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BREAKING: Kathleen Kane Seeks to Shift Focus in Press Conference (Updated with Video)

Kane-Conference“I am innocent of any wrongdoing.”

That was the message Attorney General Kathleen Kane asserted in her news conference today, her first public statement since she was charged with eight criminal counts.

In her speech today, Kane sought to shift attention away from herself and onto what she feels is the bigger issue: the pornographic emails revealed through the investigation.

“Today I intend to begin to reveal the whole story,” she said before delving into the details of those emails.

She completely ignored the June 2014 Daily News story on Jerry Mondesire that began the inquiry into whether she leaked grand jury information by providing information for that article.

Her only mention of the March 2014 Inquirer piece that first drew her ire was to say it was meant to “embarrass and intimidate me” but did not succeed.

Altogether it was a political, rather than a legal, defense and served as the latest chapter in her long-standing feud with prosecutor Frank Fina.

Kane stated her defense wouldn’t be that an old boys network was after her.

“My defense will be I broke no laws of this Commonwealth. Period,” she stated.

She went on to call for Judge Carpenter to release all of the pornographic emails. While Kane stated she was not blaming the “old boys network” she did assert that this was a crusade against her.

The Attorney General cited all the arrests her office has made since the first calls for her resignation. She used these statistics to contend that her case is not a distraction.

Spokesman Chuck Ardo originally indicated that Kane would take questions. Later, he seemed to tell Steve Esack of the Morning Call that he was not that involved in the AG’s statement.

When Kane mentioned the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, Esack tried to interject a question but the Attorney General rebuffed him.

At the end, the AG directly addressed her two sons by name. She stated that it was the only way she could talk to them before the news reached them first.

She told them that she would continue to do her job and fight “evil” throughout the state.

It was an emotional, strange and sad ending to an emotional, strange and sad performance.

UPDATE: The full video of the Attorney General’s press conference can be viewed below:

95 Responses

  1. Rsklaroff

    Precedent doesn’t cover new things, and laws/policies get changed when they are found to be unjust or spurious. Corruption by prosecutors engaged in a political trial to reverse an election isn’t new.

  2. @DD:

    On an earlier page, I got you to admit that most of your defensive theories are unprecedented; it seems you are incorrigible.

  3. Bob, why would Risa Ferman care about other people being embarrassed by porn emails? If the emails of several high ranking people (including a Supreme Court justice) have already been divulged, who’s really left? Probably only Frank Fina, and Risa Ferman doesn’t care if Frank Fina gets embarrassed.

  4. AG Kane is using the threat of embarrassing, and maybe illegal, pornmails to give her leverage to make a deal to resign in lieu of prosecution.

    It is clear that the overwhelming evidence is that she is guilty so how does she get out of it– counter attack. The best defense is a good offense seems to be the strategy.

  5. Big Moola, take a deep breath. It’s all going to be okay. Unless you’re Kathleen Kane, of course, because this porn email thing that she used to distract you is not going to save her from the charges.

  6. Maybe the Attorney General should file Charges against the State Employees who forwarded, received, viewed, or failed to stop the ongoing practice of non work related E-mails (porn, racial,ethnic or religious) during State working hours on State owned property for “Theft of Services” then all these names of all participants would come out.

    After all isn’t Theft of Service a crime ? Wasn’t theft of service and/or non work related activities during State hours on State owned equipment prosecuted by Corbett’s administration in the Attorney Generals Office during the ‘Bonus-gate” case.

    I wounder were the State Employees unions are during this whole debacle ? How many of their members have been fired or forced into resigning or retirement for “Theft of Services” in the past ? Now they want to sit quietly while Management and/or Confidential employees continue employment paid by public funds. Perhaps they see this double standard as a way to stop future discipline for their members based on the same activities ? Either way the Taxpayer’s lose !!

    The Fact that Judge Carpenter saw no conflict with presiding over the Reese arraignment, who was charged with violating an Order that he himself issued calls for either Recusing himself totally from any further involvement in this case what so ever or a complete change of Venue for the entire case !!!!

