Her top deputy, Bruce L. Castor Jr., a Republican hired in March, will take the oath privately to become the acting attorney general.
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One day after a jury labeled her a convicted felon, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Granahan Kane learned her fate will be sealed come October.
Under the state Constitution, Ms. Kane would have been required to resign on the day of her sentencing. He was also brought on board after Kane had her license suspended. Jail time is possible.
“It gives her a better argument for why she should receive punishment without incarceration”, said John Burkhoff, a professor of criminal procedure at the University of Pittsburgh’s Law School.
She was convicted Monday on charges of perjury and obstruction.
State legislators on Tuesday were generally satisfied at the news of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s resignation, saying the state can now turn the page on a hard chapter following her conviction on multiple charges.
“This is a sad moment for our Commonwealth and now that the attorney general has chosen to step down we must work together to restore public trust in our democracy and ensure the people’s business – protecting consumers, fighting the heroin epidemic, and keeping our communities safe – comes first”, Shapiro said in a prepared statement on Tuesday.
Shortly after taking office, Kane shut down a case built around a sting operation in which an undercover informant bribed state lawmakers.
“I’m glad that the commonwealth will have a new attorney general that can begin to fix the damage done to that office”, Christiana said.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday that he has confidence in the employees of the state’s top law enforcement office to perform its most important functions. According to CNN, her lawyers had said that they will continue litigation, while the prosecutors stated that justice had been served.
She is scheduled to be sentenced October 24.
Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy ordered Kane to surrender her passport and threatened to jail her if she retaliated against the once-trusted aides who testified against her.
“This is war”, she wrote in a 2014 email to a political strategist.
Had she not resigned, the House could have voted to impeach Kane, compelling the Senate to put her on trial.
However, the judge in her perjury trial did not allow the jury to hear about the email scandal.
Prosecutors said Kane masterminded the leak and a subsequent coverup – and then lied to a grand jury about it. “I believed this when she was charged, and today, after conviction, there should be no question that she should resign immediately”, Wolf said. While she did not find that politics played a role in that investigation, she did discover that former state prosecutor Frank Fina and other officials were exchanging mildly pornographic emails on state computers, and informed the press.
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Footage from the Montgomery County rally was quickly used in a campaign ad, in which Clinton says of Kane, who worked on his wife’s 2008 presidential bid: “Who’s more likely to do more good in this job?” Video of her leaving the courtroom showed her walking briskly, flanked by her lawyers; she looked straight ahead, except to occasionally check a phone in her hand.
