Harrisburg holding its breath over indecorous e-mails

HARRISBURG - It could be a ticking time bomb - or one that is never detonated.

Any day now, a state judge could lift an unusual stay he imposed late last month on state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane's office.

The judge's order blocked her office from releasing e-mails of current and former state employees - some sent over state-owned computers and accounts - that purportedly contain pornographic images, jokes, cartoons, and other private messages.

Many details about the e-mails are not publicly known: exactly who sent and received them, how often, and their contents.

But one thing is undisputed. Officials in Harrisburg's political and government circles are bracing for what could be an embarrassing outcome.

"People are panicked," said one veteran Republican strategist.

The e-mails were discovered during Kane's review into how her predecessors handled the Jerry Sandusky child sexual-abuse investigation between 2009 and 2011. Several news organizations, including The Inquirer, have asked to see them under the state's right-to-know law.

Last week, Kane's office declined to talk about the case, citing the judicial stay. Kane's spokeswoman, Renee Martin, would not say whether Kane, a Democrat, office has even made a final decision on whether the e-mails will be released if the stay is lifted.

"We can't discuss the matter," Martin said.

The Inquirer has reported that the e-mails circulated among scores of officials, from homicide investigators in the Attorney General's Office to state prosecutors and other officials, as well as top Pennsylvania jurists.

The e-mails were sent between 2009 and 2011. Gov. Corbett, a Republican, was attorney general until early 2011, when he became governor. He was succeeded by Linda Kelly, also a Republican.

There is no indication that Corbett received or was aware of the e-mail exchanges, according to people familiar with the matter.

Corbett spokesman Jay Pagni declined to discuss the matter last week. After an appearance before the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Corbett said he did not know about the e-mails when he was attorney general - and that if he had, he would have put a stop to the practice.

Kelly could not be reached for comment.

Kane also faces questions. Topping the list: Are the e-mails public records? And if so, what would her motive be for releasing them?

The latter has become a factor in a separate legal fight between Kane and predecessors in her office.

In that case, a judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Kane's office leaked secret grand jury information in an effort to discredit former prosecutors in the office who had been critical of her.

The Inquirer reported last week that some Kane critics contend her office is using the threat of their release as a way to silence criticism. One called it "sexual McCarthyism."

Kane's office has declined to discuss that leak investigation.

There is also the question of whether the e-mails are considered public records under the state's Right-to-Know law.

In an interview last week, Terry Mutchler, who runs the state's Office of Open Records, said the law defines a public record as any information that is created or received by a government agency in connection with that agency's transactions or business.

An argument can be made that e-mails of a personal nature, even if they are written on state computers and on state time, do not fall under that definition, said Mutchler, who has no jurisdiction over the attorney general's right-to-know process.

That doesn't mean there aren't ways to release the information, she said.

"There is the letter of the law and there is the spirit of the law," said Mutchler. "And the intent of the law has always been to allow the public to scrutinize the actions of its public officials."

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