Furthermore, she’s threatening a defamation lawsuit against the Inquirer, when the only person making defaming statements in the article is her.
That right there identifies her as a little nuts.
And we get more news, from attributed sources:
**In unusually barbed criticism of a fellow prosecutor and fellow Democrat, Philadelphia’s district attorney rebuked state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane on Friday, saying she had needlessly killed a solid corruption investigation – and besmirched the prosecutors who built the case.
In an op-ed to be published in The Inquirer on Sunday, Seth Williams faulted Kane for shutting down a “sting” operation that caught at least five Philadelphia Democrats, including four state representatives, on tape accepting money or gifts.
“She apparently has electronic recordings of numerous elected officials taking money while promising their votes – and she has to let them off scot-free because she would be incapable of convincing a jury of their guilt?” he wrote.
Kane has said she closed the investigation in part because prosecutors had made an unduly lenient deal with the case’s undercover informant, dropping 2,088 charges against him in a massive fraud case in exchange for his cooperation.
That, she said, rendered his credibility “horrendously tainted” and would have prevented prosecutors from winning in court.
Williams blasted that decision. “The Attorney General of Pennsylvania drops a case supported by hundreds of hours of devastating tapes because the main witness got a deal on a bunch of government fraud charges,” he wrote. “As a DA, I think this might be the most disturbing aspect of the whole sordid spectacle. You don’t have to be a prosecutor to know this is how it’s done.”
Adrian R. King Jr., Kane’s first deputy attorney general, declined to respond to Williams’ assertions.**
You know what’s worse than an unattributed source? “No comment”.
More:
**In a separate op-ed submitted to The Inquirer for publication Sunday, Fina mocked Kane for her decision to request to meet with the editorial board of The Inquirer on Thursday, only to arrive and decline to address the board or answer any questions. She did so upon the advice of her newly hired lawyer, Richard A. Sprague, who accompanied her to the meeting.
“I have not retained an attorney to advise me to speak, or to remain silent,” Fina wrote. “I am an attorney.”
Fina called for a televised public forum at which he and Kane could debate the merits of the investigation, which Fina said had been conducted “honestly, ably, and with integrity.”**
I’d say the world is about to come down on Kathleen Kane.
By Og, it is a fever swamp of liberal hypocrisy! Not only does a Democrat sabotage an investigation, another Democrat insincerely criticizes her for it! Have these people no shame?
(Bricker, I realize I have co-opted your patented schtick, and thereby owe you a nickel. Put it on my tab…)
It’s pretty obvious by now that the OP had already decided what he wants to believe long before he even read the article. People who are saying things he wants to believe are credible. People who are casting doubts on the things he wants to believe are not credible. It’s a great system for reinforcing his beliefs but it doesn’t leave much room for debate.
There’s plenty of room for debate. She’s the only one making the claims she’s making. Everyone else says she’s wrong. She’s lawyering up and refusing to answer questions. Everyone else is talking to the press.
So if you want to debate why you think she’s more credible, go ahead.
Finally, there’s the ridiculous allegation she made: that the investigators were ordered to target black politicians. Do you seriously think her reaction to that would be to just stop the investigation? It would be the investigators who had to lawyer up if they were targeting African-Americans!
Face it. She issued a statement saying the only thing she could think to say when the Inquirer broke the story, and now refuses to be questioned on that statement. It’s not looking good for her.
This paper is now making this their top story and they have a lot more detail on the operation:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140323_A_3-year_saga__How_the_sting_unfolded.html
All the politicians implicated are seeking reelection.
And it looks like there were some quid pro quos involved.
Okay, now it looks bad for Kane.
As a complete tangent, I went to college with Seth Williams. Back then I considered him one of those ruthlessly ambitious people willing to say or do anything to advance themselves in life, including stepping on other people and fanning the flames of controversy in order to get his name in the papers. Clearly this strategy has worked out for him.
Which is not to cast doubt on what he’s saying in this case. Mostly it’s just to say “I went to school with him and thought he was an asshole.”
The Inquirer is being the most aggressive on this, but other sources, like Reason Magazine of all places, is going a little easier on Kane. It looks like she had a lot of reasons for killing the investigation, and those reasons altogether sound pretty plausible to me.
I think the main fault in this for her is going to be how she handled it. She shouldn’t have been making wild accusations of racial targeting. There’s just no way the other people involved could let that go unchallenged.
She has said that “crimes were committed”, they just can’t prosecute. So I think the focus is going to move away from her and towards the four corrupt politicians.
The biggest question left unanswered is: who really gives a shit? Is there something compelling about the Pennsylvania general assembly? There are politicians trading influence for cash from coast to coast. We shouldn’t let stuff like this distract us from Benghazi.
We’re done for now. Of course, this means that Republicans will sweep to power in Philadelphia, across Pennsylvania, and around the nation. We’ve been exposed as nothing but election-stealing ACORN crooks. Woe is us.
When it’s this blatant, it’s a big deal. Secondly, state AGs usually have ambitions to be something more. Kathleen Kane isn’t likely to be governor or Senator after this.
Well, she won’t get your vote anyway. But admit it - you wouldn’t have voted for her last month either.
Pretend for a second this was the other way around. Imagine there were reports that a Republican AG had squashed an investigation of Republican politicians taking bribes. And then a few years later that Republican AG was running for Senator. Are you honestly saying you’d vote for his Democratic opponent? Or even sit out the election if it was a close race and it looked like the Democrat might win?
The reality is people who want to vote for a Democrat will find excuses for any misbehavior by a Democratic candidate. And people that want to vote for a Republican will find excuses for any misbehavior by a Republican candidate. And if you don’t believe that last statement, check out the threads on Chris Christie.
Perhaps, but Kane would have to get through a primary, where Democratic voters are less likely to make excuses for her.
And BTW, one of my pet peeves about politicians is squashing information they don’t like. That one tends to piss me off regardless of party.
Benghazi? If this is like Benghazi, does that make Attorney General Kane the Susan Rice figure or the Hillary Clinton figure of Pennsylvania?
Meanwhile, it sounds like AG Kane isn’t in the prosecution business. She’s been presented with evidence that someone in the AG’s office told investigators to target black legislators and ignore white legislators. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in Pennsylvania. Can we expect her to file charges soon?
Well, the politicizing of the Benghazi tragedy was a far more immoral act than anything thing these nickel and dime nobodies managed, if guilty. I can’t get excited about some small-time politicians grabbing a few grand when others are taking millions from Big Tobacco and the Koch brothers. There is real evil in the world.
I don’t know how much jurisdiction the Pennsylvania Attorney General HAS over Benghazi or tobacco political donations, though?