Lawyers for AG Kane insist she did not lie to a grand jury about news leaks

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s lawyer is disputing a report that the embattled prosecutor lied to a grand jury about an aide’s late-night warning not to share information about secret criminal proceedings.

“The story in the Philadelphia Inquirer posted on Thursday Night, March 12, is filled with anonymous sources who lied about Attorney General Kathleen Kane,” Kane’s attorney, Lanny Davis said in a statement.

Kane, the state’s first elected female Democrat to hold the state’s highest law enforcement office, has been fending off allegations she leaked secret grand jury information to the Philadelphia Daily News.

The Inquirer, citing confidential sources, reports that top Kane aide Adrian King gave her boss “unequivocal” advice not to release the agency’s internal investigative files.

That advice, was prompted by Kane’s desire to release files to Sprague & Sprague, an law firm she hired to advise her.

That firm is well known for it’s handling of libel law suits against the newspaper.

At the time Kane slammed in reports in the Inquirer over her decision not to bring charges against Philly politicians ensnared in a bribe sting.

It was not, apparently, the release of that material that has landed Kane in hot water.

Rather, it was her leak of confidential grand jury documents to The News abouth the probe of NAACP President Jerry Mondesire, who was not charged.

Her motivation was to embarrass the prosecutor she believed had leaked info about the sting.

Yet another grand jury was formed, this time to investigate leaks to The News.

When Kane appeared before that panel, Kane said King had endorsed the Mondesire leak, according to the Inquirer.

King, however, told the grand jury he advised against it.

The grand jury investigating the leak to The News has recommended charges against Kane, but, so far, prosecutors have not acted on it — and the grand jury report remains secret.

This week, Kane appeared in court with her lawyers, who argued the grand jury did not have the authority to investigate her.

Her lawyers have also argued that laws governing grand jury secrecy don’t apply in this case becasue she was not the attorney general during the Mondesire probe, and therefore was not bound to keep it secret.