Attorney General Spends Millions on Outside Legal Counsel

Member Group : Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania

It recently came to light that Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office has spent over $1.5 million hiring private lawyers since 2013; this comes despite having 180 lawyers on staff. According to a Tribune-Review article:

"Though Kane and her aides won’t talk about hiring private lawyers – including a firm for which Kane worked – the office paid at least four firms nearly $1.5 million since she took over in January 2013, according to records that include some from the Treasury Department. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen a constitutional officer contract out its appeal for a decision within its own agency,’ said Terry Mutchler, director of the Office of Open Records, referring to attorney general, treasurer and auditor general…Nor has another row officer charged taxpayers for an outside lawyer to make an initial ruling, Mutchler said, as Kane did with a Trib request for sexually explicit emails shared by attorney general staffers from 2008 to 2012." (Emphasis added)

The Attorney General’s office is refusing to reveal to taxpayers the names of all of the private lawyers it has hired, making matters worse.

As noted in the Philadelphia Daily News, the refusal to name the lawyers is not without irony. Prior to speaking to a grand jury, which is said to be investigating her for leaking information, Kane stated: "The public has a right to know what public officials are doing or not doing with tax dollars."

We could not agree with her more. The public does have a right to know how our money is being spent. Now it’s time for Attorney General Kane to follow her own advice.

Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania (CAP) is a non-profit organization founded to raise the standard of living of all Pennsylvanians by restoring limited government, economic freedom, and personal responsibility. By empowering the Commonwealth’s employers and taxpayers to break state government’s "Iron Triangle" of career politicians, bureaucrats, and Big Government lobbyists, this restoration will occur and Pennsylvania will prosper.