HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s attorney general said Monday that reports of a scuttled plan to add a new member to a body that presides over cases of judicial wrongdoing are evidence of an “old boy’s network” in the court system that she has railed against.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane called it “an affront to the concept of impartial justice” that is expected of the state Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Thomas Saylor said Sunday he nominated a woman to the Court of Judicial Discipline but pulled the nomination over questions about Justice Michael Eakin’s involvement in the appointment.

The Judicial Conduct Board is investigating and could bring a case against Eakin over his raunchy e-mails with friends, including an employee of the attorney general’s office.

Kane said people who have doubted her claims of an entrenched network should tell people “why they should have faith in the commonwealth’s judicial system when two Supreme Court justices show a callous willingness to rig the outcome of a case.”

Eakin lawyer Bill Costopoulos said Eakin did not know the nominee, former state Public Welfare Secretary Karen Snider.

“There’s a lot of character assassination at these opportunistic press conferences and unsupported news releases,” Costopoulos said. “I can tell you that I am a lawyer, and to fix a case you would think that Karen Snider would have to be in on it, which borders on the absurd.”

Kane’s written statement said the actions by Saylor and Eakin are “exactly the kind of cavalier, business as usual attitude that I threaten by exposing the ‘hategate’ network.”

Kane has released thousands of e-mails exchanged among employees of her office, lawyers, judges and, in some cases, Eakin. They range from juvenile humor and topless women to pornography and objectionable depictions of women, gays and African-Americans. She announced last week she was hiring a former Maryland attorney general to conduct a comprehensive review.