Support NeoGAF

[XiaNaphryz]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Porn-scandal-Top-prosecutor-keeps-releasing-6611863.php

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Facing criminal charges, relieved of her law license and threatened with removal by the Legislature, Pennsylvania's attorney general seems to have decided that if she has to go, she's going to take others down with her.

Since all three branches of state government began moving against her over the past year, Kathleen Kane has released hundreds of sexually explicit or otherwise crude emails that had been sent or received by current or former public officials on their government accounts.

The tangled scandal has led to the downfall of a state environmental secretary and shamed a state police commissioner, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and several former top officials in the attorney general's office. Another high-court justice resigned after newspapers disclosed his involvement.

Kane has threatened to release more, and the state Capitol is ablaze with speculation about whose emails may be next in the drip-drip-drip of disclosures.

"It's a mess. It's just a freaking mess," said John Morganelli, the Northampton County district attorney and a Democrat who at one time supported Kane. "Accusations and counter-accusations. And it gets worse every day. It's like going into a war zone."

Last week, Kane's hometown newspaper, the Times-Tribune of Scranton, ran a Halloween-theme cartoon of her as a witch saying: "I'll get you my pretties ... and your filthy emails too."

Kane finds herself increasingly isolated as she awaits trial on what she says are trumped-up misconduct charges. She has rejected calls to resign from members of both parties, including Gov. Tom Wolf, a fellow Democrat, and said it is important for the public to know about the emails.

"They raise the specter of impropriety, even if none exists, and that in itself is a problem for the judicial system," said her office spokesman Chuck Ardo.

Kane, 49, was a little-known former assistant county prosecutor when she was elected attorney general in a landslide in 2012, becoming the first woman and first Democrat to win the office. Democrats embraced her as a rising star.

On the campaign trail, she promised to investigate why it took her Republican predecessors three years to charge Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach convicted of sexually abusing boys, and whether politics played a role.

After Kane took office, a special appointee concluded that the Sandusky case had not been dragged out for political reasons. But the inquiry unearthed a trove of office emails containing porn and jokes about women and minorities that many found offensive.

Kane's criticism of the Sandusky prosecution also triggered a bitter feud with investigators who handled the case, and in 2014, authorities say, she leaked confidential grand jury information to the Philadelphia Daily News in an attempt to show that two of them had bungled a corruption investigation.

Kane was charged in August with obstruction, perjury and other offenses. No trial date has been set.

As authorities began building the leak case against her, Kane started releasing chains of emails, saying the misconduct allegations against her were concocted by a corrupt old-boy network inside law enforcement to stop her from exposing their raunchy email ring.

Her argument has gained traction with some.

"I think she's being railroaded," said Lora Verbonitz, a 63-year-old Harrisburg suburbanite.

Others contend she has violated people's privacy, overstepped her authority or crossed the line of decency. Critics also accuse her of selectively releasing emails to embarrass her perceived enemies and protect loyalists — allegations she says are unfounded.

On Oct. 1, as she left court in the leak case, she dropped another bombshell: The email scandal also involved U.S. attorneys, attorneys general and a Supreme Court justice who had voted along with the rest of the court just days earlier to suspend Kane's law license. That justice is now being investigated for possible judicial misconduct.

Also last month, the state Senate launched an inquiry that could result in Kane's removal.

Meanwhile, Kane has yet to release all the emails and the names of the participants, as she promised to do, and is fighting a courtroom attempt by The Philadelphia Inquirer to force her to make all the material public.

"I don't believe the citizens of the commonwealth need to see more pornography, but I think they need to see who the players are," said Terry Mutchler, former director of Pennsylvania's Office of Open Records and a lawyer who is representing the Inquirer.

"I think there will be an avalanche if this is all released, and I think there will be a housecleaning unlike any we have ever seen."

 

[Dicer]

Burn it all down...

 

[Orbis Tabula]

What an insane story.

 

[XGRaViSmOrSX]

 

[Ray Wonder]

Oh man this is exciting, I wanna hear all the dirt.

 

[SimleuqiR]

Seems fair.

Others contend she has violated people's privacy, overstepped her authority or crossed the line of decency. Critics also accuse her of selectively releasing emails to embarrass her perceived enemies and protect loyalists — allegations she says are unfounded.

Fuck no. Public officials should not have any privacy specifically when their actions were conducted through government channels.

 

[Tesseract]

awesome, it's going to be biblical

 

[Eighty Deuce]

Damn, I'd imagine Hillary would do the same if she gets indicted by the FBI.

