The value of phone tap recordings like this to criminal investigators is that they are unrehearsed, and recorded at the time of an alleged crime. There’s little opportunity for someone like Morrow to rehearse a story, or say he can’t remember what happened.
Not long after the prosecution and defense rested Friday in the Kathleen Kane grand jury leak trial, court officials passed out a transcript of an FBI phone recording that had been played for jurors on Thursday.
Political consultant John Morrow with a Montgomery County detective (file photo)
The FBI recorded this conversation on April 22, 2014. It was the same evening prosecutors allege that Attorney General Kathleen Kane called Morrow to ask him to receive documents from her First Deputy, Adrian King.
The audio recording played for the jury was garbled — almost comically so. It sounded like something out of the Seinfeld Show, with pops and clicks, occasional gaps, and political consultant John Morrow seemingly using the word “like” multiple times in every sentence.
One reporter trying to understand what was being said on the recording joked in the courtroom, “If we can send a man to the moon, and we can have a recording studio on our iPhones, why can’t the FBI make a wiretap phone recording we can understand?”
Kathleen Kane leaves courthouse Thursday August 11
It’s a measure of how important this recording is to the prosecution’s case that court officials released this transcript.
The recording is of a phone conversation between Kane’s political consultant Morrow, and Morrow’s friend, fellow political consultant and former state official John Lisko.
Lisko was chief of staff to Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord, and the treasury’s chief financial officer. Lisko later left the treasurer’s office to manage McCord’s failed campaign for governor.
It would turn out that the FBI was investigating McCord for corruption, and McCord resigned from office. So with this phone call, prosecutors allege, the Kane case inadvertently got tied up in the fed’s McCord investigation.
Lisko apparently was cooperating with federal investigators. His phone was being tapped when Morrow called.
It was stunning bad luck for Morrow (and perhaps Kane and King) that he decided to call his friend and fellow politico Lisko on the night of April 22, to commiserate on a request he’d say had been made by Kathleen Kane only a few hours earlier.
Adrian King leaves courtroom (Pool photo by Clem Murray / Philadelphia Inquirer & Daily News)
“Kathleen called me today and she’s like, ‘Adrian has documents for you to leak out,'” Morrow says in the recording. “Why the fuck do I want to get in the middle of this?”
And, “Adrian’s like well ‘I’ll leave these between my screen door and my front door and you can pick them up and, like, redact names,’ and I’m, like, oh God.”
Consultant Morrow, jurors were told by the defense, had lied to three grand juries about these events in 2014 and 2015, saying that Kane had little to do with the leak of grand jury material to the Philadelphia Daily News.
This recording suggests otherwise.
The value of phone tap recordings like this to criminal investigators is that they are unrehearsed, and recorded at the time of an alleged crime. There’s little opportunity for someone like Morrow to rehearse a story, or say he can’t remember what happened.
To download a transcript of this recording click here.
To read an article about story of the recording click here.
_________
MONTGOMERY COUNTY DETECTIVE BUREAU
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN
JOHN MORROW AND JOHN LISKO
TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2014
9:00 PM
CASE# 2015-1173
Transcribed by: Detective Michael Begley
Proofed by: Investigator Charles Craig
Legend:
Cut 1837
PERTINENT TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
VERBATIM TRANSLATION
Participants
JM: Josh Morrow
JL: John Lisko
Abbreviation
(U /1): Unintelligible
(00:01)
(Phone Ringing)
JL: Yo.
JM: Yo, How’s it going?
JL: Good, what’s happening with you?
JM: Not much. Two things. One is, so Kathleen called me today and I want to get your advice on this, Kathleen called me today and she’s like Adrian has documents for you to leak out.
JL: (Laughing)
JM: You know and it’s all bullshit about like Frank Fina killing a Jerry Mondesire investigation and that you know Seth Williams wants this case because all those folks who were targeted are Seth Williams supporters and contributors.
JL: Huh.
JM: And sort of feel like, like I’m gonna, I’m not like, first of all you said I’m like a mere acquaintance.
JL: Right
JM: The fact that I had these documents sort of like challenges that and two, it’s like why the fuck do I want to get in the middle of this?
JL: Yeah, yeah.
JM: Right, Don’t you agree?
JL: That’s my biggest one it’s like, there is, there’s not going to be anything good that comes of that but.
JM: Yeah like even if I’m like the source it’s just like it just doesn’t work it for, in my advantage, no?
JL: I don’t think so, I mean I don’t know, I really don’t get why they want to do it.
JM: No, because Kathleen is like unhinged like she’s talking instead of having a strategy to do this, it’s like let me just throw everything on the wall and see what sticks.
JL: Yeah.
JM: You know like, I mean like, I was talking to Charlie Lyons this evening, he was like this doesn’t make any, like why you, like your like you’re a conflict on interest you have actual or fictional but you’re herconflict of interest and like now you’re the one like giving inside documents.
JL: Right, if anything, if anything it’s like proving that point.
JM: Right, Right you know when she like well go talk to Adrian, Adrian’s like well I’ll leave these between my screen door and my front door and you can pick them up and like redact names and like, I’m like oh God.
JL: Fuck that.
JM: Yeah I don’t really feel like that, she threw me under the bus.
JL: Well yeah.
JM: I mean she (U /I) protected me but, like …
JL: I just don’t see like it doesn’t ever make sense from a craft standpoint you know?
JM: Right if you got documents, you fucking leak them.
JL: Right right.
JM: Giving them to me isn’t asking the question like how you got the documents like the just beg the question like.
JL: So you are talking to her? (Laughing)
JM: (U/I). She called me tonight and she was like.
JL: No, no that’s what a reporter.
JM: Of course If I like, you’re a mere acquaintance like right it like if you really wanted me to do this you would have said you know you wouldn’t have said (U /I) (Static noise) she’s but just like she’s spreading shit everywhere.
JL: Well.
JM: And like and for me it’s like look let’s have a concise strategy before we do this stuff like, I’m fine like it’s like if the strategy is to leak these documents to a reporter and you want me to do it and this is like what the general strategy is fine like I’ll figure a way to do it that protects everybody. But like I don’t want to do this and then someone else is doing something else and like there is no like general strategy.
JL: Right.
JM: It makes no sense.
JL: They’re a little bit late on a figuring out what to do. (Laughing)
JM: Nah, she’s unhinged is what it is, she’s unhinged, like she is like, whoever she can talk … I’m surprised that Sadie Sterner isn’t getting calls.
JL: (Laughing)
JM: I’m sure Liz Randolph is getting calls
JL: (Laughing). She fucked that one up.
JM: Yeah.
JL: Yeah I just don’t see anything positive in it, I can perhaps get there like your saying, like a cohesive strategy with a goal of what their looking to do but.
JM: Right, Right, Right. Why like you can’t throw a bunch of shit on the wall and see what sticks.
JL: Right.
JM: I mean I’m not willing to that for in terms of like I don’t want to be the source for like junk that then comes back you know on my ass.
JL: Right, right.
JM: You know like I, but.
JL: Yeah, Yeah that’s what I would do at least. I just don’t see any even a remotely the positive for you.
JM: Yeah.
JL: Mostly again, mostly in parts to how she handled it to date.
JM: Well yeah.
JL: I mean this is the type of shit that makes me think like you know I mean like there I’ve yeah. (Static noise) …. yeah.
JM: Like we as a collective team immediately you know like came together and figured out a strategy and like beat it back and then with this stuff it’s like Kathleen just not here’s been no cohesive strategy.
JL: Yeah, yeah.
JM: You know.
(Transcript Ends)
(05:32)
