It was not that long ago that a lot of people believed Kathleen Kane was going to be the first female governor in Pennsylvania history.
Today she very likely will be a guest of the state - but not at the governor's mansion.
Instead Kane will be an inmate.
She is under order to report to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility to begin serving a 10- to 23-month prison term for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Kane was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party after becoming the first Democrat - and first women - ever elected attorney general, in effect the top law person in the Keystone State.
But her rise was followed by a cataclysmic fall, resulting in her being convicted of leaking grand jury material to make a political foe look bad. Even worse, the jury agreed with the prosecution's claim that she then lied about it before the grand jury.
Yesterday a judge rejected a plea from Kane for more time to get her things in order, in particular the care for her two teen sons. That's not a surprise. Kane was sentenced in 2016, but has been free on bail pending her appeals. When the state Supreme Court refused to take up her case, time was up. She had two years to get her things in order. Clearly Montgomery County Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy was not willing to hear any more arguments. She rejected Kane's final appeal in a terse, one-sentence decree. No hearing. No explanation.
Kane must report to prison by 9 a.m.
This all started with a story leaked to the press that made Kane look bad, detailing how she pulled the plug on a state probe of corruption by Democratic elected officials in Philadelphia.
Prosecutors say Kane exacted her revenge by doing a little leaking of her own in an attempt to smear a political enemy. In the process she unearthed a trove of pornographic emails that had been shared by a wide variety of people in government and legal circles. It cost several people their jobs.
Kane's career came crashing down when she was charged with leaking the confidential grand jury material, then lying about it on the stand.
The old saying is 'you do the time, you do the crime.'
But I have to admit I'm not sure what is accomplished by putting Kathleen Kane in jail.
If it stands as a warning to even one public official that their actions have consequences, I guess it's worth it.
For now, the Kane Scrutiny is over.
Kathleen Kane is going to jail
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