Kane Fires Another Staffer

George Moore told Kathleen Kane she should fire her controversial chief of staff. The chief of staff still has a job. Moore doesn’t.

Moore, a 16-year veteran of state government, was fired Wednesday from his job as Kane’s labor-relations coordinator. He told the Inquirer he believed he’d been terminated because he recommended the firing of Jonathan Duecker after two women reported Duecker had sexually harassed them.

“I would make the same recommendation over again,” Moore said Wednesday. He added: “I know I wasn’t fired for job performance.”

Chuck Ardo, Kane’s spokesman, declined to comment. “It’s a personnel issue,” he said.

PennLive points out that Kane is already under scrutiny for firing another staffer:

Kane herself is currently the subject of a criminal probe into allegations that she improperly leaked secret grand jury information in an attempt to embarrass some prosecutorial rivals who worked for her predecessors.

One leg of that investigation has to do with whether Kane fired a former chief deputy attorney general, James Barker, in retaliation for Barker’s testimony against Kane’s interests in a separate grand jury probe of the leak complaints.

“It is an appalling decision which will serve only to further depress morale and disrupt the business of the office,” one staff member, who asked not to be identified because of staff-wide fears of retaliation, said of Moore’s termination.

Moore’s lawyer said he is considering firing a wrongful termination suit.