On August 27, 2014, Carpenter issued a protection order that stated “employees of the Office of Attorney General shall not have access to transcripts of proceedings before the Grand Jury or Supervising Judge, exhibits, or other information pertaining to the Special Prosecutor’s Investigation”.
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A statewide grand jury recommended in December that Kane be charged with criminal contempt, perjury, obstruction, false swearing and official oppression.
An attorney for the 49-year-old Kane says she plans to plead not guilty.
“A resignation would be an admission of guilt”, she said, “and I’m not guilty”.
“The multiple allegations of misusing the office – which is directly related to the performance of her duties as Pennsylvania’s chief law enforcement officer – raise serious concerns about her ability to continue to serve the citizens of the Commonwealth, and make it virtually impossible for her to function in her current position”.
Kane’s the first woman and first Democrat elected attorney general in Pennsylvania.
Kane – who relied on her trucking magnate husband’s fortune to win office in 2012 – refused to step down.
Kane has portrayed herself as a victim of payback for taking on a corrupt, old-boy law enforcement network and exposing state employees for exchanging pornographic emails.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf called on the former rising star to resign, echoing newspaper editorial pages across the state in recent months. With drug cartels and a heroin epidemic endangering the lives of our citizens on a daily basis, we can not afford to have such a distraction impairing the operation of the attorney general’s office.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was charged on Monday with securities fraud. On March 31, 2015, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied the Attorney General’s request for quo warranto relief. Those named included several former top supervisors. She deliberately attempted to deceive the Investigating Grand Jury regarding both her conduct and her legal culpability.