    Maybe the entire Montgomery County Judicial System needs to be investigated/reviewed by an outside entente such as FBI or some-other Federal Agency !!!

  7. Look at all the gullible Dems in the comments! Kane sees that she has no defense to the charges, so LOOK OVER THERE!! PORN EMAILS! And you all look.

  8. What she requested should be released. However, if it vindicates her and implicates someone else, is this likely?

  9. Maybe she’s guilty, maybe she’s not. But why is she treated differently than other (male) politicians with worse supposed guilt.

  10. She is innocent until proven guilty and I find her allegations of others quite compelling, if there is nothing to hide, then release what she is requesting.

  11. This is not a story of a powerful woman being picked on by the old boys network. She’s a corrupt political hack who picks and chooses what laws to uphold. If she doesn’t like the law, she’ll go against her sworn duty to uphold that law. Resign? Hell, she should be impeached.

  12. Give ’em hell Kathleen! We are with you. So how many of his cronies is Judge Carpenter protecting? Carpenter, release the damn porn emails. The people have a right to see who the real criminals are.

  13. Kathy Kane for President , Kane will be found not Guilty . Steele The new DA will drop the Charges Because the Democrats Backed him and elected him over Bruce Castor . Kane will bring down Carpenter and several Other very powerful Republicans and Many Judges in Porn Gate . The whole House of Cards will come crashing down . Kane will let all the Porn Mails out to the Public . There is going to be Fireworks like you have never seen before in Pennsylvania . Maybe even Felon Bob Asher will go back to Jail when they find out about his involvement in all of this . H e l l hath no fury like Kathy Kane scorned . Lets bring everything out in the Open this all started over Mondesire so everything else should be Public Information . Release the Hounds . JUdge Carpenter should let the People decide by releasing all Information that he has sealed . The Public should demand it . Lets see how Truly sick our elected people and their staff are .

  14. Porn Emales-

    Hope Fina’s going to get called by the defense to testify under oath about
    1) what he knew
    2) when he knew it
    3) what he did about or asked others to do
    4) whether his pants were around his ankles

  15. Interesting all the discussions about memory and the perjury charge … But no one mentions the fact that her so called staff never accepted her and didn’t want their lives upset by a woman democrat … This office was and still is full of lawyers that can’t make it in the real world and they all thought she was going to come in and clean house … They all lived in fear so the easiest way to protect their own job was to leak information to Kane’s enemies so that her hands would be tied and she would not be able to restructure the office. It seems like her staff gave her bad advise but when they got caught they pointed the finger at Kane. She isn’t smart enough to pull this off so the likes of King, Abbott, Areson, and Tyler were all behind it. They are all Seth Williams buddies and Seth hired Fina, I don’t think this is all coincidental. Think about it this way, who has the most to gain with Kane on the defensive and who has the most to gain if she is removed from office?

  16. eagleswing-

    If the questions are of the nature:
    1) Do you recognize this memo?
    2) Do you remember seeing this memo on such-and-such a date?
    3) Do you remember a conversation about this memo?

    etc.

    You CANNOT objectively say that the person is lying if they don’t remember.

    For example, I happen to have a pretty good memory for some subjects and a horrible memory for others. Other than the most recent superbowl, I cannot name a winner or the teams playing in any superbowl, despite having been bombarded by ads at the time and having heard the outcomes at some point, or been at a superbowl party. I’m more likely to remember the commercials than the game. The only reason I even know the winner this year is because they were on the news for cheating. I cannot name 5 current professional baseball players, despite having been been in the room with my parents several times while they were watching the Phillies and the volume was on as the announcers discussed each player.

    Therefore, witnesses could recount in detail my presence while any sporting event was on, and a jury might find it hard/impossible to believe that I can’t name any of the players from the game (or any players from any other teams in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc.) So, a jury could make the wrong conclusion that I was lying, especially because I know all sorts of other trivia that most people don’t know at all.

