BREAKING: Political Operative Says Kane Leaked Info, Lied About It

Kane-sadA major development occurred today in the Kathleen Kane trial.

According to Anna Orso of BillyPenn, political operative Josh Morrow stated that he conspired with Kane to leak grand jury information and that the two of them later created a lie to cover it up.

Morrow was the person who transferred the documents from Kane’s office (Adrian King left the envelope in Morrow’s door) to Philadelphia Daily News reporter Chris Brennan.

“I asked [Kane] what [the envelope] was and she described the transcript from one of her agents to another agent about an investigation into Jerry Mondesire,” Morrow testified. “And that Frank Fina did the investigation and then shut it down.”

What was revealed today, however, was that Morrow talked about the situation with John Lisko. Lisko, the former Chief of Staff to indicted State Treasurer Rob McCord, was being tapped by the FBI at the time.

“So Kathleen called me today…and was like Adrian [King] has documents for you to leak out,” Morrow told Lisko “and all this bullshit about Frank Fina and the Jerry Mondesire investigation.”

Morrow went on to complain to Lisko about how he felt his relationship with the Attorney General was souring.

“You’re a conflict of interest, actual or fictional, you’re a conflict of interest, and now you’re the one giving inside documents,” he continued. “It’s like, you fuckin’ leak them!”

“She was just hell-bent on getting back at Frank Fina,” Morrow explained in his testimony. He also stated that he and Kane “conspired to create this story that wasn’t true”, namely that Kane had never seen the documents.

It should be noted, though, that today’s testimony represents a change in Morrow’s story and he has received immunity from the prosecution.

Laura McCrystal and Craig McCoy of the Inquirer report that Morrow stated that he and the AG met in August 2014 to get their stories straight.

“Kathleen and I came up with a story that she was going to testify to and I was going to testify to,” Morrow stated.

Their plan was to blame the whole incident on King.

Yesterday, King testified that he feared Kane “was trying to frame” him. Kane and King went to law school together and were even in a relationship for over a year. They remained friends and she brought him in as a top aide after being inaugurated in 2013.

McCrystal also went on to describe the strange circumstances surrounding Morrow’s meeting with Kane.

The two also exchanged texts afterwards, which Morrow shared with the courtroom.

UPDATE: The relevant texts between Morrow and Kane have been released and can be read in full in this BillyPenn piece from Anna Orso.

“What is saying about revenge?” Morrow asked.

“Best served cold,” Kane answered.

Later on, Morrow wrote that “the daily news has four reporters on it…time for frank to feel the heat…”

“Josh you really get things done,” Kane responded.

“Just please keep this between us…very very small circle,” Morrow pleaded.

“I won’t tell anyone,” the Attorney General answered.

223 Responses

  1. rsklaroff-

    Kane cost two Supreme court judges their jobs and others caught up in the porn scandal. Seth Williams and Fina revealed to the public.

    Well worth the price of admission.

  2. The message the jury [one hopes] will deliver [from the below-article]:

    “In Pennsylvania, politicians don’t usually go to jail for leaking grand jury materials. But they do for lying to grand juries. They do for making a mockery out of the highest law enforcement office in the state – for leaving it a demoralized, burning heap.”

  3. I do not apologize for piling-on, even as closing arguments are being delivered:

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20160814_Newall__Kathleen_Kane_s__war__cost_plenty_of_people_plenty.html

    Newall: Kathleen Kane’s ‘war’ cost plenty of people plenty

    After two years of pledging to fight, of promising to air the truth in the face of all those bent on railroading her, the opportunity had finally arisen for Kathleen Kane to stand up in court and tell her side under oath. The time had finally come for the state’s top law enforcement official to speak in her own defense.

    An attorney general on trial for perjury and official oppression for allegedly leaking secret grand jury material and lying about it, crimes that could cost her her law license and freedom, decided now that she had nothing to say.

    After hearing the prosecution’s evidence, her lead attorney, famed mob lawyer Gerald Shargel, thought it best that Kane stay mum.

    The attorney general agreed with the mob lawyer.

    Kane’s B-movie drama playing in an ornate Montgomery County courtroom would have no showdown. The defense called no witnesses. It rested Friday without presenting a case.

    Closing arguments were set for Monday.

    And that was that.

    Shargel, whose searing cross-examination skills once earned mob kingpin John Gotti an acquittal, was mostly silent during the trial. No matter, Kane had four other lawyers in court. And in fairness, someone accustomed to a mobster’s murderous machinations could be forgiven for napping through the alleged criminal sins of the maladroit attorney general.

    Indeed, the story that played out in Montgomery County last week was more criminal comedy than criminal enterprise.

    Less “cloak and dagger,” as prosecutor Michelle Henry described it, than sorry slapstick. A spectacle of stupid with Kane dead center, and her reckless aides in supporting roles.

    The jaw-dropping moments came Thursday, when Kane’s former political consultant, Joshua Morrow, who had switched stories in the past, sang a new, very damning tune. He said he and Kane orchestrated the leak of grand jury evidence to the Daily News to embarrass former state prosecutor Frank Fina, whom Kane suspected of leaking a damaging story about her to the Inquirer.

    Instead of letting her first brush of bad press blow over, prosecutors argued, the political novice who had swept into office as a promised reformer went full-blown Nixonian.

    “This is war,” she declared. And in that war, reputations were ruined, institutions were bloodied, and the promise that accompanied her into office was wasted.

    In a reminder that the tentacles of corruption in Pennsylvania are so far-reaching that they sometimes intersect, a drunk-sounding Morrow was picked up on a phone call recorded on a wiretap in a separate political corruption case. He was complaining over Kane’s handling of the leak.

    There were texts.

    “Where’s my story?” Kane badgered Morrow. “I’m dying here while you’re out drinking.”

    When a judge began investigating the grand jury breach, Morrow said he and Kane plotted a cover-up over lunch at the Bellevue – that came after Kane’s security detail took him to the hotel parking garage and searched him with a security wand to make sure he wasn’t wired up.

    A nagging question arose as the evidence built: “Can’t anyone handle a simple leak?”

    But as amateur and farcical as Kane’s bumblings may seem, the damage is real and lasting.

    In Pennsylvania, politicians don’t usually go to jail for leaking grand jury materials.

    But they do for lying to grand juries. They do for making a mockery out of the highest law enforcement office in the state – for leaving it a demoralized, burning heap.

    And the damage stretches to Philly, where District Attorney Seth Williams weakened his office’s reputation in his ill-conceived effort to protect Fina and other former state prosecutors who joined his anticorruption unit only to be exposed by Kane’s airing of pornographic and racist emails they exchanged on state servers.

    For her part, Kane seemed unperturbed Friday, whispering to her attorneys, nodding along with testimony, seeming relaxed as if she were smiling her way through a happy hour.

    When she was briefly sworn in, Kane, it seemed, had herself forgotten what side of the law she now occupied.

    The Commonwealth was resting, she told Montgomery County Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy, before quickly correcting herself. “Sorry, force of habit – the defense.”

    And with that, Kathleen Kane left the stand.

    *

    KATHLEEN KANE TRIAL – other articles accessed from this page:

    Listen: Audio evidence presented in AG Kane’s perjury trial
    AG Kane declines to testify at perjury trial; defense calls no witnesses
    Adviser: Kane and I plotted grand jury leak — and cover-up
    She chose silence.

  4. Marie – sklaroff is a deranged TEA-guzzler. Do not try to make sense of his posts/”hyperlinks”

    Agreed that this case was political from the start. Agreed that the Jury should acquit the AG. She isn’t running for a 2nd term. And the people she sought to expose had it coming. We are all better off.

  5. It is one thing to make a mistake and overreact and quite another to try to incriminate an innocent person the way Kane and her political advisor did…she is evil

  6. What are you talking about?!?

    That’s not a closing argument. I am not a lawyer. And I did not attend the trial.

    But the fact remains – this trial is the end of a long smear campaign led by Frank Fina. I agree with the commenters below that the trial did manage to prove ONE FACT – that the government’s star witness lied and committed perjury.

    Hope the 12 people judging this evidence know what “jury nullification” means.

  7. @ Marie:

    If this is the best you – and d2 – can do when conjuring a closing-argument, know that this contains info that can’t be raised and, thus, you’re left with the inability to puncture the case presented to the fact-finders.

  8. Frank Fina and his buddies did corrupt things and called the evidence of their corruption “grand jury material.”

    It was reported that when Kane discovered the vile, perverted, and racist e-mails Fina sent, he entered them into one of his ongoing grand juries so his racist e-mails would be kept secret as “grand jury material.”

