New Insight into Kane Defense and Controversial Emails

Fina KaneThe PA Supreme Court released a treasure trove of documents today and no one comes out looking good.

The unsealed records provide a full view of Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s defense.

Basically, Kane contends that after she leaked information to the Daily News for a story to embarrass prosecutors Frank Fina and Marc Costanzo, they sought protective orders from Judge Carpenter in the investigation of that leak.

Kane has maintained that the information she authorized to be released was not privileged. She also asserts that the entire investigation into her actions was done to prevent the public from ever knowing about the pornographic emails that Fina, Costanzo and others sent and received.

“Two former employees of the Office of Attorney General — Frank Fina and E. Marc Costanzo — corruptly manufactured this grand jury investigation to protect their own jobs and reputations,” states Kane’s memorandum of law. “For years, Fina and Costanzo had viewed and distributed pornographic, misogynistic, racist, obscene and offensive emails using their state-owned computers.”

Of course, these emails do not eliminate the myriad of questions that surround the AG. What they are doing, though, is revealing the distasteful online activities of Fina and Costanzo.

For instance, the AG pointed to one email captioned “duct tape turns no, no, no to MMMM.”

Angela Couloumbis and Craig R. McCoy of the Inquirer noted other images Kane’s legal briefs stated were in the emails.

“She said they included nude photographs purporting to be of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin; photos of women’s genitalia; a photo of an African American baby holding a rifle; and altered photographs purporting to be of President Obama and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the nude.”

William Bender of the Daily News points out this is just the tip of the iceberg.

https://twitter.com/wbender99/status/636586779823480832

https://twitter.com/wbender99/status/636587213019566080

The unveiling of the emails will shine a spotlight on Fina, Costanzo and the others involved who, not being elected officials, are largely unknown by the general public.

Put simply, these documents and emails are going to make everyone angrier and more upset about the state of our government.

76 Responses

  1. Montco – The Daily News today called for Williams to terminate Frank Fina and Marc Costanzo. He has to now. Even if female voters were not up in arms about the misogyny, there’s now this:

    Fina’s group of faux motivational posters included an image of a white man, carrying a bucket of fried chicken, being accosted by two deranged-looking black men. The caption? “Bravery at its finest.”

    See ya later, Mr. Fina. It took a while. Your attempts at a cover-up were successful for a while. But the truth is coming out. You and people like you should not be in law enforcement. Good luck with that job search.

  2. The clock is ticking, Seth. It’s now 48 hours and counting since all of this was made public. Why is Fina still on the public payroll? This reflects directly on you, Seth, and your ability to do the right thing. The longer it goes, the worse you look. Your political future hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking, taxpayers are watching.

    MEDIA — Still no heat on him for this? Inexcusable.

  3. The pressure is now on Seth Williams to get rid of the racist perverts he has working for him. Frankly, as a Black man who has daughters, I don’t know how Williams has not marched into Fina’s and Costanzo’s offices and fired them PERSONALLY.

  4. rsklaroff

    If you are into a witch hunt and fishing expedition, that would be one approach. But, the email issue is moot because her emails are preserved with staff that used their government accounts, even if they emailed to her personal account.

  5. @ DD:

    Noting that “Kane Frequently Used Private Email Account” [another page on this site], don’t you think that entire set of data should be reviewed, to ensure public-info wasn’t included therein?

    [Think Hillary, Think Lois….]

  6. Porno dave-

    A guy in my dorm used to say that, a decade before it was on Seinfeld.

    But, I think the blood must be rushing from your big brain to your (very tiny) little brain. Lew’s on your side and was being sarcastic.

    I blame the guys watching porn for going to their GOP judge and DA pals to start this frivolous case in the first place. The decisions to proceed, lack of foundation, etc.

    Every decision made is subject to scrutiny.

  7. Hey DD quoting George Costanza now just to justify your queen bee perjured herself ? She committed a crime. And Lew. First degree porn charges ? Watching porn is not a crime you moron. Quit trying to cover up the fact that 5 DEMOCROOKS have been indicted in the last year alone. Yeah it was the porn that made them do it. You liberals are clowns your policies suck if they were any good the city of Philadelphia ( run into the gutter by DEMOCROOKS solely since 1960. ). Would be this great liberal utopia. High crime horrible public schools rampant political fraud. High taxes. But blame the guys who watch porn.

  8. Lew

    Maybe they made the witnesses against her lie, by offering them a deal.

    However, Kane’s detractors keep saying she’s delusional and believes her own lies. To be consistent, they shouldn’t accuse her of perjury. It’s not a lie if you believe it’s true.

  9. Just as I thought! The porn peddlers made the first elected Attorney General lie under oath just to hide their porn habits. The case against Kathleen Kane should be thrown out and everybody who had a hand in the indictment fired. And Fina and Costanzo should be brought up on first degree pornography charges in a Federal case.

  10. Senator-

    Exactly. Also, the jury might feel the perjury is a bullsh*t add-on to add serious penalties to other minor charges. It’s mostly a bargaining technique for plea bargaining for the DA to pressure (threaten) Kane and offer to drop the perjury for a guilty plea on the minor charges.

    BTW, Chicken Little (aka SpongeBob) made a big deal about Fina’s hard drive and data, claiming that Kane could put stuff on it and it couldn’t be trusted.

