“While there is no simple procedure to remove a civil officer, the Office of Attorney General and its employees, as well as the people of Pennsylvania, deserve to move on”, he said.
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“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.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said, “I had called on (Kane) to resign previously”. Kane’s 2012 election against former Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy, who crossed the Clintons by endorsing Obama in 2008, became a battle that Bill Clinton was heavily involved in. State Sen. John Rafferty, R-Montgomery County, and Montgomery County Commission Chairman Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, are running to replace her. “Is that clear, Ms Kane?” the judge asked, according to The New York Times.
Kane, who ran the office while free on $10,000 unsecured bail since her arrest, is scheduled to be sentenced October 24, according to a court order Tuesday. After the verdict was read Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy threatened to jail Kane if she took any action against those who testified against her. According to CNN, her lawyers had said that they will continue litigation, while the prosecutors stated that justice had been served.
However, Kane was set free on bail with the threat of immediate incarceration should she attempted to retaliate against any witnesses.
The Republican candidate seeking to replace Kane – state Sen. He stepped aside after the Senate confirmed then-Governor Tom Ridge’s appointment of Tom Corbett to the position in 1996. One, testifying with immunity, even admitted working with Kane to devise a cover story to deflect blame away from the attorney general.
Her license to practice law has been suspended and the governor has urged her to resign immediately.
Once sitting as attorney general, Kane again made headlines when she announced – to much fanfare with the Constitution Center in Philly as a backdrop – that her office would not defend the state’s Defense of Marriage Act against a lawsuit brought by those looking to overturn it.
She recently said she won’t run for re-election in November.
Elected on a pledge to take on the Capitol establishment, she promised a vigorous review of the handling of the child sex abuse case involving former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky under the previous attorney general, former Gov. Tom Corbett. The first woman elected to the post, she publicized hundreds of offensive or mildly pornographic emails that were traded by what she called the “old boys network” of top lawyers and judges in state government. The law was struck down in 2014. “And she covered it up with lies”.
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Whatever the trial’s outcome, her 800-person agency has been in turmoil for the past two years, plagued by a revolving door of top managers; a special investigation of the leak that led up to the boss; and the deployment of Kane’s driver to snoop through office emails and keep tabs on who was cooperating.