 

[Trojita]

To the people cheering her on, she's a scumbag. The best case scenario is she sends other scumbags down with her.

 

[shira]

 

[stump sock]

so her criminal charges stem from her (breaking the law while) exposing failures in the judicial system, and on the way out, she's taking the scorched earth policy?

this is pretty amazing.

 

[FStop7]

"It's a mess. It's just a freaking mess," said John Morganelli, the Northampton County district attorney and a Democrat who at one time supported Kane. "Accusations and counter-accusations. And it gets worse every day. It's like going into a war zone."

Oh fuck off. People in war zones worry about getting shot or blown up. You're worried about which of your skeevy golf buddies will be next to be exposed for writing up his diddling fantasies on the taxpayers' dime.

 

[esms]

Been following this from the beginning. Her meltdown has been hilarious.

To the people cheering her on, she is a grade A scumbag of the highest order. The best case scenario is she sends other scumbags down with her.

Also, this. She's been a terrible AG, but she'll be gone soon with a few other low lifes.

 

[PeskyToaster]

I don't know how I feel about this.

 

[DMczaf]

It's not about what's right, it's about WHATS FAIR!!!!

 

[SimleuqiR]

To the people cheering her on, she is a grade A scumbag of the highest order. The best case scenario is she sends other scumbags down with her.

That's OK by me.

 

[neogaffer1]

privacy my ass, they're public officials. if they're doing something uncouth, the public deserves to know.

 

[besada]

Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Nothing better than terrible people wrecking other terrible people.

 

[BOND CO STOOGE]

Oh man this is exciting, I wanna hear all the dirt.

You are literally my favorite poster. I totally want to hear all the dirt, and I totally feel like an idiot for watching real world Jerry Springer shenanigans.

 

[xKilltheMx]

I love this. Absolutely love this.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

She's melting steel beams..shit lol.

 

[Opto]

I mean she fucked up and this is desperation, but damn it's good for exposing some reprehensible behavior

 

[Malvolio]

Sounds like they fucked with the wrong person. She may go down but I hope she takes them all down with her.

 

[Loudninja]

I don't know how I feel about this.

They are taking each other out so it feels great.

 

[God Dayumm]

To the people cheering her on, she is a grade A scumbag of the highest order. The best case scenario is she sends other scumbags down with her.

Can you explain more about her? It seems to me her crime was releasing some private investigation info, which I don't find big of a deal.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Sounds like some jobs opening up. I'd be willing to move down to Harrisburg to get paid to do nothing worthwhile.

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

It's not about what's right, it's about WHATS FAIR!!!!

I had the same thoughts.

 

[massoluk]

Awesome, if it's as bad as she is implying, bring down that house, burn it down.

 

[Jinaar]

This is juicy.

 

[BobTheFork]

To the people cheering her on, she is a grade A scumbag of the highest order. The best case scenario is she sends other scumbags down with her.

I'm ok with that result. I agree that she isn't some kind of hero here. I don't think it's simply a case of others trying to railroad her; I don't buy that she is magically the only upstanding person in the middle of this kind of shit. She had all of this information about so many terrible officials and they had to know this could happen. I think it's more likely that the big-shits tried to look good by stepping on the little-shit and now they all get flushed.

 

[EatinOlives]

So basically,

 

[John Dunbar]

it amazes me that there are still so many people holding public offices who don't realize that you should never send any email you wouldn't want being read by everyone. shouldn't that be like rule number 1 for public figures?

 

[Laevateinn]

Too bad that in the end most of them, like Supreme Court Justice Eakin, will just ignore it and wait it out. If David Vitter can get reelected nobody will care by the time any of these people vote for any of these people. I'd love to see some of these people forced out of office though.

 

[BobTheFork]

it amazes me that there are still so many people holding public offices who don't realize that you should never send any email you wouldn't want being read by everyone. shouldn't that be like rule number 1 for public figures?

You would think. It's clear from cases like this where politicians or cops pass around their own waste on emails and don't think there could be any problem. It shows the huge disconnect in thier thinking and reality.

 

[IronRinn]

Can you explain more about her? It seems to me her crime was releasing some private investigation info, which I don't find big of a deal.

