THE "PORK" IN NEW YORK, Thoughts of an older American on Constitutional Government in the USA Options

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

"A Question Of Timing (Updated)"

AG Andrew Cuomo's report leaves a lot of questions unanswered - whether Gov. Eliot Spitzer himself was interviewed during the investigation, for example, is a question a Cuomo spokesman refused to answer, insisting the report "speaks for itself."

One thing is certain, however: The timing of the report's release couldn't be worse from a PR standpoint.

"If you have to release something like this, from a public relations point of view, you want it on a Friday afternoon," said George Arzt, a political communications veteran.

"It's now Monday."

"People will be writing this all week, and that's where the damage comes in."

In addition, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is likely to do his best to keep the story alive.

Bruno's handlers are keeping him away from the media today, which a good move from his standpoint, but a horrible one for Spitzer.

Whenever the majority leader decides to speak - a moment that will inevtiably be referred to in news stories as his "first public comments" on the topic - it will make headlines.

And a story that the Spitzer administration desperately needs to put to rest will be kept alive for another day.

Assume, for argument's sake, that Bruno says something about not believing that Spitzer didn't know what his communications director and assistant secretary for homeland security were up to.

In that case, this story could have very long legs.

Arzt, who was former Mayor Ed Koch's press secretary for three years, said it's plausible that Spitzer didn't know all the details, since principals are often kept in the dark by staffers so they can think big thoughts - that's part of what delegating is all about.

Nevertheless, it's going to be "very difficult" for the governor to get back on track, Arzt said.

"I think he's got to make some real changes and start getting things said," said Arzt, who worked for Spitzer's successful 1998 AG campaign.

"He's got to start moving a lot of the economic development stuff."

"The West Side stuff, upstate."

"If he does those things, people will have forgotten (by the next election)."

UPDATE: Spitzer spokeswoman told the DN that the governor was never questioned by the AG's office, neither in person nor in writing.

Posted by Elizabeth Benjamin on July 23, 2007 4:14 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._of_timing.html

[Livyjr]

"Report: Governor's office compiled, leaked data on Bruno"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:23 p.m., Monday, July 23, 2007

ALBANY -- Two top aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer plotted to discredit Republican rival Joseph Bruno by using the state police to recreate and release to a newspaper records that tracked the Senate majority leader's whereabouts, according to an investigative report released Monday.

Spitzer immediately suspended his longtime top media spokesman, Darren Dopp, and reassigned the other, homeland and public security chief William Howard, following Monday's report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

The report found Dopp and Howard, with the direct, unprecedented assistance of state Deputy Superintendent Preston Felton, conspired to release politically damaging information about Bruno's use of state aircraft, including trips that included political fundraisers.

No one was accused of violating the law, but the report found policies designed to protect public officials' safety were broken for political gain.

Spitzer said he knew nothing of the operation.

"Clearly this was not part of a broader package," Spitzer said.

"I will not tolerate this behavior ..."

"I apologize to Sen. Bruno, as I did earlier today," Spitzer told reporters.

"I apologize to the people of the state of New York."

The report is a blow to Spitzer, who was elected in November largely on the strength of his pledge to rid Albany of the corruption and political infighting that led to gridlock and tarnished its reputation nationwide.

He won with a record share of the vote and was still enjoying high ratings in public opinion polls when, according to the Cuomo report, the scheme against Bruno was being hatched.

When the scandal erupted earlier this month, Spitzer said he believed Dopp and Howard were simply responding to a state Freedom of Information Law request for records by a newspaper.

On Monday, however, the governor said he accepts the version of events spelled out in the Cuomo report, including a conclusion that the records against Bruno were being compiled before any Freedom of Information request was filed and that staff used the "pretext" of a media request to make it public.

Howard "caused the acting superintendent of the state police to create documents detailing where the state police had driven Sen. Bruno, and report details of Sen. Bruno's requests for ground transportation, upcoming schedules, and changes to those schedules," the report said.

"This conduct deviated from state police standard operating procedures and past practices, and was not required by FOIL."

The report said the records were created "without considering any potential for security concerns" for Bruno, the 78-year-old head of the state Republican party who has said he required state police transportation because of death threats in past years made against him.

"The past policy of the state police was to limit FOIL requests for full schedules to protect the security of public officials."

"The current policy appears to still limit disclosure of the governor and lieutenant governor's full travel itinerary so as to protect their security and privacy," the report stated.

One passage in the Cuomo report says that on May 23, Dopp wrote Rich Baum, a senior Spitzer adviser, that "records exist going way back" about Bruno's use of state aircraft on trips that included political fundraisers.

"Also, I think there is a new and different way to proceed re media."

"Will explain tomorrow."

Dopp then wrote another e-mail to Baum after a story in the Albany Times Union about a federal grand jury investigating Bruno's investments in thoroughbred horses, the report states.

Dopp wrote: "Think travel story would fit nicely in the mix."

Later that day, Howard wrote an e-mail to Baum:

"The impending travel stuff implies more problems -- particularly in the tax area I think."

"I think timing right for that move."

The first FOIL request was filed by the Times Union on June 27.

Cuomo concluded: "These e-mails show that persons in the governor's office did not merely produce records under a FOIL request, but were instead engaged in planning and producing media coverage concerning Sen. Bruno's travel on state aircraft before any FOIL request was made."

Spitzer said Baum, secretary to the governor, wasn't part of the effort and he expects to take no action against him.

Dopp was part of Spitzer's senior team during Spitzer's eight years as attorney general where he forced reforms of unethical behavior on Wall Street.

Spitzer had often subpoenaed internal e-mails to show conspiracies in companies.

"Wowee," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and a former New York political reporter.

"You have to give Spitzer marks for being smart on this (by disciplining Dopp and Howard) -- to get it done with ... not too many politicians have sense enough to do that, Richard Nixon being the prime example."

He said, however, it's hard to predict whether the public will accept Spitzer's statement that the operation went no higher than Dopp and Howard.

One thing is clear: Cuomo, the ambitious one-time candidate for governor, scored big.

"Boy, oh boy, Andrew Cuomo, one-time partisan, suddenly turns up as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval in Albany," Carroll said.

"Andrew Cuomo looks very good on this one."

Bruno had accused Spitzer's office of political espionage using state police to track his movements on trips to New York on the days of Republican fundraisers.

"We will thoroughly review the report's disturbing conclusions regarding the activities of the governor's staff and the acting superintendent of the state police before commenting any further," Bruno said.

