assuming she isn't a moron):
1) There wasn't ENOUGH in the e-mails to go to war over, so she picked a knife fight with a guy with the gun.
2) There was PLENTY in the e-mails to go to war over, but she's not fighting back because she handed the intelligence up the food chain to the generals.

Either she madly miscalculated Frank Fina or she is just waiting for everyone to get into her sites.

Unfortunately, I think the former, but I hope for the latter.

 

[marshall23]

Re: Just Curious

However this plays out.....the one good thing is Fina has been exposed. Even if he is successful in running Kane out of office, everyone knows he is a #1 dirtbag.

 

[Aoshiro]

Re: Just Curious

Originally posted by marshall23:
However this plays out.....the one good thing is Fina has been exposed. Even if he is successful in running Kane out of office, everyone knows he is a #1 dirtbag.

Sadly, that's not true.

 

[WeR0206]

Hmm...I didn't realize that Barker was in charge of statewide GJ's. It would certainly explain the JS GJ "leaks"....The more we learn about Barker the more likely it seems he may very well have been Corbett/fina mole IMO.

I can easily see Barker anonymously leaking secret GJ info to the Philly press so that fina could use it as ammo to take Kane down. I wouldn't put anything past fina/corbett.

"In his last position, Barker oversaw the office's three statewide grand juries" http://mobile.philly.com/news/politics/?wss=/philly/news/politics&id=299203571& …

This post was edited on 4/9 8:16 PM by WeR0206