AG Kane still has big problem
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
SO IT WASN’T some Harrisburg “old boys network” after all. At least not the one Kathleen Kane initially suggested.
It was a little more coarse than that.
Turns out the blowback against the state’s top law enforcement officer — the first woman and first Democrat elected as Pennsylvania attorney general — was all about porn.
At least that’s what Kane would have us believe.
The embattled attorney general strode to the microphones recently and sought to tell the “whole story” behind why she now faces criminal charges, and calls from no less than the state’s Democratic governor that she step down.
In a moment of high Harrisburg drama, Kane suggested her problems were not rooted in unflattering newspaper stories, nor any ‘war’ on her part to get back at those who painted her in such an unfavorable light.
Instead, Kane suggested all of her troubles stem from the cache of “pornographic, racially offensive, and religiously offensive emails” that were routinely passed among a group of prosecutors and judges.
Kane maintains she became the target of a group of men intent on insuring that this “filthy” trove of emails — and their attachment to it — “never see the light of day.”
She alleged prosecutors and judges used the grand jury system to shut her up. They didn’t do that, as the recent high-profile press conference proved. What the grand jury process did do, however, is recommend that criminal charges be brought against the attorney general for what they perceived as a vendetta, retribution against those who made her look bad. Kane was indicted on charges that she leaked grand jury information, lied to a grand jury about it, then actively took part in a plot to cover it up.
That’s where Kane finds herself today, facing a preliminary hearing on charges of perjury, official oppression and obstruction of justice.
And fending off a growing chorus that she resign her post. In lieu of that, there is talk of impeachment, or a legal move to strip her of her law license, which would make it impossible for her to do her job.
Kane is having none of it.
“I am innocent of any wrongdoing,” Kane said before wading into the sleazy emails that she says were common practice in the office of her predecessor. “I neither conspired with anyone nor did I ask or direct anyone to do anything improper or unlawful. My defense will be not that I am the victim of some old boys network, it will be that I broke no laws of the commonwealth. Period.”
Well, it’s good that she is letting go of that “old boys network out to get her” canard. The fact that the decision to bring charges against her was made by Montgomery County District Risa Vetri Ferman pretty much nullifies that.
But there was another problem with the spotlight-hogging performance by Citizen Kane.
Other than that proclamation that “I am innocent of any wrongdoing,” Kane never addressed the serious charges filed against her, including perjury.
Instead she spent all her efforts laying out a new version of the back story, rife with prosecutors and judges hip deep in a “filthy email chain.”
Kane has looked to change the focus of the case. And she may have done that.
What she did not do is change the nature of the charges against her.
We anxiously await that side of the “whole story.”
Unfortunately, it looks like that side will play out in a courtroom, not a press conference.
http://www.sharonherald.com/opinion...cle_68bb2401-49de-5f3a-9aa9-7db05c2882f4.html
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
SO IT WASN’T some Harrisburg “old boys network” after all. At least not the one Kathleen Kane initially suggested.
It was a little more coarse than that.
Turns out the blowback against the state’s top law enforcement officer — the first woman and first Democrat elected as Pennsylvania attorney general — was all about porn.
At least that’s what Kane would have us believe.
The embattled attorney general strode to the microphones recently and sought to tell the “whole story” behind why she now faces criminal charges, and calls from no less than the state’s Democratic governor that she step down.
In a moment of high Harrisburg drama, Kane suggested her problems were not rooted in unflattering newspaper stories, nor any ‘war’ on her part to get back at those who painted her in such an unfavorable light.
Instead, Kane suggested all of her troubles stem from the cache of “pornographic, racially offensive, and religiously offensive emails” that were routinely passed among a group of prosecutors and judges.
Kane maintains she became the target of a group of men intent on insuring that this “filthy” trove of emails — and their attachment to it — “never see the light of day.”
She alleged prosecutors and judges used the grand jury system to shut her up. They didn’t do that, as the recent high-profile press conference proved. What the grand jury process did do, however, is recommend that criminal charges be brought against the attorney general for what they perceived as a vendetta, retribution against those who made her look bad. Kane was indicted on charges that she leaked grand jury information, lied to a grand jury about it, then actively took part in a plot to cover it up.
That’s where Kane finds herself today, facing a preliminary hearing on charges of perjury, official oppression and obstruction of justice.
And fending off a growing chorus that she resign her post. In lieu of that, there is talk of impeachment, or a legal move to strip her of her law license, which would make it impossible for her to do her job.
Kane is having none of it.
“I am innocent of any wrongdoing,” Kane said before wading into the sleazy emails that she says were common practice in the office of her predecessor. “I neither conspired with anyone nor did I ask or direct anyone to do anything improper or unlawful. My defense will be not that I am the victim of some old boys network, it will be that I broke no laws of the commonwealth. Period.”
Well, it’s good that she is letting go of that “old boys network out to get her” canard. The fact that the decision to bring charges against her was made by Montgomery County District Risa Vetri Ferman pretty much nullifies that.
But there was another problem with the spotlight-hogging performance by Citizen Kane.
Other than that proclamation that “I am innocent of any wrongdoing,” Kane never addressed the serious charges filed against her, including perjury.
Instead she spent all her efforts laying out a new version of the back story, rife with prosecutors and judges hip deep in a “filthy email chain.”
Kane has looked to change the focus of the case. And she may have done that.
What she did not do is change the nature of the charges against her.
We anxiously await that side of the “whole story.”
Unfortunately, it looks like that side will play out in a courtroom, not a press conference.
http://www.sharonherald.com/opinion...cle_68bb2401-49de-5f3a-9aa9-7db05c2882f4.html
