Inquirer Editorial: Unseal the deal

Attorney General Kathleen Kane took office last year with experience, history, and vigor on her side. Even so, the first woman and first Democrat elected to the job had a lot to prove in a state that hasn't given much power to Democrats or women in recent years. Now Kane is facing her greatest test yet over her decision to drop an investigation that, according to Inquirer reports, caught five Democratic Philadelphia officials taking cash and jewelry from a wire-wearing informant. She should meet the challenge with full disclosure of the relevant facts and records.

Kane has charged that the probe was so badly bungled under her predecessors - Tom Corbett, now the governor, and his appointed successors - that she had no choice but to kill it. But she did have choices.

Two years before Kane was sworn in, prosecutors sent lobbyist Tyron B. Ali bearing gifts to legislators and a traffic judge who easily accepted them, according to documents obtained by The Inquirer. Just after Kane was elected but before she took office, prosecutors cut a deal with Ali to drop 2,088 charges against him in another case contingent on his truthful testimony against the politicians.

While leniency for informants is standard prosecutorial practice, Kane has said the deal went too easy on a man accused of defrauding a food program for the poor. But that makes it even harder to understand why she was the one who executed the deal about nine months into her term.

Kane's office has said Ali's attorney went to court and forced prosecutors to drop the charges. But that raises questions. How hard did she oppose dropping the charges? Was appealing the court's decision an option?

Kane also had options for addressing an imperfect investigation. Could the troubling evidence of politicians' willingness to take cash have been used to start a new probe?

Much of this could be cleared up if records related to Ali's deal are unsealed. More than a week ago, Kane's attorney said he planned to ask a judge to unseal them. To our knowledge, the records have yet to be unsealed.

Though their subordinates have spoken out, Kane's predecessors as attorney general have yet to offer their side of the story - and they should. But the current attorney general bears the greatest obligation to fully explain her decision to kill an investigation that, by her own account, revealed crimes.