Attorney General Kathleen Kane received message from colleagues on her private account, making it difficult for investigators to answer certain questions.
According to Michael Sisak of the Associated Press, the fact that Kane conversed with employees on her private email account will prevent investigators from seeing her responses.
A critical example of this concerns the all-important June 6, 2014 Daily News piece in which grand jury information was used.
Apparently Kane received links to that article the day it was published.
The problem is that last November, the AG told the grand jury she didn’t read the article until August 2014.
“The attorney general receives a large volume of emails on a daily basis and has to prioritize the ones most immediately pressing. It is highly probable that she never got to go back and read the email in question,” Kane’s spokesman Chuck Ardo explained.
Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that Kane would ignore emails sent to her private account by staff. For example, her spokeswoman at the time sent a link of the piece stating that she “needed some help on this.”
It’s unknown how or if the Attorney General responded.
The spokeswoman later instructed a colleague to tell an inquiring reporter: “No comment. That’s it. No background, no explaining, no comment.”
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17 Responses
Kane breaks the law again. There are reasons why gov emails are mandated. A couple are for oversight and document retention. As we see Federally, breaking these laws have hampered oversight and transparency and the kinds of emails Mr. Diano talks about have still not been fully turned over to Federal law enforcement-in part because the law was broken by using private emails. Some pertinent information is probably lost forever as well.
Fact Checker
I didn’t sidestep anything. Private to private is no different than making a phone call if you want to conduct business on the side (though private emails could be more recoverable than conversations).
But, your private to private scenario requires both participants. If employees send to Kane’s private email using their govt account (or cc to govt account) it isn’t an issue.
Using private email for convenience is not nefarious, and if you want to communicate illegal behavior, email is a poor choice.
David, even in justifying illegal behavior with other bad behavior, you can’t help but mix apples and oranges. Kane broke the law. Corbett’s AG did not break the law by updating systems policy…the same policy Kane benefited from on day 1.
You also deftly sidestepped the issue of private email to private email not being retained.
Until the emails are produced for oversight, you cannot even come close to claiming that everything is fine. In the case of Hillary, Congress and law enforcement are still waiting to see what State Dept retained, let alone what is gone forever (forever from us at least. What was retained by Wikileaks and Russia and China’s intelligence services?)
Good point, Peggy. This is looking more and more like a witch-hunt with Kane as the target.
Fact Checker
Do you mean like how Fina and Corbett tried erasing all their emails but failed?
The system at OAG sounds like it’s preserving records just fine.
David, “preserved?” you mean like Lois Lerner’s emails were preserved?
Do writers and posters have jobs-
Actually, a lot of them work for the govt or represent/oppose the politicians discussed.
If PoliticsPA were to list the most popular posting IP addresses (not matching them to the actual posters), you would see a lot of hits from pasen.gov and other Harrisburg servers.
Ferdburful
If one end of the email is private account and the other end is government account, then the email exchanged is preserved on the govt side. So, it’s really not a problem.
Seriously-the only times I get e-mails on my personal e-mail from colleagues, is when they are sending me stupid nonsense-like “hey, check out cheezy buzzfeed story”—people need to actually get jobs…this is soooo asinine.
The answer to “So What” – as a government employee it is ILLEGAL to use a private email account when working on government business. These people were told and had to sign documents agreeing to this. It is a big deal and it should be prosecuted.
Kane and Hillary 2016! Hell, throw McGinty in there too! A winning combo for PA and gmail!
So this is the sort of thing we can look forward to in the future? Crooked politician dodges oversight by using a private email account and defenders will line up according to political leanings? Got it. I think I prefer the Philippine system where the politicians are corrupt, everybody knows it, and they dispense with the formality of pretense.
Who cares I’ve had enough of the Feds with the bullshi!! Email fraud cases and the drama. It reminds me of getting Capone on tax evasion. LAMEEEE. PROVE YOUR CASE instead of railroading people with trumped up charges
Repubs: Yeah, but it’s like Hillary.
They don’t care if it doesn’t make sense, as long as they can make it sound sinister. It’s like breathing for them.
Peggy-
Exactly. How much porn email did Fina send on his private account, not just his work account?
Kane Frequently Used Private Email Account” so what!
” seems unlikely that Kane would ignore emails sent to her private account by staff”
Really? What system doesn’t incorrectly flag some good emails as spam.