NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CN) — After opting not to call any witnesses in the perjury trial of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, the defense team spent nearly two hours pushing jurors for an acquittal Monday morning.
"The evidence here is in the witnesses and the exhibits, and the evidence here does not follow what the prosecution claims about Ms. Kane," said Seth Farber, an attorney with the New York firm Winston & Strawn.
Prosecutors hope to show that Kane began leaking secret grand jury records during her second year in office after her reputation had been tarnished by a March 2014 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Over five days of trial last week, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele Attorney mounted witnesses to testify that Kane had blamed the article in the Inquirer on a leak by former state prosecutor Frank Fina.
Kane, the first woman and first Democrat ever elected to attorney general in Pennsylvania, is accused of engineering leaks of her own to exact political retribution.
Prosecutors say she arranged for the Philadelphia Daily News to receive secret grand jury materials intimating that Fina had fumbled a 2009 investigation of Philadelphia civil rights leader J. Whyatt Mondesire.
DA Steele pushed the two-hour mark in his closing as well, an argument he opened with the words "this is war" — a phrase he repeated and projected in capital letters on two large screens in the courtroom.
"These are her words," Steele said of Kane, telling jurors that the attorney general was vengeful and angry.
Telling the jury that Mondesire was a casualty of Kane's war, the prosecutor said Kane knew the statute of limitations protected the man.
But Kane knowingly bucked the law to make her point, Steele said, bellowing: "In our job, you may not release grand jury information."
Calling Kane "a liar," Steele said the jury has all the evidence it needs to find her guilty of abuse of power, false swearing, obstruction of justice and perjury.
"Don't forget how simple this case really is," Steele said. "She got secret information out and facilitated getting that done. That, ladies and gentlemen, makes her guilty of a crime."
Farber insisted this morning, however, that Kane did not want to "go to war" with anyone, and that her "anger was directed at the Inquirer, not at Fina."
With his closing argument stretching more than 90 minutes, Farber apologized to the jury for the lengthy summation but said he needed the time to put the evidence in "context." The jurors seemed restless in the morning, but the prosecution's closing arguments had them shifting in their seats as well.
Farber focused much of his argument on the testimony of Kane's former consultant Josh Morrow, who told the jury that he engineered a cover-up story with Kane about the leaks.
Morrow had said Kane asked him to deliver the leaked grand jury materials to the press, but Farber said the evidence does not tie Kane to any leak.
"There is no dispute that Kane wanted Morrow to get the press to write a story, but not to leak grand jury information," Farber said.
Farber told the court not to trust Morrow — "he lies about a lot of things."
Displaying a timeline on the courtroom screens, Steele told the court that Kane was excited for the article about Fina to run.
Beemer had said Kane was dismissive, saying, "Don't worry about, it's not a big deal, we have more important things to do."
