A scandal is brewing in Pennsylvania involving a Democrat attorney general who declined to prosecute four Democrat state legislators caught on tape accepting bribes. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia never deemed a sting operation that targeted public corruption as too weak to prosecute, according to District Attorney Seth Williams and law enforcement sources familiar with the brief federal review of the investigation.

The sources and Williams say the prosecutors never came to a judgment about the investigation one way or another before the state attorney general asked them to halt their review.

Their statements echo a declaration by the Philadelphia office of the FBI, which said it made no judgment about whether the case was suitable for prosecution.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane has said "federal authorities" endorsed her view that the sting was fatally damaged. She has declined to identity (sic) the federal officials involved, saying they had asked for anonymity.

This is not going to end well for AG Kane. Philadelphia DA Williams has his own political ambitions. The First Street Journal notes:

…when The Philadelphia Inquirer goes after a Democrat for corruption in Pennsylvania, that Democrat is in some real trouble. When Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, a Democrat, attacks a Democrat state Attorney General who is rumored to have higher political ambitions, it tells you that Mr Williams might have those same ambitions himself.

Kane rocketed into statewide office with support from the Clinton machine. Salena Zito reported late last year:

In under a year, Kathleen Kane has gone from an unknown Lackawanna County assistant district attorney to the powerful position of the state’s attorney general. If you believe the gossip surrounding her, she is a prospective candidate for every elected office imaginable, including governor, U.S. senator and president.

When Kane, the wife of a wealthy Scranton businessman, ran for attorney general last year, she benefited from a Bill Clinton political score that needed to be settled. Her better-known, union-endorsed primary opponent, former Congressman Patrick Murphy, had done the unthinkable in 2008 and endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the state Democrat primary.

Clinton repaid that favor by fundraising, endorsing, cutting ads and bringing out the big guns for Kane over Murphy. He thereby reminded Pennsylvanians and Washington political-watchers that the Clinton machine still has big game in a big state — and that Kane was their girl.

Kane won and, ever since, has dabbled in the politically hot topics that secure wins in bigger Democrat primaries, issues such as gay marriage, climate change and big business.

First, despite her campaign promise to not act like a politician as attorney general, she announced this summer that she would not go to court to defend the state’s ban on gay marriage — even though her job is to defend state laws, regardless of her personal feelings or political ambitions.

Kane is looking like Eric Holder in her assertion of the right to veto her legal requirement to enforce the laws she has sworn to uphold.