Finally, sort of. Last week former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline was brought before their State Supreme Court:
Whether former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline will keep his state law license is now in the hands of the Kansas Supreme Court.
An ethics complaint alleges Kline and his staff misled others during investigations of abortion providers. After a hearing Thursday, Kline denied the allegation.
"I will say that my office acted with integrity and with full compliance with ethical rules and the rules of law, and endeavored forthright in every instance," Kline said.
Full compliance with ethical and legal rules? That's not what Kansas's Board of Discipline of Attorneys thinks. Their three member panel is
seeking an indefinite suspension of his law license for repeatedly misleading others to further his investigations. Going even further, "The Disciplinary Administrator, a state agency that polices the conduct of Kansas lawyers, is asking the
Supreme Court panel to disbar Kline."
Among other things, Kline is accused of:
[trying] to identify women who were having abortions at Tiller's clinic by "staking out the clinic, following visitors and employees to their vehicles and recording automobile license plate numbers."
"Attempts were made to run the numbers through state agencies in order to identify the name of the driver," the complaint said.
The board also cited a subpoena for guest records of the La Quinta Inn, near Tiller's clinic, as another ploy to try to identify women traveling from out of town to have abortions.
The complaint also points to Kline's appearance on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly. Kline spoke about the contents of records obtained from the clinic, after the Kansas Supreme Court told him to "resist any impulse to further publicize the respective legal positions," the complaint said.
And:
Then former Kansas AG Phill Kline had his agents sequester in Topeka my sweetheart Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus, who was deceived into presenting unredacted patient files (under a false promise of confidentiality) and who was simultaneously placed under a gag order with the threat of immediate imprisonment if she disclosed Kline's draconian methods in obtaining her confidential patient medical files, which were literally ripped from her hands in his star chamber.
Of course, according to his lawyer,
Kline's disciplinary hearings has nothing to do with his abuse of power:
But Kline’s attorney, Tom Condit, suggested that the complaint wasn’t about how Kline practiced law but whom his investigation was targeting.
“I always smile when I hear judges, prosecutors and attorneys saying about a case, ‘This isn’t about abortion,’” said Condit, an Ohio attorney who has represented numerous clients in abortion-related cases.
“Let me tell you, folks, it’s always about abortion.”
Tom Condit is right of course, it
is all about abortion
to Kline and his politically motivated to shut down access to legal abortion providers in Kansas. Unfortunately we may have to wait months to see what the Kansas's Supreme Court decides.