The Citizen Updates: The Kathleen Kane Chronicles
The Denizen Updates: The Kathleen Kane Chronicles
Proof of the old boys' network emerges…non that y'all'd read well-nigh it in the papers. Where'due south the outrage?
Nov. 02, 2015
Concluding week, I tried to connect some dots in the sordid Porngate story that has ensnarled Chaser Full general Kathleen Kane and her nemesis Frank Fina in a seeming political death match. My point was that, yeah, the attorney general very well may exist politically incompetent and in over her head … and also the target of a cabal of sexist men throughout the country judiciary.
Well, 2 days later, the Inquirer broke a story that seemed to provide bear witness of that thesis, though the paper curiously chose to ignore the self-axiomatic conclusion. In fact, bafflingly, the Inquirer story, headlined " Kane'due south Part Obtained Judge'south Private Emails , " seemed more concerned with how the emails came to low-cal than providing a full accounting of what was in them.
Which is part of a shameful blueprint throughout the " porngate " story. Fourth dimension and once more, nosotros oasis ' t gotten the real story, the one that goes to the heart of what kind of a judicial system we actually have in this commonwealth. Despite the statewide embarrassment that is Kathleen Kane, at least nosotros have her mess to give thanks for revealing the truth almost the prosecutors and judges who have long been bonding over a racist, sexist, xenophobic and mean email chain, which includes videos like this:
Media at its all-time ought to bespeak outrage over that. Instead, nosotros get stories that focus on arcane legal minutiae — who leaked what to whom — instead of zeroing in on the true and agonizing transgressions that accept come to light.
In the Inquirer story, writer Chris Palmer reported that Kane ' south representative, Ken Smukler, had acquired 2022 email exchanges between Guess Barry Feudale and 2 Inquirer reporters, Craig McCoy and Angela Couloumbis, and had been trying to get 2 media outlets to write about them. Feudale had been the gauge on the Sandusky grand jury; the lead prosecutor on that example had been the aforementioned Frank Fina. Feudale ' s correspondence with the reporters had to exercise with the Supreme Court ' s sealed order to remove him from grand jury service, a move Kane had lobbied for behind the scenes.
The story held out speculation that there had been some kind of a break-in, or hacking, of the Estimate ' s private emails. Information technology went and then far as to cite as a possible precedent the example of one-time CBS-three anchor Larry Mendte, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to hacking into boyfriend anchor Alycia Lane ' due south computer and leaking personal information about her to local gossip columnists. This suggested storyline fit neatly with the narrative heretofore of Kathleen Kane every bit some sort of imbalanced Nixon-similar grapheme, authorizing intermission-ins and leaks.
Despite the statewide embarrassment that is Kathleen Kane, at least we have her mess to thank for revealing the truth almost the prosecutors and judges who have long been bonding over a racist, sexist, xenophobic and hateful electronic mail concatenation.
Only the Inquirer story didn ' t explain why the contents of the e-mail exchange with its ain reporters might be germane to Kane ' southward defense of the charges against her. Think, her defence force is that she ' s the victim of an old boys ' network of interests, because she has had in her possession damning information on many judges and prosecutors (and some U.South. attorneys) throughout the state: Their participation in that offensive concatenation of emails.
In fact, when Kane responded to the Inquirer story by releasing the Feudale emails in question, revealing just how they came into her possession, it became clear that the Inquirer ' southward label of them was startlingly incomplete. Showtime, how did she get them? Far from authorizing a break-in, the reply was right on the email themselves. It turns out that when the guess corresponded with the Inquirer reporters, he and then forwarded the exchanges to Fina at the prosecutor ' s former — merely not disabled — Function of the Chaser Full general electronic mail address. In other words, the lengthy story speculating on whether at that place had been some intermission-in or hacking of Feudale ' southward reckoner was non merely wrong, but reporter Palmer should have surmised that prior to publishing just by looking at who Feudale sent the emails to.
