Pennsylvania's highest-ranking law enforcement officer on Thursday was charged with leaking secret grand jury information and lying about it under oath, the Associated Press reported.

Prosecutors say Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaked the material "in hopes of embarrassing and harming former state prosecutors she believed, without evidence, made her look bad." The 49-year-old Democrat has been charged with perjury, obstruction, conspiracy and other offenses.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman claimed that the indictment marked "a sad day for the citizens of Pennsylvania and a sad day for all of us in law enforcement." But "no one is above the law," the 50-year-old prosecutor insisted.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf asked Kane to resign, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted.

"I am calling on her to step aside, step down as attorney general, because I think she cannot do what she has to do as the top law enforcement officer in Pennsylvania while she's facing these serious charges," the governor said in remarks distributed by his office.

But the attorney general refused, insisting that following Wolf's request would amount to "an admission of guilt."

"I look forward to the opportunity to present my case in a public courtroom and move beyond the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that has defined the process to this point," Kane said in a statement. "Meanwhile, I remain committed to leading the Office of Attorney General and doing the job the citizens of this Commonwealth elected me to do."

The charges against Kane stem from a Philadelphia Daily News report published last year that made it look as if prosecutors botched a 2009 probe into whether a Philadelphia NAACP official misused state job-training grants, the AP recalled. Investigators accuse the attorney general of having leaked secret information in the case.

Kane is the second Pennsylvania attorney general to face an indictment in the last 20 years. Ernest Preate resigned as the commonwealth's chief law enforcement officer in 1995 and served a year in prison after he plead guilty to fraud related to a campaign contribution, the newswire recalled.