    As for her meetings with staff, at work, we have meetings all the time, but after the meetings, everybody has a completely different recollection/impression about what was said regarding what company procedure is, or a different understanding from what the boss said/meant. We’ve even had our boss call us into his office, give us instructions, then 15 minutes call us back in and give us completely contradictory instructions.

    My point is that memory is a funny thing. You could remember two different events, but not recall the order they happened in or get the month wrong. You might believe it was the Spring because you remember it being nice spring-like weather that day, even if it happened to have been in late Feb.

    Some of the conversations in this case appear to have been one-on-one conversations, so it’s an unfair question even to put to a jury.

  17. Perjury is a perfectly proper criminal charge to file against a witness who lies under oath. Despite various uninformed comments to the contrary, perjury is not ‘subjective’ , but rather the jury is to objectively analyze whether a witness has lied under oath about a material fact. (The jury could find Kane lied by choosing to believe the 1/2 dozen staff members who say Kane commanded them to obtain the secret 2009 grand jury documents which she then reviewed in a meeting with them. She claimed before the investigating grand jury that she had never seen those documents nor had she organized release of them to the newspaper. . Kane’s claiming she never saw the grand jury documents her henchpeople testified she had viewed in a meeting, nor organized those documents for delivery to the newspaper as testified to by another henchperson, can certainly support her conviction of perjury. It’s a sad commentary on the judicial system that some of our learned colleagues on this board call such chargers B*(()%^t, perhaps because they do not realize their golden girl had feet of clay.

    meanwhile, I find it interesting that Kane sends us subliminal messages of innocence by wearing those white dresses in her most recent tv appearances. it won’t work.

  18. I love that Kathleen Kane is exposing the real problems in PA. Just wait until the real story comes out.

  19. The perjury charge is a subjective judgement, not objective. You can’t objectively know if someone can’t recall something or genuinely gets facts they do remember out of order.

    It’s used as a bullsh*t gotcha whenever you disagree with the prosecutor’s theory of the case.

  20. Hey Porn Emails!! August 12, 2015 at 4:35 pm Why are you so hell bent on getting answers? Clearly Caines Driver is jaggin ya, you are way to serious, chill out. Who cares if Kane goes to jail, her career is over, I want everyone else that’s as guilty as she is to go to jail for their theft of services on state time. You may say boys will be boys and porn is nothing new, but I say, sitting at ones desk all day looking at porn emails on a state computer system and on state time seems like a criminal act to me. Try speaking some truth to power you sheep. Kane may have done exactly what the lynch mob says she did but the public deserves to see justice served with porngate. If I remember correctly during bonusgate people went to jail for sitting at their state computers and spending time doing non state work while on state time. This sounds like the same thing … so its not really about porn its about theft. As usual Kane wasn’t able to communicate that at her press conference today, she is as incompetent as they come, but all politicians are crooks. A safe bet is everything leads back to Ed Rendell, nothing happens in PA Politics unless Eddy says so. Ed wants Josh Shapiro to be AG so he needs to get Kane out of the way. Ed even placed Adrian King on her staff as COS to keep her in line … Ed needed to control Kane and keep her from looking into his illegal acts. There is a reason why Rendell is giving money to Steven Reeds defense fund. The press isn’t doing its job and refuse to ask the tough questions for fear they will lose access. Adrian King’s law firm is representing Steven Reed … this seems fishy to me?
    Cains, so you can’t answer the question? Let’s assume you get all the pleasurable dirty emails you want. How does Kane stay out of prison with those emails? Or are you simply Chris Martinez trying and failing to be funny?

  21. More importantly to all of this. Will Kane out her sister, who by some accounts received over hundred porn emails? Or will she also out another of her trusted confidants, the head of her SERT team who received over a couple hundred porn emails?

  22. Cains, so you can’t answer the question? Let’s assume you get all the pleasurable dirty emails you want. How does Kane stay out of prison with those emails? Or are you simply Chris Martinez trying and failing to be funny?

  23. Hey Porn Emales … U are clearly a simpleton … Since Frankie got to pleasure himself to the porn email on the taxpayers some, as a red blooded Merican, I have a 2nd amendment right to pleasure myself to the same emails. After all, the emails and the images are the property of the taxpayers and not some kangaroo court! I have rights dammit!

