HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania's attorney general said Wednesday that criminal charges threatening to end her career were filed as part of an effort by state prosecutors and judges to conceal pornographic and racially insensitive emails they circulated with one another.
"I am innocent of any wrongdoing," Kathleen Kane said in her first public comments on the case. "I neither conspired with anyone nor did I ask or direct anyone to do anything improper or unlawful."
Kane, 49, was charged last week with leaking grand jury information to a newspaper reporter as payback to a former state prosecutor and then lying about it under oath.
Kane called the grand jury investigation and charges against her a "stealth political weapon" to discredit her after her office uncovered pornographic and explicit videos, images and jokes in hundreds of emails while examining how state prosecutors under her predecessors handled the child sex abuse case against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Kane asked for the judge supervising the grand jury to authorize the release of what she said are a trove of additional pornographic and racially or religiously offensive emails. She says far more people are involved than previously disclosed.
Kane said the email scandal resulted in six firings, two resignations and 23 reprimands. They included state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, who abruptly resigned after his involvement was revealed.
"Today I'm calling for the whole story to come out," Kane said.
She also asked the state's disciplinary board to halt possible action to take away her law license, which would make her ineligible to hold office.
Kane has said she has no plans to quit her post or take a leave. She left the news conference after reading her prepared statement and declined to take questions.
No one answered the phone Wednesday at the chambers of the judge supervising the grand jury, William Carpenter. The Montgomery County prosecutors who brought the charges against Kane did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.