    But, now, that there is an extensive record of Fina’s racial and sexual email history, Fina’s supporters are very quiet about their claims of Kane making this all up.

  11. No. The jury has to find that Kane intentionally lied. In other words, that there was no way she could credibly believe what she said. That’s what perjury is.

  12. Luciano Lil could you be sued for defamation of character with all the bad things you are saying about Attorney General Kane? Do you know her personally? Can you verify that what you are saying about her are true? I bet you are related to Fina or Costello!

  13. Luciano

    By your standard, every witness whose testimony didn’t match the verdict would be guilty of perjury.

    Other than lying to frame someone else, perjury shouldn’t even be a crime.

  14. When Clinton showed himself to be the biggest misogynist pig on the Clinton, liberals like Diano yawned. When Republicans send some racy emails, crime of the century and an adequate justification for Kane’s perjury, misusing undercover agents, etc. Diano is a good example of what is wrong with this country: too many people making excuses for corrupt politicians because they agree with them ideologically, their destruction of our legal and political systems be damned.

  15. Diano – “I must have mis-remembered” is not an acceptable defense against perjury. If it was, no one could every be convicted for perjury. Your continual defense of Kane is mighty sad. She is a conniving, Machiavellian, egomaniac crook. You can only be deemed a hopeless partisan for defending her. If Sestak was in Kane’s shoes, you would be one the side of Carpenter et al.

  16. BTW, has anyone heard from Gov Wolf on this? He seemed content to throw Kane under the bus the other day. Given the revelations about Fina, does he have any comment on standards of professional conduct? Will he look into emails at State Police and other agencies when making appointments?

  17. After reviewing the racist emails that were exchanged by Fina, Costanzo, et al. … Now I understand why Cain said the sting case was a result of racially targeting black members of the legislature. From a purely objective perspective this crazy person is staring to look sane. Only a loser like Fina can make Cain look sane

  18. eagleswing-

    Perjury: “the offense of WILLFULLY telling an untruth in a court after having taken an oath or affirmation.”

    Perjury: “A crime that occurs when an individual WILLFULLY makes a false statement during a judicial proceeding, after he or she has taken an oath to speak the truth.”

    In short, you are wrong if the jury believes that she believes what she is saying, or has a different recollection of events.

    Montco PA Dem-
    Well, of course Seth is going to delay answering to “review the material”. He’s still got his own grand jury to worry about, and who knows if it involves his previous interactions with Fina?

    Larry-
    There are Montco residents who work in Philly and pay taxes there, and even city sales tax when making purchases. But, overall, as Philly gets money from state, and we are all in this together, the wasted tax dollars are nothing to be proud about.

    Porno Dave-
    Perjury is a bullsh*t charge for not agreeing with the prosecution case. Declaring yourself innocent is perjury if the
    DA thinks you’re guilty. Kane could avoid the perjury charge by “correcting” her earlier testimony, or offering some evidence to cast doubt on the veracity of the testimony of other witnesses.

  19. BTW. All you hypocrite liberal fee living abortion protecting scum. Look in the mirror I know your watching porn too. Especially DD. He likes the man man stuff
    Porno Dave keeps it real

  20. You liberals crack me up. Kathy Kakes lied to a grand jury. Illegal !! Perjury!!! These are crimes. Passing porn emails thru work related emails Not A CRIME!! Stop trying to justify Kane’s actions by throwing republican employees under the bus. Their actions should be handled internally by their superiors. Chaka Fatone. Guilty. Rob Mcord guilty. KK guilty. But blame porn. Give me a break. Porn rules pirn is great. Porn is LEGAL. Lying , Perjury money laundering these are real crimes all committed by DEMOCROOKS

  21. MontcoPA Dem, if you do in fact reside in Montgomery County, you don’t have “standing” to complain about how Philadelphia tax dollars are spent.

  22. Seth, the clock is still ticking — 24 hours now. You have hundreds of pages of evidence. Why are Philadelphia taxpayers still employing Frank Fina? At the very least he should be suspended immediately pending an investigation. Why hasn’t this happened yet?

    Media — why hasn’t the DA been made to answer this question on the record?

  23. here solely for a critique. can you please properly edit your articles? love the blog but hate sloppy writing

    e.g. “Put simply, these documents and emails are going to make every angrier and more upset about the state of our government.”

  24. @ Chris:

    I merely wrote that she is “diminishing” before our eyes.

    You’ve been viewing too many pornographic e-mails.

  25. answers to Montco PA Dem questions:
    ‘If Kane said something possibly untrue to the Grand Jury, but she believed it to be true — is that perjury?’ YES– viz, her claim that she never passed the GJ documents to Adrian King for him to transmit at her direction to Josh Morrow. Morrow, King testify otherwise, and she’s convicted.

    ‘If Kane’s recollection of an event is different from others who also were present — is that perjury?’ YES -see above. ( just about every criminal’s ‘recollection’ of the crime is different from eyewitnesses. )

    ‘ If Kane broke the law so that she could stop the actions of a runaway corrupt public official, would a jury convict her?’ YES -because the jury will be instructed that her motive in leaking secret GJ docs is irrelevant to whether she leaked the docs then lied about it….

    my crystal ball predicts special interrogatory answers as follows: did she leak GJ docs? YES . Did she commit perjury by denying she leaked them ? YES . Should she take a leave and let someone else act as AG? YES — or be impeached…

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