Pennsylvania State Attorney General Kathleen Kane
In the three years since she was elected Pennsylvania’s state attorney general, Kathleen Kane has shown both an activist and ambitious streak, but that may be coming to an end with the unanimous ruling by the state’s Supreme Court to suspend her license to practice law.
It remains to be seen what happens when a state’s top attorney is barred from practicing law.
But not practicing law is nothing new to Kane who, in 2013, announced she would refuse to defend Pennsylvania’s 17-year-old law defining marriage as a civil contract exclusively between one man and one woman. At that time Pennsylvania was the only northeastern state without same-sex marriages or civil unions.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, the American Civil Liberties Union brought suit to overturn the law and force county clerks to issue licenses. Despite it being her duty to defend the state’s laws, Kane, a Democrat, refused, saying, “I cannot ethically defend the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s [law banning same-sex marriage], where I believe it to be wholly unconstitutional.”
Ironically, it is an issue of ethics that has caused the court to now ban her from the courtroom.
WND reported last year the results of a three-year sting operation in Pennsylvania that offered elected officials – black and white, Democrat and Republican – cash and gifts in exchange for votes.
Over that period, a handful of politicians were found willing to take the deal.
“Sources with knowledge of the sting said the investigation made financial pitches to both Republicans and Democrats, but only Democrats accepted the payments,” said the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Furthermore, all the offending Democrats in the corruption probe were black, members of the Philadelphia delegation to the state legislature.
But the investigation went nowhere when Kane nixed it, calling it “poorly conceived, badly managed and tainted by racism.” She even argued that the sting had specifically targeted African-Americans.
Subsequently Kane was accused of seeking retribution against the investigator she believed was behind the report that she had shut down the probe into Democrat corruption. Last month she was indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and other offenses stemming from allegations that she illegally leaked grand jury material and then lied about it under oath.
Kane claims the charges against her were engineered by former assistants in her office she exposed for exchanging pornographic and racially insensitive emails following a review of the investigation against former Penn State coach and child molester Jerry Sandusky.
Monday’s decision to suspend her license during the pending trial was unanimous, endorsed by the court’s three Republicans and two Democrats, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. The ruling had been sought by lawyers for the state disciplinary board.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has previously called for Kane to quit. A spokesman for the governor on Monday called the suspension “further proof that Attorney General Kane can no longer perform the duties of her office, and as the governor has said, she should step down.”
The decision opens the door to Kane’s possible removal from office by the GOP-controlled state Senate based on the state Constitution’s requirement the attorney general be a member of the state bar. A never-used “direct-removal” rule in the state Constitution permits a governor to remove an elected official with a two-thirds vote by the state Senate.
“The dramatic psychological, emotional, and political impact of this order on the office and the attorney general herself has to be enormous,” said John M. Burkoff, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
“This is an incredible and almost unthinkable development,” he added. “What little credibility Attorney General Kane retained prior to today has just been subjected to a crippling body blow.”
Kane is asserting her innocence, vowing to stay on the job and run for re-election next year. In a statement, Kane said she would continue to root out “the culture of misogyny and racially/religiously offensive behavior that has permeated law enforcement and members of the judiciary in this commonwealth for years.” In a statement Monday, Kane suggested she would be releasing emails from her pornography investigation that could expose many officials.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/high-court-clips-wings-of-democrat-rising-star/
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