Attorney For Pa. AG Kathleen Kane: These Charges Are Misplaced

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) --  The state case against Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane will go to trial.
A judge made the decision at Kane's second preliminary hearing on charges she leaked secret Grand Jury material -- then lied about it.

A preliminary hearing determines if there is enough evidence to take a case to trial, but these kinds of hearings are also good for getting deeper into the strategies on either side.

For example, her attorney Gerald Shargel told me that he feels this case is over a quote "honest mistake."
Phrasing we haven't heard before.

In 2009, Kathleen Kane was a stay-at-home mom, according to prior testimony read aloud before a Montgomery County Judge

Her defense says four years before she took office, Kane was not involved nor directly signed a vow of secrecy in the 2009 grand jury proceeding that she is accused of leaking information about later to the Daily News.

"As you in the courtroom saw we presented several exhibits that show the powerful evidence we have," Kevin Steele, Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney, says.

One major piece of evidence- an oath signed by Attorney General Kathleen Kane just three days after she was sworn into office in 2013,
where she vowed to protect state grand jury information past and present while in office.

Detectives found that as part of a search warrant executed in Harrisburg in September.

"I feel that these charges are misplaced. I feel that these charges overstate any conduct that she was involved in," Shargel says.

Her lawyers argued that the prosecution showed no evidence that Kane willfully lied under oath, but according to a judge, that debate can and will be had at trial.

So this brings up a very interesting question:

If Kathleen Kane signed this oath of secrecy and genuinely forgot about it, can the prosecution prove malicious intent?

We will all have to wait and see.

With a trial on the horizon, the story is long from over.