Not only is Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane an unmitigated disaster as an officeholder, she continues to shell out our hard-earned dollars to satisfy her insatiable need to play political intrigue and to take down her enemies in her final nine months in office. But must it be at our expense?

The only kind thing we can say about Kane is she had the good sense not to run for re-election this year. But she was thinking about it for a while.Kane has been charged in Montgomery County with leaking grand jury information to a Philadelphia newspaper. She insists she is innocent of the charge. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court suspended Kane's law license pending the outcome of the criminal case scheduled for August.You have the state's top law-enforcement prosecutor without a valid law license. Even Hollywood couldn't come up with something that bizarre.Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is considering initiating impeachment charges against Kane, although when she announced that she would not seek re-election, some House leaders suggested that they could save the cost of an expensive trial (by the state Senate) since she will be in office only until the end of this year.The latest fiasco is Kane's appointment of a second in command to oversee the administration and policy decisions within her office at a cost of $150,000 a year.The person she named to this unnecessary layer of bureaucracy is no stranger to controversy himself. It is none other than former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, who lost in a re-election bid last November. He was the one who cut a deal with comedian and former TV star Bill Cosby promising Cosby immunity if he would give a deposition in a civil suit. It turns out that the judge hearing the Cosby case considered Castor's pledge null and void and is allowing the prosecution - Castor's successor - to use Cosby's incriminating testimony in the ongoing criminal case.Why was such a high-paid "second in command" hired when First Deputy Bruce Beemer is already being paid to do the job in the attorney general's office? Now listen to the doublespeak uttered by Kane spokesman Chuck Ardo. Castor will serve as "second in command" to Kane, but he will not replace Beemer. Ardo also said in his statement that if Kane is removed from office, Beemer would be the one to replace her on an interim basis - all the more reason to question why we need Castor. Beemer makes $146,661 a year as first deputy.Beemer and several other top aides in the Attorney General's office testified against Kane in the criminal case, and they are expected to be called in her criminal trial scheduled for this August. This strikes us as the more likely reason why Kane retaliated with the appointment of Castor.As if to stick it to her Democratic colleagues many of whom have turned on her, Kane picked Castor, the Republican who lost to Democrat Kevin Steele - the person who is carrying on the prosecution of Kane in Montgomery County.In December, Kane announced that she was hiring Douglas Gansler, an out-of-state special prosecutor, to sift through about a million emails. Some of these might be pornographic and were sent and received by judges, attorneys and others in the state's employ. Gansler's job is to determine whether there is any criminal liability. This is part of the unsavory scandal known as the "Porngate" exchange, which has already ensnared two state Supreme Court justices - Seamus McCaffrey and Michael Eakin, both of whom retired as the noose was tightening. In addition, scores of employees in the Attorney General's office have been discharged or disciplined in connection with the scandal.On top of that, a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation disclosed earlier this year that two other State Supreme Court justices, Max Baer and Kevin Dougherty, were among many judges and court officials who received the same emails that a state ethics board said were offensive. According to the Inquirer's investigation, Baer received 10 of the emails, while Dougherty, who was elected to the high court in November and took office in January, received three of the emails when he was the head judge in Philadelphia's Family Court.The Gansler boondoggle could cost us taxpayers in the neighborhood of $2 million. This is a task that Kane's office was handling and should continue to handle, but there is not much love lost these days between Kane and the employees in her office.The expenses just mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a good chance that Gansler's appointment will be the subject of a court challenge, and the resulting costs won't be cheap.It's no secret that our state government is in a financial bind. According to Gov. Tom Wolf, the state will be $2.3 billion in the hole this year. Yet, we are likely going to be shelling out more than $2.2 million in unnecessary salaries, fees and other unnecessary costs, and for what - to satisfy an attorney general who is out for revenge and retribution against her real and perceived enemies? She appears to be willing to go to any lengths to play her misguided game of "gotcha." But does it have to be at the taxpayers' expense?Bruce Frassinelli | tnonline.com