When Phill Kline first became Attorney General, he decided to mislead state and county offices in order to persecute two Kansas abortion clinics, and his Assistant Attorney General, Stephen Maxwell, carried out that decision and lied to a lot of people to do it.
Or so the Kansas Supreme Court alleged today. Maxwell joined Kline in 2003 when he became AG. And he left for Johnson County in 2007, again following Kline. But when Kline graced us with his absence earlier this year, Maxwell stayed. I pity the residents of Reno County where Maxwell serves as Senior Assistant District Attorney.
Previously, the Kansas Supreme Court bitch-slapped Kline for not giving the court all the patient files he had. We knew this was coming because in February, Kline received a disciplinary letter for his part played in this kerfuffle.
Kline painted himself as a great crusader thwarted not by his own asshattery but by an unjust, horrible system bought by Dr. Tiller, Planned Parenthood, former Governor Kathleen Sebelius, the “liberal” media. And he still does. The fact is he never had any respect for the laws of Kansas he swore to uphold, the people of Kansas, or ethical integrity.
For those unaware, Kline decided he wasn’t going to actually be an attorney general. As early as April 2003, Kline called then Senior Deputy AG Eric Rucker and Special Agent Tom Williams to help “formulate a plan to target [Women's Health Care Services] and Dr. Tiller” according to the formal complaint. Maxwell, along with Williams, lied to the SRS, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and the Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Child Unit. Kline decided to overturn a 10-year opinion by a former AG that said cases of child abuse that result in pregnancy must be handled case-by-case. Kline made the blanket statement that all girls who are pregnant under the age of 16 are, by definition, abused and abortion clinics must report these cases. SRS was curious why Williams was asking for child sexual abuse cases, he told them it was for something else. Then he bragged about it in email to Rucker. Good going!
Once they had all these numbers, they noticed EMCU reported 1,700 more cases than SRS. So they went to Shawnee County Chief District Court Judge Richard Anderson. Maxwell had to say the SRS numbers were correct, though he knew they were not. He lied to the court too so that the SRS and KDHE would turn over their records. They then subpoenaed 90 files from Planned Parenthood in Kansas City and WHCS in Wichita. During all of this, they all said they were chasing after child sexual abuse cases. Yet 3/4 of the files they wanted were for adult women.
Kline wanted intact files, but after several court cases and injunctions, Planned Parenthood and WHCS were ordered to turn over files with confidential patient information redacted, though Maxwell once again lied to the court to receive them. Williams testified he knew of a 10-year-old girl from California who had received a late abortion from Dr. Tiller though the crime of rape was never reported. Maxwell argued to the court that the lack of a report was all Dr. Tiller’s fault. Even though Maxwell knew that not only had this case been reported but her rapist had been convicted by this time. That’s an amazing level of deceit.
But, oh, it gets worse. Once they received these files, they were allowed to make two copies and the originals had to be kept with the court. When Kline lost re-election to Paul Morrison (largely because of his bullshit crusade that found its way onto The O’Reilly Factor), he was ordered to return the files to the court for AG-Elect Morrison. Instead, they moved them to Maxwell’s garage. And then into his car for a couple of days before they went to Kinko’s and photocopied private medical records in public. And then they hung out on someone’s dining room table for 40 days until they were sent to Kline in his newly-appointed position of Johnson County District Attorney, a position he took over after Morrison left it to hand Kline’s ass to him in the election.
AND THEN when a grand jury asked for information concerning opinions and court rulings on that whole abuse of pregnant girls thing, the one that Kline made up just to harass Planned Parenthood, Dr. Tiller, and women (since he didn’t actually go after any abusers, just women’s medical records), Maxwell deliberately withheld information. The Grand Jury didn’t like this and refused a subpoena Kline requested. Take that!
Earlier this year, a set of the files ended up back in the Johnson County DA’s office because put the wrong address on the label when they were sending it to Kline at Liberty University. The stupidity just doesn’t stop!
Having Kline in office was a great boon to anti-abortion zealots in the state. Several groups, including Operation Rescue, used an old Kansas law that allows for a grand jury when enough people sign a petition. This meant Kline’s false allegations (as valid as Norma McCorvey’s claim Central Women’s Services followed standard operating procedure by disposing of fetuses in a garbage disposal; these are the people claiming Dr. Tiller enabled child rapists) didn’t need to be backed up before they saw a courtroom. He could use these to petitions to invade privacy and harass medical professionals conducting legal and ethical business within the law.
While in Bellevue, I overheard a newbie Anti telling a newspaper reporter part of the reason, in his estimate, Scott Roeder assassinated Dr. Tiller was because the charges brought against him earlier this year didn’t stick. Because Dr. Tiller didn’t break the law, Roeder killed him. This Anti was convinced it was Nola Foulston and other elected officials that drove Roeder to murder. It really, really wasn’t. It was people like Kline, Maxwell, Williams, Operation Rescue, and others who have no regard for the law that convince many people that they were wronged.
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