Report: Grand Jury Recommends Charges Against Kathleen Kane
The Inquirer is reporting that a grand jury has recommended that Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane face criminal charges for allegations she leaked classified information to the Daily News.
The special prosecutor and grand jury investigating allegations that Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane leaked secret information to a newspaper have found evidence of wrongdoing and recommended that she be criminally charged, according to numerous people familiar with the decision.
Some of those familiar with the grand jury presentment say it recommended charges that included perjury and contempt of court.
“The Attorney General has done nothing wrong or illegal and, to my knowledge, there is no credible evidence that she has,” her lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, said in a statement Thursday. “She told the truth to the grand jury at all times. I hope the district attorney will reach same conclusion.”
The Inquirer story is based on information from unnamed sources — which appears to mean the paper is reporting leaks about a grand jury investigation into a leak about a grand jury investigation.
The case stems from a June Daily News article that detailed allegations made during a separate 2009 grand jury investigation into the activities of J. Whyatt Mondesire, then the head of the Philadelphia NAACP. Mondesire was never charged.
Kane has admitted her office gave information to the Daily News, but said publicly that the disclosure “was done in a way that did not violate statutory or case law regarding grand jury secrecy.”
If charged, Kane would be the second Pennsylvania attorney general in recent decades. Ernest Preate Jr. was found guilty of federal mail fraud in 1995 and resigned the office before serving his sentence in that case.
