Kathleen Kane’s Ex-Consultant: We Planned Grand Jury Leak
L: Attorney General Kathleen Kane, photo by Matt Rourke/AP R: Joshua Murrow, right, photo by Art Gentile/Bucks County Courier Times
On the fourth day of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s trial on perjury and conspiracy charges, her former consultant dropped a major bomb: He helped illegally leak grand jury information to a Daily News reporter because Kane told him to do it, he said.
Joshua Morrow, Kane’s former political consultant, said he and Kane attempted to cover up the leak, the Morning Call reports. 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.
The documents at question include sensitive grand jury information surrounding a 2009 investigation led by Frank Fina, an enemy of Kane’s, Morrow said. Morrow testified this morning at Norristown’s Montgomery County Court, where he said Kane asked him to leak the information to the newspaper in an act of revenge against Fina. Morrow has been granted immunity for his cooperation with prosecutors.
In a bizarre twist, the FBI obtained evidence of Morrow discussing the plot to leak the material just moments before he decided to do it via a tapped phone call between Morrow and his friend John Lisko. Lisko was, at the time, a top aide to Rob McCord, the former state treasurer who was then being federally investigated for theft of campaign funds.
“So, Kathleen called me today and I want to get your advice on this,” Morrow told Lisko on the phone, according to the Morning Call. “She was like Adrian has documents for you to leak out.”
Morrow and Kane then attempted to cover up the leak in front of a grand jury in 2014, he said, and they planned to blame it on King.
After Morrow’s testimony, Kane’s lawyers questioned King, who said that though he did help provide the grand jury material in an envelope, he did not know it was inside the envelope at the time.
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