Ignoring calls for her to step down, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane defended herself Wednesday against five charges, including perjury and criminal conspiracy, saying they were retaliation for her investigation into former Attorney General Tom Corbett's staff's emails.
Montgomery County district attorney Risa Ferman, a Republican, filed the charges against Kane last week,
The New York Times reported. She alleged that Kane, a Democrat, leaked information from a secret grand jury investigation of former Philadelphia NAACP leader J. Whyatt Mondesire to a newspaper in the spring of 2014.
"The chain of events that led to this moment began long before that, and it began with a group of state prosecutors and judges passing pornographic, racially offensive and religiously offensive emails among each other," Kane said, denying Ferman's allegations.
Kane will have a preliminary hearing on Aug. 24. She said she plans to remain in office during that time.
According to Allentown's The Morning Call, Kane said the charges were a "stealth political weapon" seeking retaliation for disclosing the emails that surfaced during her review of then-Attorney General Tom Corbett's staff's handling of allegations against Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach.
"Some of the emails were released publicly, leading to the firing of several officials, including the state environment secretary, the resignation of a State Supreme Court justice and the reprimanding of 23 members of the attorney general’s office," wrote The New York Times.
Corbett, a Republican, served as Pennsylvania governor from 2011 to January 2015.
"It's hard to identify someone [among public officials] who thinks she should stay in office," said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College. "In many ways, it's a last resort," he said, referring to Kane's public statement.
"I hope that if you're faced with a fight, that you get in there and fight because it's not always about you," Kane said during one part of the speech, directed at her teenage sons. "It's about other people."
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