  24. Cains Driver, what relevance do the porn emails have to the perjury charge? None at all. So, why would the judge even address them in Kane’s case?

  25. Unknown at August 12, 2015 at 2:16 pm … You raise a good point about broadcasting these public corruption cases live on PCN … Justice Saylor better allow to broadcast of these trials or he looks like he’s covering something up about these porn emails, plus a public execution will deter other bad actors from stealing from the public trust. I heard the reason Fena was working overtime to block the release of all the porn emails was because it leads to Rendell, Corbett, King, and more judges on the hi court … This is a massive coverup just like the sex ring with 2nd mile kids

  26. Catherine kane aint dun nothun wrong and dat why she aint rezined when she goed on tv dis morninn, she been doin a good job as genral aturney and she gonna get electd a gain.

  27. I don’t know what was funnier, Kane’s incoherent press conference or the delusional comments from her last two supporters.

  28. Everyone knows who she’s talking about — FINA

    The question is, exactly what kind of porn was FINA looking at?

  29. Not for nothing but what was that Press conference all about. It didn’t deal with any of illegality on her point (not that I expected it) also was about Reese and Peiffer reported to be her close allies. One has yet to be arrested despite changing the access rules to the off site server. This gets stranger by the minute but it sure is interesting.

  30. Observer, I’m talking about Adrian King (who was in the Rendell cabinet) and Linda Dale Hoffa, both of whom were brought on by Kane. Other lawyers concurred, of course, that the materials she wanted to leak were confidential. King was beside himself when Kane said she wanted to release the materials. They all testified about the timing of the Philly Daily News article, Kane’s staff meeting about the article, and other conversations (all saying the same thing, but Kane lied and told a different version). That’s why each of these Dem staffers left one after another.

  31. Nad Larry – her problem was that she did NOT have her own “hand picked Dem Staffers” – the bozo who advised not to reveal the porn email viewers was a Corbett holdover – look it up.

  32. Hey, Phony Observer – try to think for yourself for once? Or are you so used to parroting Fox News spin points that you can’t even think up your own name? Geez, I bet you are a Junior or a III, right? Cuz your daddy was as stupid as you?

  33. Diano, pardon me if I don’t find your conclusion credible, as it would be exactly the opposite if the AG were a Republican. Kane’s own hand-picked Democratic staffers testified about her conduct, and it is very clear that she committed perjury in addition to leaking confidential materials. What porn emails have to do with that is beyond me. And, by the way, misdemeanors carry jail time in PA.

  34. Larry

    The perjury charge remains bullsh*t, just to have something beyond a misdemeanor. The goal of silencing her and keeping the email details from light of day is in itself an abuse indicative of a rigged/corrupt system trying to protect itself and intimate her (as she is claiming).

    Kane (or anyone with access who realizes this should be public) should send a copy of all those emails to Wiki-Leaks.

    If it was me, I’d certainly would have already sent a password protected copy to Wiki-Leaks for safekeeping.

    Who thinks Judge Carpenter is either on those emails as well, or has a conflict of interest?

  35. Within the past 24 hours, Hillary Rodham Clinton has been forced to relinquish control of her e-mail server to the FBI. Now, shortly afterwards, Kathleen Kane – who was elevated into office by the Clintons – demands that pornographic e-mails circulated by prominent PA public figures be released. Tit for tat, perhaps…

    During Supreme Court deliberations concerning the Kane case earlier this year (Kane was attempting to stymie the case, if you recall) one of the Justices remarked that the “FBI had been brought in here.” This remark was captured live (yes, LIVE) on PCN, but has been entirely ignored thus far. What was the Justice referring to, exactly? Paging Brad Bumstead…

  36. She started out saying she is not a victim of a good ol’ boys conspiracy, and then proceeded to explain why she is the victim of a good ol’ boys conspiracy. Porn emails have nothing to do with whether she leaked confidential materials and lied to the grand jury. She’s still in retaliation mode, I guess.

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