Pennsylvania’s attorney general was so bent on revenge against a rival that she broke the law by leaking secret grand jury documents to a reporter, then she lied to cover up her actions, prosecutors said as Kathleen Kane’s perjury and obstruction trial opened Tuesday. And Kane made “a couple honest mistakes” when testifying before the grand jury, but she did not lie, Shargel said.
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Prosecutors say he admits routing it to a reporter through Kane’s political consultant.
Pennsylvania’s attorney general has gone on trial in a perjury and obstruction case that prosecutors say stems from her drive for political revenge. The subsequent story proved embarrassing to the subject of the Fina-led grand jury investigation: J. Whyatt Mondesire, an NAACP leader in Philadelphia.
District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and co-prosecutors M. Stewart Ryan and Michelle Henry are handling the prosecution of the state’s top law enforcement official.
While the prosecution said the case boiled down to an ugly feud between Ms. Kane and Mr. Fina, once the office’s top corruption prosecutor, Mr. Shargel said Ms. Kane barely knew him and their overlapping time in office amounted to little more than a 10 minute meeting during her first week in office.
The trial is expected to last one week.
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A jury of six men and six women has been seated to decide if Pennsylvania’s attorney general leaked grand jury information and lied about it under oath. He accused Henry of whitewashing the aides’ own “perjury” when she told the jury the men may try to minimize their own roles in the conspiracy with Kane.
The first-term Democrat insists she did nothing wrong.
County prosecutors allege they discovered evidence that Kane signed a so-called “secrecy oath” on her second day in office on January 17, 2013, promising her secrecy for statewide investigating grand juries one through 32.
Kane did not run for re-election. She has claimed the charges are fallout from her office’s “Porngate” probe of sexually explicit, racist and sexist emails sent on state computers.
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About 100 potential jurors were questioned behind closed doors Monday at the Montgomery County Courthouse in suburban Philadelphia. The trial is expected to last about a week. Kane, 50, the first woman and first Democrat ever elected attorney general in Pennsylvania, waged an aggressive campaign for the office, frequently criticizing the pace with which her predecessor investigated child sex abuse allegations against Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Kane faces perjury and other charges related to the alleged leak of secret grand jury materials. Ellen Granahan Goffer, twin sister of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, walks into the courtroom on the opening day of Kane’s trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse Monday, Aug. 8, 2016 in.