On August 24, 2015 she was ordered to trial on charges she leaked secret grand jury information to the press, lied under oath about it and ordered aides to illegally snoop through computer files to keep tabs on an investigation into it. Prosecutors called two witnesses - a top Kane aide and the lead investigator in the case against her - whose testimony paralleled a 42-page probable cause affidavit filed against her earlier this month. Kane is accused of leaking a confidential grand jury memo and transcript to a Philadelphia Daily News reporter to embarrass rival prosecutors involved in the case. She then lied about her actions to a grand jury investigating the leak, prosecutors said.

This state is a mess. Corruption and incompetence all around.

 

[Hari Seldon]

To the people cheering her on, she's a scumbag. The best case scenario is she sends other scumbags down with her.

Yes pretty much. There are scumbags all around in this story and hopefully they all go down.

The problem with her position though is that she is directly elected and therefore extremely hard to fire.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

This state is a mess. Corruption and incompetence all around.

At least democrats now have a 5-2 majority in the state supreme court. We won't have to worry about adding gerrymandering to that list come 2020.

 

[razgriz417]

Burn it all down, PA could use a nice house cleaning

 

[stump sock]

You would think. It's clear from cases like this where politicians or cops pass around their own waste on emails and don't think there could be any problem. It shows the huge disconnect in thier thinking and reality.

exactly, it's not that the people who do this think they won't get caught, it's that they don't think they're doing anything wrong.

it's insane

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

She's a scumbag. Pure and simple.

We're talking about a person who refused to prosecute people in her own party who were caught taking bribes in a corruption sting. Her excuse? The cases couldn't be won. The Philadelphia DA then prosecuted and has already gotten plea agreements out of several of them. I don't care about her releasing the emails and stuff showing the disgusting things being said in the office. I care about it being an aimed hatchet job against the people who ran the sting that caught the corrupt politicians she failed to prosecute. I also care about her illegally releasing grand jury testimony in a blatant disregard for the law.

The vote I cast for her is the biggest voting regret I have ever had in the entirety of my life.

 

[BronsonLee]

This has been a big story in Philly and in PA. They basically are forcing her out of the Attorney General position because the new Governor Tom Wolf isn't really down with how she handles things.

This is stemming off a 2009 investigation that got brought back up when details got leaked to the Daily News in 2014 by her. She got charged in January. There was also a scandal when she fired an aide for testifying against her.

This is bad. PA isn't great for corruption (They literally closed Philadelphia Traffic Court and charged all the judges due to how blatantly corrupt it was), but if she goes scorched earth, a whole lot of people are done. They fucked up.

 

[Hari Seldon]

She's a scumbag. Pure and simple.

We're talking about a person who refused to prosecute people in her own party who were caught taking bribes in a corruption sting. Her excuse? The cases couldn't be won. The Philadelphia DA then prosecuted and has already gotten plea agreements out of several of them. I don't care about her releasing the emails and stuff showing the disgusting things being said in the office. I care about it being an aimed hatchet job against the people who ran the sting that caught the corrupt politicians she failed to prosecute. I also care about her illegally releasing grand jury testimony in a blatant disregard for the law.

The vote I cast for her is the biggest voting regret I have ever had in the entirety of my life.

Yes, she is the top scumbag, but if she can take out a few lesser scumbags on her way out that will be a bonus.

 

[Zoe]

Fuck no. Public officials should not have any privacy specifically when their actions were conducted through government channels.

Confidential grand jury information probably falls under the header of privacy as well.

 

[Daemul]

Fuck em all, burn it all down.

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

Yes, she is the top scumbag, but if she can take out a few lesser scumbags on her way out that will be a bonus.

Well she certainly didn't try to take anyone out when they were taking bribes to protect her party. Now she's just extracting revenge against the people who are kicking her out for failing to do any semblance of her job. I'm not going to cry for them because they were disgusting sexist pieces of crap, but anyone who things she's even remotely a good person is just flat out wrong.

That said, you just can't go around leaking grand jury testimony.

 

[Black Republican]

there needs to be a netflix documentary on this shit

 

[Slayven]

Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Nothing better than terrible people wrecking other terrible people.

You so southern

Turn on the lights and watch the roaches scatter

 

[Netherscourge]

If you're gonna go out, do it with style.

 

[see5harp]

What was in the e-mails that should matter to the general public? People exchanging pornography? That's it?

 

[Ray Wonder]

You are literally my favorite poster. I totally want to hear all the dirt, and I totally feel like an idiot for watching real world Jerry Springer shenanigans.

I feel like an idiot always, so I'm tuned in.

also tyvm ☺☺☺