Kathleen Kane Stops Pursuing Leak of FBI Recordings

It’s a day that ends in “y,” so that must mean there’s another development in the saga of state Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

The embattled A.G. made a brief court appearance earlier today in Montgomery County, where her legal team dropped a pretrial motion that accused prosecutors of leaking information about an FBI recording of Kane to the Allentown Morning Call earlier this year, according to the Associated Press. (Prosecutors, in turn, had accused of Kane leaking the recording herself. Good times.)

Kane’s attorney, Gerald Shargel, said he doubted that the source of the leak could ever be determined, making the matter an unneeded distraction. Montgomery County Circuit Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy unexpectedly asked Kane to take the stand today to confirm that the she was in agreement with Shargel’s decision. (She was.) 

Her legal team changed tactics on another matter, as well. They previously sought to file a motion under seal that argued Kane was the victim of a “selective and vindictive” prosecution. Only Demchick-Alloy and Kane’s attorneys would have been allowed to review the filing. But Kane’s legal team now plans to file the motion next week — in public, according to the AP.

It seems unlikely that this latest round of legal maneuvering will have much of an impact on Kane’s criminal trial on perjury and conspiracy charges, which is scheduled to begin in August. You’ve undoubtedly heard by now that Kane is accused of leaking information about an old grand jury investigation to the Daily News in an attempt to embarrass former state prosecutor Frank Fina, the Joker to Kane’s Batman. (Maybe it’s the other way around, depending on if you’re Team Kane or Team Fina.)

Fina and Kane have traded a series of slings and arrows ever since Kane’s office unearthed thousands of pornographic, racist and misogynistic emails that prosecutors and judges exchanged on state computer servers for a number of years. The ensuing Porngate scandal ended the careers of state Supreme Court Judges Michael Eakin and Seamus McCaffery, among many others.

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