Kane Playing Politics With E-Mail-gate
By Simon Campbell
The state Capitol has been buzzing with the news that between 2008 and 2012 scores of current and former employees of the Attorney General’s office have been allegedly trading X-rated images and videos over taxpayer-funded computers.
During most of this time, now-Gov. Tom Corbett was the attorney general. And several of the top aides implicated in the email’s release who are now working for Corbett worked for him when he was Attorney General.
Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane released the names of eight Corbett current and former administration officials whom she said received or distributed the porn images.
It was a blatant display of arrogant politicking ahead of the gubernatorial election,
She did not release any evidence showing that any of them had opened any email they may have received on a group distribution.
Kane just wants to have them tried in the court of public opinion by innuendo and inference.
Kane just wants to have them tried in the court of public opinion by innuendo and inference.
Kane refused, however, to release the names of 30 current employees whom she has stated also sent or distributed porn emails over state computers. One of the reasons she refused to release these other names, is because she says union contracts prohibit her from doing so.
Pennsylvanians for Union Reform is appalled that ‘Union status’ constitutes a basis for the discretionary decision-making of the Attorney General as to which names she decides to bring negative publicity to; surrounding the ‘Porngate’ scandal. The inference from Kane is clear.
If State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan (one of the names released by Kane, and currently involved in a high profile manhunt for a cop-killer) had been part of a union then Kane would not have released his name.
Never mind the fact that Kane has produced no evidence to suggest that Noonan even opened any email he allegedly received.
This situation should horrify all decent-minded citizens.
Radical Democrats will be thrilled that their Democratic Attorney General is throwing dirt in Corbett’s direction ahead of the election. But she is our chief law enforcement officer.
We need to have a person in that office who operates with the utmost integrity and who is willing to apply the law equally and alike without discrimination. Her choice to hang some people out to dry in the court of public opinion not others is unacceptable.
By her own admission, she has 30 current employees involved in this scandal; people who have allegedly distributed porn.
Who are they? Why are they being protected? Pennsylvanians for Union Reform has filed a new Right-to-Know request available on our website for review.
Among other things we want to know the salaries of those folk working for Kathleen Kane who she says distributed porn.
We don’t give a flying hoot about the terms of any collective bargaining agreement. Nothing trumps the law.
If Kane denies our Right to Know request we will sue her. The law is clear. Public employees have public salaries. How much is the public paying to the folk Kane is hiding? That’s what we want to know.
Everyone knows that the teachers’ Union seeks to protect bad teachers. It is entirely possible that state Union bosses will likely do everything they can to not have their guys identified.
How ironic that if a Union guy working for Kane has been distributing porn, that Union guy will get cover from Kane.
Maybe the eight high-ranking officials that Kane wants tried in the court of public opinion by innuendo have a problem.
Maybe their problem is that they don’t have a government Union boss to protect them from the arrogant politicking of Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
Simon Campbell is president of Pennsylvanians for Union Reform. He lives in Bucks County.