Tardily in the commodity, when Palmer gets around to reporting the substance of Feudale ' s emails to his newsroom colleagues, he leaves a misleading impression of the gauge. " In the exchanges with reporters, Feudale shared some material generated during his dispute with Kane, " Palmer writes. " But he also rebuffed the reporters on other matters, maxim he could not talk about certain issues considering he was bound by yard jury secrecy …" Palmer fifty-fifty quotes Feudale to that effect: "' Nice attempt, guys, but lamentable, '" he wrote at one point, in declining to answer questions. ' I am non willing to violate the law and my delivery to secrecy, even equally a sometime k jury judge. '"
But, once Kane released the electronic mail chain in question, Palmer ' s reporting appeared mighty selective. He left out a telling exchange: Feudale ' s offer to leak to the reporters the sealed Supreme Court social club removing him from the thou jury: " My problem is that the awarding for a Writ was sealed (equally are all Kings Bench matters) so I need both of your assurance it will simply be used as background and yous will non reveal me equally the source of such. " This omission would seem to go beyond what we in journalism telephone call " burying the atomic number 82. " This would be closer to ignoring the lead.
Allow ' due south underscore what ' s happening here, later on all: Kane has been criminally charged for leaking grand jury data to the press. Here, a grand jury judge is seen leaking sealed Supreme Courtroom documents to the press. Yet that is not the story. Instead, we become speculation about some nefarious means this email commutation could have come to light — off-white game, if the emails themselves hadn ' t already provided the answer: Feudale sent them to Fina ' due south AG address.
By and so, Fina was working in the Philadelphia District Attorney ' s role, but what does it say that a judge was forwarding his correspondence with two reporters to a prosecutor who had had cases before him? Doesn ' t that requite some credence to Kane ' s old boys ' network argument, as does Feudale ' s heaping of lavish praise upon Fina ( " brilliant heed, photographic memory, fierce but ethical advocate " ) in those missives?
Countless insiders of our state judicial system bonded over the high-minded comedy of a jerk calling himself The Astonishing Racist. Where ' s the outrage over that?
On Friday night, the Legal Intelligencer followed the Inquirer ' south pb and posted a story that was more about the leaking of the Feudale emails than their substance. Lizzy McLellan and Hank Greziak reported that Smukler had before tried to leak to them the story of the Feudale emails and so spent significant cavalcade inches raising questions not only most where Smukler got the emails, but whether the cloth he acquired — screen shots — might have been doctored. (Full disclosure: I ' ve known Smukler for some 15 years and wrote about him hither.) Simply again, the reporters would have known pre-publication — or should take known — whether what Smukler had shown them matched what the Chaser General released.
I ' k mystified by the reporting of this story. Part of me wonders whether local media is protecting sources and thereby choosing sides. Some other part suspects it ' due south but sloppiness; at that place ' s a fog of war feel to the fast moving Kane/porngate scandal and it ' s easy to get bogged down in the daily he said/she said instead of keeping in listen the bigger picture.
The danger hither is that that ' south what ' s been lost. While we ' re getting stories about phantom suspension-ins and erroneous speculation about doctored documents, nosotros know that judges, prosecutors, and U.Due south. attorneys — men and women we rely on for their judgment — have for years been giggling together over emails that are racist, sexist, and mean. Where ' s the outrage over that? Turns out, the porngate moniker is a misnomer. Now that some of these emails are coming out, we can finally judge for ourselves. A newscast calling itself scrapple.boob tube has put some of the textile together here.
Just if you lot really want to viscerally feel why this story matters, all you need to scout is that video of a wiggle who calls himself The Amazing Racist. One of his videos, in which he gets a group of undocumented Latinos in his truck under the false pretense of hiring them for the day only to drive them to the INS part, was sent through the Harrisburg insider email chain. Countless members of our state judicial system bonded over such high-minded comedy. There ' southward something gravely wrong with that … and it was once journalism ' s highest calling to right such wrongs.
Header Photo: Flickr/Joe The Goat Farmer
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-citizen-updates-the-kathleen-kane-chronicles/
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