From The Bulletin:

Mr. Corbett cited the expiration of Pennsylvania’s Independent Counsel Authorization Act in 2003 as making it legally impossible for the appointment of a special prosecutor in Bonusgate.

But the Democrat contradicted the Corbett statement by citing several cases from the mid-1990s for which he said Pennsylvania law “recognized the express power of the attorney general to appoint special investigative counsel or special deputy attorney generals” to avoid a conflict of interest on the part of the attorney general.

Mr. Morganelli stated that he himself was appointed by Mr. Corbett to act as a Special Deputy Attorney General in 1996 and 1997 due to such conflicts on the part of Mr. Corbett. “This was before the passage of the ‘Independent Counsel Authorization Act’ which Corbett now contends is necessary to give him such authority,” Mr. Morganelli said.

Kevin Harley, spokesman for the attorney General, rebutted Mr. Morganelli’s assertions as baseless, stating that there is simply no legal authority in Pennsylvania to appoint a special prosecutor. ”

Morganelli doesn’t know his facts,” he said. “John doesn’t know the difference between an ‘Independent Counsel,’ which is not authorized under state law, and a ‘special deputy attorney general,’ which is the position he was appointed to in the 1990s.”

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