The report found Bruno's use of the state aircraft was appropriate under a state policy that "is overly permissive and porous and allows for an abuse of taxpayer funds."

"We find that Sen. Bruno used state aircraft for trips during which he conducted both legislative business as well as political or personal business," the report stated.

"We further find that such mixed usage is permissible under existing New York state policy."

The decision is shared by Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares and the state Inspector General's Office, which also reviewed Bruno's use of state aircraft.

Spitzer took no action against Felton, the acting state police superintendent who has been in line to head the state police.

The report portrayed Felton as a cooperative assistant, carrying out the plan that violates a critical tradition to keep politics out of the powerful police agency.

"The superintendent's personal handling of the matter appears to have been unprecedented in state police history," according to the report, which included testimony from past superintendents.

"Capt. Robert Kreppein of the Aviation Unit of the state police testified that, on May 31, 2007, he received a call from the superintendent requesting executive flight information for Sen. Bruno and the governor (from) April 2007," according to the report.

"Shortly afterwards, the superintendent called back to request the same kind of information for May 2007."

"Kreppein asked the Superintendent, `What are we doing?'"

The superintendent replied, according to Kreppein, that he "`wasn't able to discuss that with me.'"

"'Just to get the documents and to send them over to his office, which we did.'"

Kreppein had never before had a request from a superintendent of this type of information."

Felton said Monday that he didn't realize he was part of a political scheme.

"I have never, in my 26-year career with the state police, knowingly undertaken any such action and never would" Felton said in a written statement.

"To the extent that circumstances previously not known to me have now given rise to that appearance, I am particularly saddened."

[Livyjr]

"Senate seeks more investigation of Spitzer scandal"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:23 p.m., Tuesday, July 24, 2007

ALBANY -- Months of hearings and investigations into the Spitzer administration's use of the state police to damage the governor's biggest political foe could threaten to sideline several major policy agreements that only a week ago seemed sure things.

Tax breaks for older New Yorkers, construction projects around the state and campaign finance reform are some of the issues that could get frozen by the scandal that erupted Monday when Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said two top Spitzer aides conspired to smear Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

Already, Senate Republicans are asking for committee investigations that could include subpoenas of high-ranking Spitzer staff.

"The investigations committee should try to get answers to some of the questions the public is pondering, like how far up the chain of command this goes," said Sen. Dean Skelos, a Long Island Republican.

He said the Legislature needs to investigate the Democratic administration despite the report prepared by Cuomo, also a Democrat, and the state Inspector General's Office, headed by a Spitzer appointee.

Another investigation, by Albany County District Attorney David Soares, determined no laws were broken.

"I said to Joe (Bruno), we have got to put what happened in the past behind us," Spitzer said in Buffalo.

"I apologized, but let's move forward."

The report triggered swift action by Spitzer against the aides, who Cuomo said plotted to use the state police to track Bruno when he used state aircraft and state police ground escorts on days he attended Republican fundraisers.

The trips were found to be legal under state law since Bruno also did official state business on those days.

The report said Communications Director Darren Dopp and No. 2 homeland security aide William Howard sought records on Bruno's travel.

If the records didn't exist, they asked troopers to recreate them from memory.

They were then going to turn them over to a newspaper reporter and embarrass Bruno, according to Cuomo's report.

Spitzer, who has worked to cut into the Republicans' majority in the Senate, said he knew nothing of the conspiracy and his aides misled him.

He suspended Dopp indefinitely without pay and reassigned Howard outside the administration but didn't say where he would work.

But Skelos notes Cuomo's investigators apparently never questioned Spitzer or a top aide mentioned in the report, Secretary to the Gov. Rich Baum, who received two e-mails related to the plot.

Cuomo's report doesn't show any e-mail responses or testimony by Baum or Spitzer among the "dozens of witnesses" interviewed.

Cuomo spokesman Jeffrey Lerner said Spitzer's counsel provided the e-mails and that Baum and Dopp refused requests to be interviewed.

Dopp, however, supplied a sworn written statement.

Lerner said investigators didn't request to speak with Spitzer or Bruno because Cuomo's team didn't have evidence of criminal or improper activity by them.

Dopp and Howard had no immediate comment.

"My sense of the governor's management style of the past is that it went further up the chain of command than the report indicates," Skelos said.

"That's where the investigation committees should go."

"I did not, would not tolerate that activity," Spitzer said, adding that he doesn't track news stories being written or reporters' requests for documents.

"I'm running a state government with 190,000 people, a budget of $125 billion dollars."

"We work on doing the people's business."

Legislative investigations can take months and include public questioning of subpoenaed witnesses.

The Senate Republicans have a stake in making time stand still on the issue that Bruno on Tuesday called "this still unfolding situation."

But Spitzer is trying to move forward on some major agreements announced last week and on the economic revitalization issues that won him a record share of the vote in November.

For example, Spitzer was in Buffalo on Tuesday announcing economic revival initiatives.

"The Eliot Spitzer brand was cleaner than clean, whiter than white, and now it's been sullied," said Michael W. Robinson, senior vice president of Levick Strategic Communications, a Washington-based company that deals in political crisis management.

"When you say you're going to be Caesar's wife and you turn out to be Brutus, you have a problem."

Spitzer's reputation as a hands-on, 18-hour-a-day manager may also become an issue, with the governor insisting he didn't know of the political plot, Robinson said.

In a political crisis, he advises officials to say nothing that would dig them deeper -- nothing adversarial or arrogant -- and then "move away from this."

"Find something, a piece of legislation or something, and reach across the aisle and be harmonious."

In Albany, though, Spitzer has already angered many in the Legislature -- Republicans and Democrats -- as he battled "the status quo" of a body held in low regard by the public.

On the other side, Senate Republicans can't appear to be halting government to rub the scandal in Spitzer's face, either, Robinson said.

"But politicians are politicians, and if they see an opening they are going to take it," he said.

"This is not going to go away overnight."

Bruno said it was "imperative" to move forward with doing the business of government but took a sharp swipe at Spitzer, saying no other governor had so politicized the office.

"On many occasions, I have questioned whether the governor has the appropriate temperament to lead our state," Bruno said in a prepared statement.

"I have also questioned where his priorities lie and whether he and his aides have the ability to govern and leave politics aside."

The scandal may not get endless play, cautioned Professor Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Although New York tabloid headlines screamed "Eliot Mess" and "All the Gov.'s Men" on Tuesday, the interest was muted outside New York City and Albany.

"I don't see the same cataclysmic reaction everyone else apparently has," Benjamin said.

"The moral authority of the governor is compromised in the short term, but the governor ends up saying, `Look, I did what I had to do'" to two close aides, he said.

"The governor benefits from being able to follow up."

"But it's bad that it happened now, because it's a sensitive time with the agreements they just reached."

The first is an approval for a New York City congestion pricing plan that could bring $500 million in federal funds to the city.

The deal that includes charging drivers tolls to reduce traffic in Manhattan took days of intense, almost round-the-clock negotiations led by Spitzer.

The Legislature is still scheduled to vote to approve the plan Thursday in a special session.

Bruno supports the measure.

Some Republican senators, however, see a governor weakened by scandal and are rethinking their votes to try to pass some of their own priorities, including a $200 million senior citizen tax break, $300 million in proposed capital projects in districts back home, and pay raises for lawmakers and judges.

All of them need Spitzer's approval and all are tied to Spitzer's priority of campaign finance reform.

"The dynamics are going to change significantly," said Republican Sen. Thomas Libous of Broome County.

"First of all, if I was the governor I'm not going to be much of a steamroller and I'd try to get this behind me."

"One of the ways may be to work with the Legislature."

"I don't think there is a deal on anything until it's passed," Libous said.

"It begins a whole mistrust issue among the executive and the Legislature and certainly what was done was wrong."

"It could take years if ever to build the trust again," he said.

------

AP Writer Carolyn Thompson contributed to this report from Buffalo.

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"AG stings Gov in frame game - Spitz apologizes after report says aides used police to target Bruno"

By JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 4:00 AM

ALBANY - A blistering report by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo charged yesterday that top aides to Gov. Spitzer improperly used the state police to plant an embarrassing story on Senate GOP Leader Joe Bruno.

Spitzer suspended without pay his communications director, Darren Dopp - a close, longtime aide - and reassigned homeland security official Bill Howard for their roles in the dirty tricks.

Cuomo's findings were a shocking turn in the raging feud between the governor, who rode into Albany promising to clean up the town, and the lawmaker he has derided as a relic of old-style politics.

A grim-faced Spitzer said he accepted the findings without question and had telephoned Bruno to tell him, "I apologize."

"... This is unacceptable."

He also apologized to New Yorkers for his staff's "clear lapses in judgment" in misusing state police, calling the inquiry into Bruno's travels on state aircraft "grossly mismanaged" and unethical.

"They should never have been put in this situation," he said of the troopers, who were asked to gather details about Bruno's travels so they could be fed to the Albany Times Union for a story about the senator using state aircraft for political trips.

Spitzer said he knew nothing of the operation.

Investigators did not question him.

"I thought we were responding to appropriate media inquiries, and I stand by that, because that is the absolute truth," he told reporters at the Capitol.

The report does not say if any of Spitzer's aides were quizzed about whether the governor knew about the plot, nor whether Cuomo reached a conclusion - one way or another - about whether Spitzer was in the loop.

Cuomo's office batted away the question.

"We believe the findings of fact in the report speak for themselves," spokesman Jeffrey Lerner said.

Bruno's response to the report amounted to an "I told you so," saying the Cuomo investigation concluded his travels were "completely appropriate."

In fact, the report said his travels to New York City aboard state choppers didn't break any rules because he always mixed at least some legislative business on his trips.

The guidelines should be tightened, the report said.

The report did not allege the plotters broke any laws but was harshly critical of their ethical and security lapses.

Republicans were gleeful to see Spitzer on defense and demanded further investigation.

"This disturbing abuse of power by a governor is unprecedented," said state Republican Party boss Joseph Mondello.

"The public needs to know when Gov. Spitzer was aware of this blatant setup attempt and what the governor's role was in its execution."

The plot to smear Bruno began in May, when Dopp e-mailed Richard Baum, who as secretary to the governor is Spitzer's highest ranking cabinet member, saying he had come up with "a new and different way to proceed re media," the report said.

On June 3, Dopp e-mailed Baum about a news story detailing a federal probe into Bruno's involvement in horse racing.

"Think a travel story would fit nicely in the mix."

The "pretext" for gathering the information was a request under the Freedom of Information Law by the Albany Times Union - but that request wasn't made until June 27.

Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton was pressured to produce and recreate documents by Howard, a top homeland security adviser and Spitzer's liaison to the state police.

Felton said he was told there was a FOIL request and is quoted in the report saying he'd be "shocked" and "very, very p----d off" if it turned out there was not.

The report notes that Felton was vulnerable to pressure because he had not yet been named permanent superintendent, but questioned why he gathered the information himself.

"The Superintendent's personal handling of the matter appears to have been unprecedented in State Police history," the report said, noting that past state police heads said they wouldn't have done so.

Besides suspending Dopp, Spitzer reassigned Howard to an unspecified agency.

The governor defended Felton as a "fine individual" who was "put in an untenable position" though he stressed his administration will continue its search for a permanent superintendent.

jmahoney@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/07/24...frame_game.html

[Livyjr]

"Bruno wants Gov. probe"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 3:27 p.m., Wednesday, July 25, 2007

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno today said he wants an investigation into the role Gov. Eliot Spitzer may have played in having state police keep records of the Senator's travels in New York City.

Terming the creation of records tracking Bruno's trips to New York City a case of "political espionage,'' as well as "the use and the abuse of public resources, the State Police,'' Bruno said his Senate Investigations Committee as well as the State Commission on Investigations, may soon launch inquiries.

The Brunswick Republican added that he is confident the Senate Committee, if it deems necessary, could subpoena Spitzer and others, forcing them to testify about the use of State Police.

"I am fully confident that we have subpoena powers and that we can subpoena the governor, anybody,'' he said.

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson, however, said she believed Senate hearings would be a "waste of state taxpayer dollars,'' because as far as they are concerned, this episode has ended with the report that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released Monday.

That report concluded that no laws were broken but that the governor's staff had misused State Police in getting them to create a record of Bruno's travels in New York City earlier this year.

Two of Democratic governor's top advisors, Richard Baum and Communications Director Darren Dopp, who has since been suspended, refused to give sworn testimony to the AG's investigators.

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

"Spitzer Pushback"

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's press secretary, Christine Anderson, who appears to be in charge now that her boss, Communications Director Darren Dopp has been suspended - perhaps indefinitely - released a statement on the heels of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's press conference that deemed the call for Senate hearings on the scandal "unfounded."

The discussion of this topic "serves only to distract state government from the people's business that must move forward," Anderson said, adding later: "Any new Senate hearings on this issue would be a complete waste of state taxpayer dollars for purely partisan and political purposes."

STATE OF NEW YORK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
EXECUTIVE CHAMBER
July 25, 2007
ELIOT SPITZER, GOVERNOR

CONTACT: Christine Anderson
canderson@chamber.state.ny.us
212.681.4640
518.474.8418

STATEMENT OF PRESS SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNOR CHRISTINE ANDERSON REGARDING POTENTIAL FOR SENATE HEARINGS

The suggestion by some state Senators that there is a need for Senate hearings on this issue is unfounded and serves only to distract state government from the people’s business that must move forward.

Two independent investigatory entities – the State Attorney General’s Office and the State Inspector General’s Office – just completed comprehensive reviews of the allegation that Senator Bruno had been “surveilled.”

Both investigations concluded that no “surveillance” or criminal or civil illegal conduct had occurred.

Senator Bruno himself termed the Attorney General’s investigation “thorough and comprehensive,” saying it reflected “a professional and independent investigation” and that the people of this state should be proud to have an Attorney General who can conduct a “fair and thorough investigation.”

Yet despite these recent statements, the State Senate, a legislative body, is now discussing a plan to substitute a partisan investigation for the thorough analysis and conclusions of two established investigative agencies.

The Governor has accepted the conclusions of these investigations and responded immediately with sanctions on those responsible for the serious lapses of judgment cited.

The Governor also called for an immediate review of the policies concerning the use of state aircraft and vehicles, the handling of Freedom of Information Law requests, and ways to ensure the independence of the State Police force.

As a result, any new Senate hearings on this same issue would be a complete waste of State taxpayer dollars for purely partisan and political purposes.

Moreover, the State Senate lacks the constitutional authority to conduct investigatory hearings into the internal operations of the Governor’s Office.

We hope to continue to work closely with both the Senate and the Assembly on moving forward with the people’s business.

Posted by Elizabeth Benjamin on July 25, 2007 12:59 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...er_pusback.html

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Making Bruno look good"

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 4:00 AM

Editorial

Only in Albany, where deviancy has been defined virtually down and out of existence, can an amateurish, ill-conceived, ham-handed attempt to reveal a high public official's abuse of the taxpayers wind up being counted as far more serious than the abuse itself.

So it goes as Eliot Spitzer discovers - to his naive surprise - that you can be smart, which he certainly is, and right, which he often is, without also being wise in how you go about advancing your causes.

In fact, you can be pig-headedly, self-righteously dumb.

From his vaunted Day One, the governor has been to the Legislature what a virus is to the human body: a foreign life form that is to be surrounded and devoured.

And right now, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is eating Spitzer alive, thanks to deviousness by gubernatorial aides that amounted to an abuse of power.

Plotting to reveal that Bruno was using a state helicopter and state police drivers as a livery service without having their fingerprints on the disclosure, the Spitzer crew concocted a false cover story and created the appearance of using the Division of State Police for political purposes.

It wasn't illegal, but it was improper.

This is all according to a report by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who identified the perpetrators as Darren Dopp, Spitzer's longtime communications director, and William Howard, an assistant deputy secretary for homeland security - with fumbling help from Acting Police Superintendent Preston Felton.

Cuomo did not implicate Spitzer - but, then again, showing no greater wisdom than his fellow Democrat - Cuomo did not interview Spitzer as part of the investigation, either.

What the governor knew and did, or didn't know or didn't do, is left to the imagination.

And that's not just self-righteously dumb; it's dangerous.

For his part, Spitzer said he was appalled, and he apologized to Bruno.

But he wasn't sufficiently appalled to fire Dopp and Howard, a step that would have certified that he is serious about the high ethical standards that he has promised the public and is demanding of others.

What's happening here is that Spitzer is frittering away the moral authority that the voters hoped for when they elected him in a landslide to clean up Albany.

In the best light, he allowed the reform quest to be undercut by overzealous aides.

Less flatteringly, having long worked with Spitzer, Dopp was primed to cross lines in trying to zap Bruno, whether he was told to or not.

However it went down, having won few victories to this point, Spitzer resumes the battle weakened while Bruno emerges the stronger, despite having exploited porous rules to fly to political events at taxpayer expense.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/0..._look_good.html

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"E-gregious mistake - Team Eliot, which used Net to nab Wall St. crooks, caught in own Web"

BY HELEN KENNEDY

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 4:00 AM

For political skulduggery, the scheme laid out in Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's report yesterday was strictly amateur hour.

The governor's men - whose boss gained fame taking down deceitful Wall Street analysts with their own e-mails - got caught in the Net themselves.

Gov. Spitzer's crew began e-mailing each other about gathering itineraries and schedules documenting Joe Bruno's travel - information they would later claim was released because reporters asked for it - more than a month before the first actual media request July 1.

Spitzer Communications Director Darren Dopp sent a May 23 e-mail to the Secretary to the Governor Richard Baum, musing about the Senate Republican leader's travels and "a new and different way to proceed re media."

On June 3, Dopp e-mailed Baum about Bruno's troubles with a federal grand jury saying, "Think a travel story would fit nicely in the mix."

One of the most damaging e-mails - not because of what it said but what the report said it illuminated - was sent May 21 from Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton to homeland security official Bill Howard, who acted as a liaison to state police, asking whether he should keep approving travel for Bruno.

"Howard could have stopped the provision of ground transportation," the report says.

"Instead, Howard allowed the trip to proceed, collecting records and information all the while, until he had a mass of information he thought would lead to an explosive story."

If Dopp needed a reminder of how e-mails can come back and bite you, he just had to look at the press releases he put out for Spitzer as attorney general.

Spitzer famously used subpoenaed e-mails to take down Wall Street analysts like Citigroup's Jack Grubman and Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget for publicly hyping stocks they were bashing in private.

hkennedy@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/07/24...us_mistake.html

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Et tu, Bruno? He's likely to hit back hard"

BY JOE MAHONEY
DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 4:00 AM

Sen. Joe Bruno has new life in his feud with Gov. Spitzer after a report by the attorney general finds Spitzer's aides improperly used state police.

Senate GOP leader Joe Bruno is likely to swing back hard at Gov. Spitzer, taking advantage of the cloud hanging over the administration, Republican activists said last night.

"You don't pick a fight with Boxcar Joe and expect he's not going to hit back," a GOP strategist close to New York's top Republican said.

Bruno, 78, gave little hint of what his next move would be - though he crowed he was right all along when he declared himself the target of a political plot.

"The attorney general's report confirmed what I have said all along, that my use of the state helicopter was completely appropriate and within all the existing rules and guidelines for its use," Bruno said.

But he was a little coy about the report's findings on the conduct of certain key Spitzer aides - including Communications Director Darren Dopp.

"We will thoroughly review the report's disturbing conclusions regarding the activities of the governor's staff ... before commenting any further," Bruno said.

A source close to Senate Republicans said it is likely Spitzer, 48, and his elderly father, Bernard, will be subpoenaed before a legislative panel looking into a questionable loan the governor got from his dad to aid his 1998 run for state attorney general.

"I don't think the other shoe has dropped yet," the source said.

"One door closes and another is opening."

A top lieutenant to Bruno, state Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) said Spitzer faces a credibility gap in claiming he knew nothing of the conspiracy to defame Bruno.

"Those people did not act on their own," said Golden, whose statements often reflect Bruno's thinking.

"They did what they did on orders from the inner circle."

jmahoney@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/07/24..._back_hard.html

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Analysis - Gov's steamroller hits roadblock"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN

DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 4:00 AM

The wheels came off Gov. Spitzer's reform "steamroller" yesterday with the revelation that his top aides ran a dirty-tricks scheme to embarrass his top Albany nemesis, Joe Bruno.

"Clearly you can't use the government in a Nixonesque manner against other elected officials," political consultant Joseph Mercurio said.

"You have to play by the rules, especially if you want to present yourself as a reform entity."

"You have to operate on a much higher level."

Spitzer came to Albany Jan. 1 promising "everything changes" - that the status quo of sleazy politics was over.

If nothing else, the use of the state police to compile data on a political enemy is a change from the status quo, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's report says.

Former state Police Superintendent James McMahon told investigators he'd "never seen anything like this."

"Clearly when things start looking like old-style politics, that doesn't look like changing things from day one," Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff said.

Spitzer refused to say if he believed his reputation had been tarnished, saying he'll "let others make that judgment."

He rejected the suggestion that he created an atmosphere that inspired his aides to go too far in a drive to hurt Bruno and drive Senate Republicans from power.

"Everything will be done to prevent these mistakes from being repeated," Spitzer said.

"Ethics and accountability must and will remain the foundation of my administration."

Aggressiveness has also been a hallmark.

In a phone call early on with Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, he called himself a "f---ing steamroller" who would run over anyone in his way.

Spitzer had to put on a humble face yesterday.

He apologized to Bruno, the state police and the people of New York.

His road to recovery will be a long one.

"He can get back on track, but it's going to be very difficult," said George Arzt, a political consultant who worked on Spitzer's successful campaign for state attorney general in 1998.

His ability to rebound, to govern effectively and possibly pursue dreams of even higher office in the next decade, depends on how soon he can put the most damaging story of his young governorship in the past.

Cuomo, a Democrat who is widely believed to covet Spitzer's job, did the governor no favors by releasing the report on a Monday, Arzt said.

"People will be writing about this all week, and that's where the damage will come in," said Arzt.

State Republican Party Chairman Joseph Mondello was not satisfied with Spitzer's explanation that he was unaware of the smear plot.

He called for an "immediate investigation" of when the governor was aware of "this blatant setup attempt" and what, exactly, his role was in it.

Spitzer does have one key thing going for him to repair his image: Time.

"It's another 3-1/2 years until the next reelection," said Hank Sheinkopf, a political consultant who worked for Spitzer's 1994 and 1998 attorney general campaigns.

"A lot can happen between now and then - both good and bad."

ebenjamin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/07/24..._roadblock.html

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK POST

"BEYOND THE CUOMO REPORT"

July 24, 2007 -- "What did he know, and when did he know it?"

That question haunted Richard Nixon during Watergate, and now it's an apt query concerning Eliot Spitzer and Troopergate - the astonishing political plot exposed by The Post this month and detailed yesterday in a bombshell report by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo found that top Spitzer aides conspired in an effort to incriminate state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno - with whom the gov was then feuding politically.

The report stops short of accusing Spitzer of active complicity in the scheme - a charitable conclusion, given the governor's well-established hands-on management style and the totality of the facts that the document lays out.

But one thing is clear: Eliot Spitzer is going to be a very long time living this one down.

According to Cuomo's report:

* Key gubernatorial aides had the State Police manufacture documents that made it appear that Bruno had used State Police resources for solely political trips.

* Bruno, in fact, did no such thing.

* Nevertheless, a newspaper with a longstanding anti-Bruno animus - the Albany Times Union - was apparently recruited to request the documents and use them as a basis for a story smearing the majority leader.

* A day later, Spitzer himself pushed the idea of an official probe of Bruno's purported wrongdoing.

In a nutshell, Cuomo found that the whole thing was made up from the start - that Bruno never violated any laws whatsoever in his use of state resources.

The AG presents overwhelming evidence, based on sworn testimony, that Spitzer aides - Darren Dopp, his communications director, and Bill Howard, assistant Homeland Security secretary - hatched the plan.

In suspending Dopp and reassigning Howard yesterday, Spitzer essentially acknowledged their wrongdoing.

But, again, the AG stopped short of saying whether he thinks Spitzer himself was involved - or even knew of - the scheme.

When asked directly, a spokesman for Cuomo would say only that the report speaks for itself.

Period.

This is a huge question.

It needs to be answered - fully and promptly - for New Yorkers to maintain any faith in Spitzer's integrity.

The governor - preposterously, given his personality - suggested the plot was all news to him.

"I believed that everything was done properly pursuant to media requests," Spitzer said, referring to two FOIL requests filed by the Times Union that sought records of Bruno's use of state helicopters and police escorts.

Right.

Back when he was the scourge of Wall Street, would Spitzer for one minute have accepted such a defense - that he didn't know about a major political scheme carried out by his own top aides?

One that included, to a degree, Chief of Staff Richard Baum?

Whether Spitzer knew about it or not, of course, the plot was clearly - indisputably - an abuse of power.

(And conducted, it needs to be noted, in a clownishly inept manner.)

Cuomo's report suggests that:

* Howard and Dopp misled Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton into thinking the governor's office needed documents about Bruno in order to satisfy a FOIL request - even though no such request had yet been made.

* The gov's aides steered the Times Union toward the idea of filing the request.

The paper fell for it hook, line and sinker and filed a FOIL letter - but not until after State Police began keeping tabs on Bruno and compiling the documents. (Oops.)

* Unfortunately for Spitzer's folks, the letter did not ask for specifics of Bruno's travels - and the paper had to file a second FOIL request nine days after it published its first story. (Oops again.)

The double-klutzing aside, all this adds up to a major misuse of gubernatorial power - and it's essential to know whence the abuse originated.

Certainly a plot like this is in sync with Spitzer's record - in his eight years as attorney general, and carrying over into his first half-year as governor.

His nasty, hardball bullying - calling Bruno a "senile piece of s---" or telling state Sen. William Larkin he'll "cut [his] head off" - is of a piece with the plot against the majority leader.

But Spitzer desperately wants to play down the story.

He says, for example, he's asked his staff to "review" FOIL procedures.

But FOIL has nothing to do with what happened.

He also, in effect, defends his aides: "Even those who might begin with the best of motives - such as the desire to provide the public with information about the alleged misuse of government property - should avoid even an appearance that steps are being taken for inappropriate purposes."

Is Spitzer for real?

What "best motives" could he be talking about - ginning up false charges against a political foe?

And what "alleged misuse of government property" is he referring to?

The allegations were invented by his own aides - and lacked even a shred of validity.

Cuomo, for his part, deserves enormous credit.

His report is thorough and circumspect (though the latter, perhaps, to a fault).

He has, not to put too fine a point on it, placed himself directly in the line of return fire from a governor with a demonstrably nasty temper and a stunningly vindictive personality.

Bruno crossed the governor.

The governor got angry.

The details are in the Cuomo report.

Now Cuomo, or Albany District Attorney David Soares, or some other prosecutorial authority, needs to take the next step.

Did Gov. Spitzer deploy the State Police to bring a political opponent to heel?

Or even condone such a thing?

It's hard to imagine a more fundamental abuse of state power.

Spitzer cannot govern effectively with such a cloud over his administration.

Indeed, over himself.

It can't end here.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/posto...als_.htm?page=0

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK POST

"POST'S HASTE IGNITED THE GOV SCANDAL"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER, State Editor

July 24, 2007 -- ALBANY - The Post blew the lid off the surveillance of Majority Leader Joe Bruno by Gov. Spitzer's office 2½ weeks ago with an exclusive front-page story headlined: "Police State: Gov. Sicced Cops On Joe."

The Post's probe of the misuse of State Police by Gov. Spitzer's administration - which triggered Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's bombshell report yesterday - was launched after it became clear that something was wrong with an earlier newspaper article suggesting Bruno had misused state aircraft for political purposes.

That Albany Times-Union story on July 1 based its claim on detailed State Police travel records for Bruno - the likes of which had never been made public before for any state official.

State Police sources told The Post at the time that they had never seen records like those - detailing Bruno's stop-by-stop travel schedule and, in the process, potentially compromising Bruno's personal security - ever handed over to a newspaper.

Working through the Fourth of July holiday, The Post interviewed nearly a dozen senior officials with ties to Gov. Spitzer's office, the Legislature and the State Police, and checked volumes of travel records for several top officials.

The paper's bombshell July 5 story documented an unprecedented State Police intelligence-gathering program aimed at Bruno.

It also noted that the pretext for the surveillance was a lie.

Now-suspended Spitzer Communications Director Darren Dopp had told The Post that the record-keeping on Bruno was begun because state Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long had complained about his supposed misuse of the State Police during visits to the city, a claim Long strenuously denied to the paper.

When Dopp subsequently contended he never made such a claim, The Post published an e-mail that Dopp had sent showing that he had.

Later stories also detailed Dopp's multiple and contradictory claims as to why State Police records were kept on Bruno.

They also revealed - in a matter that was not addressed in the Cuomo report - that aides to Spitzer sought to convince prosecutors to begin investigating Bruno before the initial Times-Union report was in print.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/news/...tate_editor.htm

[Livyjr]

WXXI

"Governor Suspends Communications Director Following AG Report"

Karen DeWitt and Bud Lowell

ALBANY, NEW YORK (2007-07-23) Governor Eliot Spitzer has suspended a top aid and reassigned another, after an Attorney General's report found the Governor's office improperly compelled the state police to create records of travels by Spitzer's chief political opponent, State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

Bruno had been using state aircraft to attend fundraisers and business meetings in New York City, and had requested and received state police drivers while on his trips.

The report, by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, concluded that top staff in Governor Spitzer's office, an "unprecedented" act, requested the acting Superintendent of the State Police to personally question the state police drivers, and then create detailed records of the Senator's trips that could be given to a newspaper, the Albany Times Union.

Governor Spitzer, in response, said he accepts responsiblity for the actions of his office.

He points out the Attorney General found no violations of the law, and no surveillance of Senator Bruno, but did find that staff members exercised "serious errors in judgment" and the matter was "grossly mishandled".

Those actions, Spitzer says, created the appearance that the state police were used inappropriately, and the governor said he was sorry for that.

"I apologize to the people of the state of New York for having allowed this matter to become a distraction from the vital work at hand," said Spitzer, who said he's apologized personally to Bruno and the head of the State Police.

The governor is suspending indefinitely, without pay, his Communications Director, Darren Dopp.

Dopp had given conflicting explanations of why the police records were kept on Senator Bruno.

Spitzer is also reassigning William Howard, who works for the Governor's Homeland Security advisor, to a position outside of the Governor's office.

Howard served as liaison between the Governor's office and the state police, and oversaw the creation of the police travel records on Bruno.

The Attorney General's report also found that Senator Bruno did not violate any laws when he used the state helicopters on three separate occasions in May.

But the report says the rules regarding use of state aircraft are too "lax", and that as long as an elected official attends just one business meeting on a trip that includes fundraisers, the taxpayers foot the bill for the transportation.

Each of the Senator's trips included at least one business meeting.

Spitzer agrees with the report's recommendations that the state should enact a more rigorous policy concerning the use of state aircraft, and said that he will work to draft one.

Senator Bruno, who's in the past accused the Spitzer Administration of "political espionage", said in a statement that he would thoroughly review what he called the report's "disturbing conclusions" before commenting any further.

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wxxi/new...1118289§ionID=1

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"News Analysis - His Aura Faded, Spitzer Faces Bolder Enemies"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: July 24, 2007

ALBANY, July 23 — Nearly seven months ago Gov. Eliot Spitzer declared he would “change the ethics of Albany.”

But yesterday Mr. Spitzer was reduced to apologizing for a scheme that seemed straight out of the political playbook he pledged to rewrite.

A report by the attorney general’s office, which concluded that Mr. Spitzer’s aides improperly used the State Police to try to tarnish a political foe, documented a series of damning e-mail messages, conflicting accounts and abuses of power among the governor’s top staff members.

It read like something Mr. Spitzer, a crusading attorney general who built a reputation as the “Sheriff of Wall Street” before being elected governor last year, could have assembled in his pursuit of corporate malefactors or greedy chief executives.

More significantly, the report has emboldened Mr. Spitzer’s enemies and threatens to derail his entire legislative agenda, starting with one of his major objectives: overhauling Albany’s notoriously lax ethics.

Already, a deal the governor, a Democrat, announced last week with legislative leaders that would tighten state campaign finance laws seemed in jeopardy of unraveling, Republican lawmakers said on Monday.

Rightly or wrongly, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have tired of Mr. Spitzer’s oratorical volleys are evoking Watergate by asking: What did the governor know and when did he know it?

Any comparisons to that 1970s scandal have to be tempered by the fact that the report issued by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, says that no laws were broken.

But the report says that the governor’s communications director, Darren Dopp, and his top liaison to the State Police, William F. Howard, orchestrated a campaign to discredit the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, by pressuring the State Police to create — and in some instances recreate — records of the senator’s use of state aircraft and police escorts.

It also suggests that the governor’s staff lied when they tried to explain what they had done and pressured the State Police to go far beyond their normal procedures in documenting Mr. Bruno’s whereabouts.

The report concluded, however, that the State Police did not conduct an outright surveillance operation of Mr. Bruno, a Republican.

The report also says that a Freedom of Information Law request by The Times Union of Albany asking for records relating to Mr. Bruno’s travel was handled personally by Preston L. Felton, the acting superintendent of the State Police — and with unusual speed.

Three previous superintendents interviewed in the report “all stated that they had never personally handled a FOIL request and could not imagine doing so,” the report said.

Mr. Felton, who was seeking promotion to superintendent, had been asked by the governor’s staff to make sure the request was fulfilled.

The governor suspended Mr. Dopp on Monday and reassigned Mr. Howard, and said that he had not been aware that anything improper was done.

The claim was met with skepticism from politicians in both parties, since the governor is known to be something of a micromanager.

“Did the governor know?” asked Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican and the deputy majority leader.

He said the report “leaves many questions open in terms of how far up the chain of command were the acts of — at least the acts of Dopp and Howard — known?”

Mr. Skelos added that he believed it would be “totally appropriate” for the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, which has subpoena power, to review the matter.

It is expected that the Senate will do just that.

Mr. Skelos is a member of the committee.

“You have the makings of a real conspiracy here,” he added.

Another Senate committee is considering investigating a multimillion-dollar loan the governor’s father gave him when he ran for attorney general in the 1990s, a loan Mr. Spitzer has acknowledged not being truthful about.

Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a Harlem Democrat who has been one of the governor’s most outspoken critics, said the findings of the report sound “very Nixonian.”

“Hopefully that’s now over and we can learn how to govern,” he added.

“It’s now time for the cloak and dagger to be over.”

A little over six months ago, when Mr. Spitzer took office, everything seemed lined up in his favor.

He could rightly claim a mandate after his election by a record margin last November, capturing nearly 70 percent of the vote and winning comfortably in all regions of the state.

The Republican Party was in disarray, having been swept out of the state’s four top posts — governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller.

Mr. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, had revealed in late December that he was the subject of a federal investigation of his outside business, leaving the effective leader of the Republican Party operating under a cloud.

And Mr. Spitzer had even persuaded a rising Republican star, Senator Michael A. L. Balboni, to come work for his administration, narrowing the majority in the last statewide Republican power base to a precarious two seats.

Six months later, Mr. Spitzer’s administration has been knocked on its heels.

His problems stem in part from the fact that unlike the business executives who often found themselves in his crosshairs when he was attorney general, legislators have far more power to fight back.

Moreover, Mr. Spitzer appears to have energized a Republican Party that was listless not long ago.

Already, Republicans are having second thoughts on a deal reached last week to tighten the state’s porous campaign finance laws, though lawmakers in the Assembly and the Senate said they planned to return to Albany on Thursday to vote on another part of the deal that would create a commission to study Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan.

“I have not seen a draft bill,” Mr. Skelos said of the campaign finance proposal.

“I think a lot of it is just the governor putting out his wish list in terms of campaign finance.”

Speaking of the governor and his staff, Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat, said, “They need to rethink their direction and they need to figure out if they have any reservoir of good will left.”

“It’s very hard to tell if they do,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Spitzer Aides Cited for Use of Police to Tarnish Bruno"

By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: July 24, 2007

Correction Appended

ALBANY, July 23 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s aides, including one of his closest advisers, improperly used the State Police to gather information about the governor’s chief rival, Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative story about Mr. Bruno and damage him politically, according to a report on Monday by the attorney general’s office.

Darren Dopp, the governor’s communications director, is accused of concocting a false story for why the information was being gathered.

Spitzer aides, chiefly his communications director, Darren Dopp, concocted a false story for why the information was being gathered, saying the governor’s office acted after receiving a press request seeking details of Mr. Bruno’s use of state aircraft, the report said.

Mr. Dopp later made misleading statements about the involvement of the governor’s office in the effort, the report indicates.

The report concludes that Mr. Bruno’s use of the helicopters — on trips that included both political and legislative events — was proper.

Minutes after the report was made public, Mr. Spitzer announced he was suspending Mr. Dopp indefinitely without pay.

He said he was also dismissing his liaison to the State Police, the assistant secretary for homeland security, William Howard, and moving him to an unspecified job outside the governor’s office.

The report was a blow to Mr. Spitzer, a former prosecutor who came into office less than seven months ago with a reputation for integrity and who promised to bring a new ethical climate to Albany.

And fallout from the report may endanger central elements of the agenda that Mr. Spitzer laid out at the beginning of his term.