    I remain convinced that only a person like Kane (unafraid and willing to risk it all) could take down a sneaky little creep like Frank Fina.

    Nobody else would have been brave enough to stand up to the corrupt forces at work on the Supreme Court. PA is a better place with Eakin and McCaffery gone and Castille now powerless.

    Kane may have wanted that stuff leaked, but there is ZERO EVIDENCE she actually leaked it. And, even if they had actually proven it – who cares!!! She should be given an award (not a criminal conviction).

  9. The re-establishment of the State of Israel has been a “catastrophe.” How many more American lives will be lost for the state of Israel?

  10. @ d2:

    “He replacement is the far more flawed candidate who has taken at least $150,000 from the school charter PAC.”

    HUH?

    [The anti-BB and pro-BHO assertion has been repeatedly refuted; that the “source” considers the re-establishment of the State of Israel to have been a “catastrophe” is repeatedly ignored, as is the disastrous outcome already noted following implementation of the Iran-Nuke Capitulation-Pact.]

  11. Doctor, why are you going around in circles with David? Last year ‘David Diano’ wrote, “She’s right on the issues, and against those who are wrong on them. I couldn’t give two f*cks if she lied under oath or released every grand jury record in the database, if it exposed the graft, corruption, favoritism and politics that goes on behind the scenes in the legal system.” Case closed.

  12. rsklaroff-

    “PA will be liberated from a fatally-flawed AG”?? She’s got 4 1/4 months left on a 4 year job. Like her leaving now makes any difference at this point.
    He replacement is the far more flawed candidate who has taken at least $150,000 from the school charter PAC. (So, I won’t be expecting any investigations into the blatant bribery of elected officials).

    I hope Kane starts an investigation of them before she leaves (if the FBI already hasn’t with all the wiretapping they’ve been doing).

    You think that every who doesn’t support genocide against Muslims/Arabs like Netanyahu is anti-Semetic. You extend this to Jews who promote peace, which shows how ridiculous you are. You don’t even understand the value of dismantling Iran’s nuke program.

  13. In this article…
    http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/08/kathleen_kane_trial_closing.html#incart_river_home_pop
    Kathleen Kane’s criminal trial barrels into the home stretch
    …is printed this letter…

    CatDaddyO2 1 day ago

    Kathleen Kane is trying to squeeze $23,000 a year out of her ex-husband (whom she owes $1.65 million dollars) for vacations. Vacations! I can only dream of going to the Canary Islands and stuffing myself on those delicious yellow treats and belching feathers while I sip a traditionally made Zombie by some old school bartender with a Rolodex™. Here’s where I’m going with this. Once she is on an extended vacation in Muncy SCI, I imagine those expenses drop big time. You get some ivory soap instead of that smelly purfumey crap that melts really fast when you’re using it and bedbugs replace the mint on the pillow.Your expenses are what? Some hygiene products and some pen and paper so you can write letters to the pardon board? This is just a roundabout way of saying ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you can’t do this for the Commonwealth, do this for Chris Kane. Help a fella out.

    http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-kathleen-kane-campaign-funds-defense-0809-20160809-story.html

  14. @ Observer:

    You can’t “see” because you are keeping your eyes shut; at the very least, do you deny her having perjured herself regarding the notarized affidavit?

  15. Can’t see a Jury convicting Kane on the type of evidence MontCo presented. It was all innuendo and the witnesses they did call are not credible. The whole Courthouse knows the case is a joke. And the whole world knows this is a political witch-hunt.

    And I REALLY can’t see Hillary getting “locked up” at this point.

  16. @d2 and Observer:

    Armchair psyche-diagnoses are fraught with uncertainty; what is clear, however, is that y’all evade addressing the facts AND refuse to accept responsibility for persistent-error [in the case of d2].

    It is simply uncanny to prognosticate that she will be deemed innocent of all charges and, as a result, PA will be liberated from a fatally-flawed AG; if she doesn’t immediately resign [with or without the type of pressure that prompted Chaka to re-think his initial plan to hang around], the legislature will act accordingly.

    In the process of engaging with d2, I have teased-out [and confirmed, and reconfirmed] his anti-Semitism and gross-ignorance of the Iran-Nuke Capitulation-Pact; it is hoped that readers will recognize, therefore, that he lacks credibility across the political spectrum.

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