As of the 2014 mid-term elections, I had some vague awareness that the PA AG Kathleen Kane (D) was under some fire since taking office in January 2013. Only not as much as Gov Tom Corbett (R) who was seeking re-election and ended up losing. With Tom Wolf’s election, didn’t seem any reason for this non-PA resident to pay any attention to local matter of AG Kane. Until, this on October 22, 2015:
PA Atty General Kathleen Kane’s Law License Suspended.
WTF? How? Why? Attempting to piece this together has been close to an exercise in futility. But here goes. (Some of this is dry but IMO these facts do matter.)
First thing to keep in mind is that the PA AG is elected (as of 1980) in presidential election years. The gubernatorial election is in mid-term election years. Tom Corbett was elected AG in 2004 and reelected in 2008 (also served as an appointed AG 1995-97 when the AG resigned prior to being convicted of a felony). Corbett was elected Governor in 2010 and Linda Kelly served as an appointed AG from 5/11 to 1/13.
Kathleen Kane became the first woman PA AG and first Democrat since 1981. (Will return to these two important facts later.) One of Kane’s campaign pledges was to perform an internal review of the AG office investigation of Jerry Sandusky. Voters were concerned that it hadn’t been handled vigorously and political considerations may have interfered with charges not being filed as quickly as they could have been.
By way of background on this, the PA AG opened the investigation in 2009 upon receipt of a sexual abuse allegation. It has been reported that a Grand Jury was empaneled in September 2009 or earlier. On 11/4/11 Sandusky was indicted on 40 counts. (There seems not to be any public dissatisfaction with the AG’s prosecution of Sandusky.) Others were indicted later on charges of perjury in testimony before the Grand Jury and the Sandusky indictment led to investigations by other entities. The question for the public revolved around the AG office under Corbett and possibly when he moved up to Governor.
Upon taking office in 2013, several senior members of the Office of the AG (OAG) resigned. Two of those were Frank Fina, State Chief Deputy AG, and E Marc Costanzo, Deputy AG and both were subsequently hired by the Philadephia DA. Fina led the Sandusky investigation.
Matters seemed to have gotten very convoluted in a short period of time because the news reports conflate or fail to separate three independent issues. (A timeline of from before and after Kane’s administration is helpful, but is also confusing.) These are:
- Review of Sandusky investigation by H. Geoffrey Moulton.
- PA AG investigation of several politicians for corruption that was incomplete when Kane took office. (Featuring Tyrone B. Ali as sting operative.)
- PA AG investigation of the head of the Philadephia NAACP J. Whyatt Mondesire for misallocation/misappropriation of state funds that appears to have been closed prior to Kane taking office.
The first, and seemingly innocuous, shot fired by the old GOP AG administration with its culture of over thirty years was by Frank Fina in September of 2013. On CBS Sports and reported by PennLive Fina publicly stated that Paterno wasn’t liable, but other PSU senior administrators were. Fina’s comments didn’t suggest that he was privy to whatever Moulton was discovering, but did display an interest in the review and publicly re-confirming his judgment call while Chief Deputy AG.
Was Fina anxious about the Moulton review? Possibly, because as was learned later, judges, attorneys, and state employees traded “unprofessional” e-mails that some would characterize as juvenile and no big deal and others would view as misogynist, pornographic, etc. (I’m in the latter group.) In late 2014 this became known as “Porngate” and led to the retirement of a state Supreme Court judge. An unpleasant aspect of the culture that Kane inherited, but peripheral to the review of the Sandusky investigation. It’s not clear if Kane’s office was pursuing “porngate” during her first year or it was set aside for later consideration.
Kane apparently trampled on the Fina culture in March 2014 when she closed the corruption investigation of politicians (#2 above). Fina specializes in prosecuting politicians and public officials for corruption. A few days later, using the press, Fina went to war with Kane for closing this case, anonymously in the press. What got lost in the reporting on this is that Fina let a big fish off the hook to possibly ensnare a few minnows and wasted a boatload of public funds in doing so.
In 2009 Day-care center operator charged Tyron B. Ali is accused of misusing more than $400,000 earmarked to feed needy children. Fina/Corbett let Ali off on the condition that he act as the front man for a sting operation against PA State politicians. In general, law enforcement stings are problematical and should only be used as a last resort to tie together an existing case. Fina, using Ali, was trolling and netted close to zero. In advance of Kane taking over, Fina had all the materials bundled and turned over to the Feds who later declined to pursue it. Much to Fina’s displeasure. Kane did make the right call in closing the case. However, with the public attack from Fina and Costanzo, she did really screw up.
First by claiming that the sting was racially motivated. Maybe it was and maybe it was no more than the fact that the sting operative is an AA man and AA politicians were more open to giving him the time of day. Republicans don’t take charges of being racist lying down. They fight back.
Second,
In the statement, Kane provided only one quote, dismissing those who questioned her decisions as “nothing more than the Good Ol’ Boys club playing political games to discredit me in order to fulfill their own selfish and improper agenda.”
“Good Ol’ Boys” hate being called that more than they dislike being labeled racists.
Seems to me that Kane overestimated her political power base and underestimated that of the “good ol’ boys,” much of which most likely still resided in her office.
Third, Kane fired back against Fina for closing the J. Whyatt Mondesire when there was more evidence of corruption and more significant dollars involved than the “sting case,” but allegedly released Grand Jury evidence to support her position. This led to a new Grand Jury being empaneled to consider Kane’s crime.
The Moulton Report was released in June 2014 Kane’s verdict on Corbett’s Sandusky investigation: no political influence, but lousy investigating
…The ultimate verdict of Moulton’s report is that delays in the case are ultimately attributable to investigators failing to ask the right people the right questions soon enough.
…
“Different investigative choices early in the investigation might well have generated a far stronger case against Sandusky” far earlier on, according to Moulton.
Had investigators known “that the simple step of asking local police departments for imformation about Sandusky would have led to additional victims, they presumably would have taken that step far earlier,” he concludes.
…
Fina went ballistic, and that led to short shrift being given to the more important components of an “after action review” lessons and recommended changes. IOW — Fina made the report political.
Kane seems not to have effectively diffused the political in favor of getting on with implementing the recommendations. Or perhaps like those not all the experienced at being unfairly attacked, sought the worst possible way to try to shut down the attackers. She lied to a Grand Jury about having released Grand Jury information in the Mondesire case.
Technically a crime may have existed, but the case had been closed years before and by April 2014 Mondesire was no longer the head of the Philadelphia NAACP. In the court of public opinion, Kane may have prevailed by admitting the mistake made under pressure by Fina’s attacks on her in the sting case. In the misguided effort to inform the public that Fina had closed a serious corruption case without prosecution and was attacking her for closing a nothingburger. Maybe an “I was wrong, it won’t happen again, and the OAG is doing good work for the people of the Commonwealth today” wouldn’t have spared her. But at least it would have been a refreshing change from politicians that cover-up, stall, lie, and force us the public to endure the drip-drip-drip of a politician being taken down.
Now: Pa. Senate Exploring Removing AG Kathleen Kane; Tom Wolf On Board
Kane will not resign and has vowed to fight back. Like Christie, Clinton, etc. have done. But if all she has left is to shoot another arrow at the porn email senders/recipients who are her enemies, the odds of surviving politically aren’t good.
(Note — can’t claim not to have some errors in this write-up, but if so, hope they are minor. Before reviewing this situation had some expectation of being able to exonerate Kane. She does appear to me to be competent in reviewing cases to pursue. Her managerial, media presentation, and political skills/talents fall far short of her aspirations. OTOH, Fina is a snake, but not with enough spine to have run for AG himself.)
