Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane worked directly with a political consultant to concoct a plan to cover up an illegal grand jury leak and pin the blame on her former aide. Prosecutors say the envelope contained secret grand jury documents Kane was leaking to the press.
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Here & Now’s Robin Young gets the latest from WHYY’s Katie Colaneri.
According to the newspaper, Morrow said it all started when Kane called him and told him to get in touch with Adrian King, Kane’s former first deputy, because King had the documents Kane wanted Morrow to hand over to a Daily News reporter.
So when he heard a grand jury investigation into the matter was starting, Beemer was pleased because thought it would send a message to employees in the AG’s Norristown office where he suspected the leak had come from. Kane faces perjury, making false statements and obstruction in connection with the leaked information. When a special prosecutor was hired to find out about the leak, Beemer promised full support because he believed the leak came out of the office.
I guess I was still trying to protect Kathleen.
Cooperating with prosecutors, Morrow was granted immunity by a court order dated August 10, testimony revealed.
Kane, out for revenge, gathered documents from a Fina-led grand jury case from 2009 that had likewise been dropped, prosecutors said.
While he’s now pointing the finger at her, Morrow admits he lied again and again during this investigation. “She was like Adrian has documents for you to leak out”.
Prosecutors say inside the package were confidential documents the Kane was illegally leaking to a reporter.
In testimony yesterday, Mr. King said he believed Ms. Kane and political consultant Joshua Morrow were trying to frame him for releasing the documents.
“(He) left 10 minutes after she arrived”, veteran NY trial lawyer Gerald Shargel told jurors in opening statements.
But in the phone call taped by the FBI, Morrow described Kane as bent on getting out information harmful to Fina.
Kane, 50, a first-term Democrat, faces charges of perjury, obstructing administration of law, abuse of office and false swearing in connection with allegations she orchestrated the illegal disclosure of confidential investigative information and secret grand jury information to the media and then engaged in acts created to hide and cover up her conduct.
Montgomery County authorities have accused Kane, 50, of Scranton, of leaking secret grand jury information in retaliation for the first bad publicity she and her office received since taking office in 2013, and then lying about it before another grand jury in an attempt to cover up her alleged activities.
“Kathleen called me today about Frank Fina killing an investigation”, he told Mr. Lisko at one point.
Beemer testified she blamed former state prosecutor Frank Fina as being a source for the reporters’ story.
Morrow says he was picked up once in Philadelphia and once in Dunmore by Kane’s own security detail and brought to private locations.
“She said don’t worry about it”.
Kane’s lawyers also concluded their cross examination of King, Kane’s former top deputy and longtime friend, Thursday morning.
For months, a linchpin of Kane’s defense had been her contention that she was a “stay at home mom” in 2009 and had never signed a secrecy oath for cases from that period.
Peifer recalled a number of people who were in the room, but he conceded that he may have missed a few holdovers from the outgoing administration of Kane’s predecessor, Linda Kelly, who stepped in when Tom Corbett was elected governor.
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“I can’t say why I signed the second one”, the veteran prosecutor replied.
