Former Agent Sues Kane

Attorney General Kathleen Kane walks from the State Supreme Court room, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, at City Hall in Philadelphia.

A former state undercover agent is suing Attorney General Kathleen Kane, saying she distorted his role in the infamous sting operation that caught Philadelphia Democrats accepting money and gifts from a confidential informant, the Inquirer reports.

Claude Thomas pretended to be the driver for Tyron Ali, the informant, and chauffeured Ali to meetings in a confiscated BMW. He takes offense at the reasons Kane offered for canceling the sting operation.

Inky:

Claude Thomas, who posed as the driver for the lobbyist turned operative in the sting, said Kane falsely told the public that he had said the operation had a racial agenda, targeting blacks and exempting whites.

Thomas notes in the suit that he is African American. He said Kane’s suggestion that he had taken part in a plan to go after blacks had damaged his reputation by portraying him as unethical, incompetent, and a “greedy sellout.”

He said it was part of a plot by Kane to “insidiously play the race card.” Her goal, the lawsuit says, was to shift public focus from her “having killed this public corruption sting operation even though her political allies had been caught virtually red-handed by Thomas.”

Thomas now works in the office of Philadelphia D.A. Seth Williams, which has prosecuted some of the cases Kane abandoned.