Aug 10, 2015 4 min read

In the days since Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was indicted on felony charges of obstruction of justice, lying to a grand jury and leaking confidential grand jury information to a political operative, she has stoutly refused to resign, saying that doing so would be tantamount to an admission of guilt, and that she plans to stay in office for years to come.

Like any other criminal defendant, Kane should be accorded the presumption of innocence. But, that disclaimer gotten out of the way, it beggars belief that Kane could effectively do her job as Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement official with criminal charges hanging over her head. And even if Kane is able to limp along into next year’s election season, it defies the wildest imaginings of all but the most stalwart Kane supporters – which must be down to immediate family and a few close friends by now – that the Democratic Party would dare nominate her for the job again. And if she would by some fluke get that nomination, would she be re-elected? Not a chance.

No, Kane needs to resign. She should devote her full efforts to devising a defense and, if she gets a few breaks, restoring her reputation. But, more importantly, the commonwealth deserves a full-time top prosecutor who can carry out the duties of the office without being surrounded by the stink of scandal. Right now, Kane is in no position to be a credible attorney general.

If Kane does set out, at some point, to restore her reputation, she will have her work cut out for her. Triumphing over Republican David Freed by 15 points in 2012, Kane was the first female and the first Democrat elected to the post. In the months after she took office, it looked like the attorney general’s office could well be just the first stop on a political career rocketing quickly into the stratosphere. Sen. Kathleen Kane? Gov. Kathleen Kane? Heck, President Kathleen Kane? All these possibilities seemed open to the former assistant district attorney of Lackawanna County, who was 46 at the time she was elected.

But many media reports have suggested that Kane’s estimation of herself became inflated even as others questioned her competence. In the 31 months she has been attorney general, she has burned through seven press secretaries, which averages to about a four-month tenure per press secretary. Other staffers have fled. Kane has also shown a capacity to be thin-skinned and vindictive. When the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in early 2014 that she was shutting down an investigation of elected officials from the region who were allegedly on the take – a case later prosecuted successfully by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams – she went to explain herself to the newspaper’s editorial board, but with a fearsome libel lawyer in tow. That’s an awfully peculiar maneuver by an elected official whose actions are subject to scrutiny and criticism.

Then, she is said to have carried out a vendetta against Frank Fina, a former lead prosecutor in the attorney general’s office under Tom Corbett, that bordered on the irrational. She was reportedly convinced that it was Fina who provided information to the Inquirer about the aborted sting operation, even though there is no indication that he was the culprit. To strike back, she allegedly passed along information on another grand jury investigation to the Philadelphia Daily News that she thought would be embarrassing to Fina. She then allegedly lied under oath about it.

In announcing the charges Thursday, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said Kane’s campaign of retaliation was “conducted without regard to rules, without regard to the law, and without regard to the collateral damage the battle might entail.”

There’s talk of impeachment in the air, or stripping Kane of her law license. No matter how it’s done, Attorney General Kane needs to become simply citizen Kane once again, and the sooner that happens, the better.