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HARRISBURG — The top aide to Pennsylvania’s attorney general left the office Friday after four months on the job to join a Philadelphia law firm.
Blake Rutherford told agency employees it was his last day as chief of staff to Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
“I want to express my appreciation to General Kane for providing me with this opportunity and to all of you for your work on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania,” he told the staff. “It has been a privilege to serve, and I wish you the very best.”
Rutherford starts work next month at Cozen O’Connor, working for the law firm and its governmental relations operation.
The announcement comes three days after the state Supreme Court upheld the appointment of a special prosecutor who led a grand jury investigation into the leak of secret material to a newspaper.
The grand jury has recommended Kane be charged with perjury and other offenses, but any decision about charges is now in the hands of a suburban Philadelphia district attorney.
Kane has maintained she did not break any law, and details about the grand jury’s allegations, including its written report, have not been made public. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman said Wednesday she was reviewing the matter.
Kane released a statement Friday saying it was “a pleasure to have someone of Blake’s caliber serving the commonwealth as chief of staff at OAG. I congratulate Blake on his new position and wish him well in this endeavor.”
An agency spokesman said neither Rutherford nor Kane was available for interviews.
On Friday, two of the state’s largest news organizations published editorials that said Kane should resign, but her spokesman said that was not going to happen.
Pennlive.com in Harrisburg said her record in office had “too many questionable calls and too much unjustifiable controversy.” The Philadelphia Inquirer said it was hard to see how she could remain effective, given what the paper called “her repeated unspooling of corruption investigations and the looming possibility that she will be prosecuted herself.”
Kane’s lawyer Lanny Davis said she will not resign and repeated that she is innocent of what he described as politically motivated charges.
“It sadly appears that the same media that reports innuendo and anonymous leaks as if they were facts ignores the presumption of innocence,” Davis said. “Sources whispering in reporters’ ears is not evidence of anything other than cowards who won’t speak on the record and be accountable for their smears.”
In announcing Rutherford’s hiring in December, Kane said it was part of an office realignment designed to strengthen its operations.
Rutherford has worked for Mack McLarty in Arkansas, who once was a senior aide to President Bill Clinton, and Rutherford had been chief of staff to the attorney general in Arkansas. His wife, Jessica Dean, is a news anchor for KYW-TV, the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia.