Phill Kline Loses License for Prosecuting Planned Parenthood

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 14, 2011   |   10:51AM   |   Topeka, KS

A politically-charged panel in Kansas has stripped the law license of pro-life attorney and former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline for prosecuting the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

A professional ethics panel recommended Thursday that Kline has his law license indefinitely suspended because of his conduct during criminal investigations of the abortion business, claiming he was “motivated by dishonesty and selfishness.” The three member panel of the state Board for Discipline of Attorneys claimed Kline repeatedly misled officials or allowed his staffers to do so.

The panel weighed nine counts of alleged ethical violations before the Kansas Attorney Disciplinary Board in the politically-charged case that is a distraction from the 107 counts of wrongdoing, including 23 felonies, against a Johnson County, Kansas Planned Parenthood abortion center.

However, the panel also ruled that some of the charges did not constitute violations of the state’s rules for attorneys. The panel also did not recommend that Kline lose his law license — something state Disciplinary Administrator Stanton Hazlett wanted to have happen. Kline can now file an appeal to have his license reinstated.

Kline, in comments LifeNews received, said the panel “did what they were instructed to do.”

“This is the latest chapter of a Sebelius appointed court covering up for a Sebelius political benefactor in order to protect the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars,” he said. “The Sebelius court joined Planned Parenthood to file this complaint, appointed the prosecutor, appointed the panel and will make the final decision. ”

“Constitution was created to end such conduct.  The ethics process is being used to punish political opponents.  Even so, the dominant tragedy in this saga is that through my investigation it was learned hundreds of children were sexually abused in Kansas, and Kansas has still done nothing.  Nothing in the panel’s 185 page opinion can alter that truth,” Kline continued. “I upheld my duty, upheld my oath of office and the integrity of my profession.&nb sp; My ‘mistake’ was my willingness to investigate politically powerful people and to let that investigation go where the evidence led.  It is a decision, however, I would repeat and I will continue to speak and stand for the truth and for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

Kathy Ostrowski of Kansans for Life responded to the panel’s decision saying it is part of an attack on Kline similar to when “abortion clinics and counselors had sued then-Attorney General Phill Kline for issuing an opinion that clinics needed to report all pregnant minors to law enforcement agencies.”

“Under child protective law, all physicians, counselors & teachers were required to report children injured (now the word is “harmed”) by physical, mental, or emotional abuse or neglect, or sexual abuse,'” she explained. “Kline was aiming at prosecuting unreported statutory rape by adult predators, not ‘Romeo-Juliet’ pregnancy situation. For example during 2002-2003, 168 underage pregnant girls were aborted in Kansas but abortion clinics only reported two.”

“Now we come to the second entangled matter: Thursday’s 3-person panel issuance that Kline’s professional actions violated attorney standards,” Ostrowski said. “Notably, Kline is being punished by abortion defenders-in-high-places for daring to prosecute the abortion industry. The second charge of the panel is Kline’s supposedly deficient legal advice about abuse reporting to a grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood. In actuality, pro-abortion attorneys tried to confuse lay people on the jury about the Judge Marten injunctions in relation to subpoenas for clinic records.”

“Invading abortion privacy/secrecy has been the heart of Kline’s supposed “crime” as formulated by the abortion cartel, former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and “third wave” feminist–and state Supreme Court Justice– Carol Beier.  It is the Democrat appointees who now dominate the State Supreme Court, in control of the ethics action against Kline. Language in the ethics charges come straight out of abortion attorney filings,” she said.

Previously, Thomas Brejcha, the chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, came to Kline’s defense.

“Scrutinized, the merits of the disciplinary charges against Mr. Kline seem unusual, if not bizarre.  Citing Kline’s ‘strong personal anti-abortion beliefs’ as grounds for revoking his law license, as did Stanton A. Hazlett of the Kansas Office of Disciplinary Administration in his letter detailing the charges, seems a rather transparent attempt to destroy Mr. Kline personally on account of his beliefs and to intimidate anyone who stands in the way of the political goals of the pro-abortion movement,” he said.

He continued:

“To be sure, this trial of the former Kansas prosecutor bears more earmarks of a political vendetta than of any real concern about defective professional ethics.  On the merits, Mr. Hazlett’s disciplinary charges appear at best rather stretched and strained, as even Mr. Hazlett’s hand-picked investigators who combed Mr. Kline’s record over 18 months – S.  Lucky DeFries (Chairman of the Topeka Bar Association Ethics and Grievance Committee) and Mary Beth Mudrick (“the DeFries Report”) — reported, ‘After reviewing the substantial documentation in this case, it is the opinion of these investigators that there is not probable cause that Phill Kline violated any of the rules of ethics.’

If this isn’t enough to convince objective onlookers that something here is seriously amiss, consider the fact that three different Kansas trial judges made findings that contradict and negate the factual assertions that supposedly undergird each of the charges against Kline.  Indeed, these disciplinary allegations simply don’t hold any water.  They are unsupported in law or fact.

The plain truth is that former Attorney General Kline did have authority to investigate Planned Parenthood, informed the proper Judges of the investigation, and those Judges ruled that he had legitimate grounds to proceed.  Much of the relevant information was sealed by order of the Kansas Supreme Court and as a result much of the story has been obscured or distorted.  Kline’s opponents exploited the circumstances to generate public hysteria based on false information, all of which harmed the criminal investigation and unnecessarily frightened women and children. So, let the hearing now begin and let the chips fall where they may!  The whole truth will come out in the clear light of day.  To quote the late revered U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, ‘The best disinfectant is sunlight.’”