On Monday, some Republican officials signaled their intent to revisit a deal struck with the governor last week to overhaul the state’s campaign finance laws.

At a somber news conference Monday that had the air of a cross-examination — with Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, in the unaccustomed role of defendant — the governor insisted that he knew nothing about the effort to damage Mr. Bruno, a Republican.

But Mr. Spitzer acknowledged that his administration had “grossly mishandled” the situation.

“As governor, I am accountable for what goes on in the executive branch, and I accept responsibility for the actions of my office,” he said, as staff members stood nearby.

The 53-page report, released by the attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, describes an extensive internal effort by Spitzer officials to assemble information on Mr. Bruno, resulting in what investigators termed an “abuse of State Police resources.”

The officials then provided selective information to The Times Union of Albany, which published a story July 1 stating that Mr. Bruno had used State Police helicopters to travel to political fund-raisers in New York City while stating he was on official business.

The story came just as the governor and Mr. Bruno were battling publicly over unfinished legislative business, and it ignited two weeks of nearly unprecedented hostility and political combat between Albany’s top Democrat and Republican.

Among the report’s other key findings:

¶The acting superintendent of the State Police, Preston L. Felton, personally involved himself in the effort, directing subordinates to produce records about Mr. Bruno’s travels on State Police helicopters and to interview troopers about them.

By assisting the governor’s aides in gathering information about a political rival, the report concluded, Mr. Felton allowed the governor’s office to bring the State Police "squarely into the middle of politics, precisely where they do not belong.”

¶The governor’s aides — who eventually instructed the State Police to tell them not only about Mr. Bruno’s completed travels but about forthcoming trips as well — violated police procedure, which calls for a security review before information about an official’s schedule is released.

The findings of the report were endorsed by the inspector general, Kristine Hamann, an appointee of Mr. Spitzer’s.

The attorney general’s report, though severely worded, concluded that the actions of the governor’s aides were “not unlawful.”

In a statement, Mr. Bruno said that the attorney general’s report had confirmed that he had never improperly used state aircraft.

“We will thoroughly review the report’s disturbing conclusions regarding the activities of the governor’s staff and the acting superintendent of the state police before commenting any further,” Mr. Bruno said.

But other Republicans expressed skepticism that a governor who is known to be intensely involved in details as well as intensely political did not have a hand in the effort.

“The public needs to know when Governor Spitzer was aware of this blatant set-up attempt and what the governor’s role was in its execution,” said Joseph N. Mondello, the chairman of the state Republican Party.

“This must be investigated immediately.”

According to the attorney general’s report, the effort inside Mr. Spitzer’s office began in May, when his aides began to discuss a potential investigation of Mr. Bruno’s use of state-owned aircraft for travel to New York City on trips that coincided with Republican political events.

They also began to discuss how to focus media attention on the trips.

In an e-mail message sent in late May, Mr. Dopp told Richard Baum, who is the secretary to the governor, that travel “records exist going way back,” and he suggested “there is a new and different way to proceed re media.”

Several days later, after a story appeared in The Times Union examining some of Mr. Bruno’s business dealings — which remain the subject of a federal investigation, Mr. Dopp wrote another e-mail message to Mr. Baum, saying, “Think a travel story would fit nicely in the mix.”

Mr. Howard, who is the governor’s liaison to the state police, also wrote an e-mail message to Mr. Baum that day saying, “The impending travel stuff implies more problems — particularly in the tax area, I think."

"I think timing right for that move.”

About a month later, on July 1, The Times Union published its initial story on Mr. Bruno’s travels, reporting that during May the senator had flown on state helicopters three times to New York City, each time attending Republican fund-raisers.

The newspaper said it had obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Law request.

The following day, Mr. Spitzer’s aides said they would ask the state attorney general to investigate whether Mr. Bruno’s use of the helicopters was proper.

That Times Union information request, according to the attorney general’s report, requested records on the use of state aircraft during 2007 by Mr. Bruno and other state officials, including Mr. Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson.

It was sent to Mr. Dopp on June 27.

But the newspaper did not then specifically request Mr. Bruno’s full travel itineraries on the days he used state aircraft.

It was only two weeks later, in a second request sent to Mr. Dopp on July, that The Times Union requested those itineraries for Mr. Bruno, timing the attorney general’s report characterized as “odd.”

In an interview, Rex Smith, The Times Union’s editor, said the first request had been filed after a reporter at the paper, James M. Odato, received a tip from an unnamed source.

He dismissed any suggestion that Mr. Odato had filed the second request in order to provide cover for the governor’s staff.

Mr. Spitzer said Monday he was misled by staffers he would not name about the effort.

As recently as July 11, Mr. Spitzer remained adamant that his administration had not asked the State Police to provide any records that they did not normally maintain.

“I became aware of this discrepancy recently, as we investigated the issues,” Mr. Spitzer said at an afternoon news conference in Manhattan.

“Once we asked the attorney general and the inspector general to investigate, we did our best to establish what the facts were.”

He added that “my statements, at the time I made them, were absolutely true based upon my information at the time.”

He said that Mr. Baum — another longtime Spitzer aide and confidant — had been similarly misled, though he would not specify by whom.

The governor said he would not take action against Mr. Felton, saying that the acting superintendent had been put “in an untenable position” by his administration.

In addition to Mr. Cuomo’s inquiry, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Spitzer had both requested a criminal review by the Albany County district attorney, P. David Soares.

In a statement Monday, Mr. Soares said his office had found “no basis for criminal prosecution” of Mr. Bruno, and added, without elaborating, that he had not joined the inquiry into the conduct of the governor and his staff.

Mr. Dopp and Mr. Howard did not return calls for comment Monday evening.

Mr. Felton said, in a statement, that "the State Police must avoid any involvement or actions that could give rise to even the slightest appearance of impropriety, especially that which is of a political nature."

He added that he had never "knowingly undertaken any such action."

Mr. Baum said in his own statement that he "did not know that the state police were creating or re-creating documents, or changing their standard operating procedures in any way."

Correction: July 26, 2007

A front-page article on Tuesday about a report that said aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York improperly used the State Police to gather information about State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, a political rival, included incorrect information from the governor’s office about the duties of an aide, William Howard.

(The error also appeared in a chart in some copies.)

Mr. Howard was assistant — not deputy — secretary for homeland security, not for public safety.

The article also gave an incorrect title in some copies for Rex Smith of The Times Union of Albany, which first published articles on Mr. Bruno’s use of State Police helicopters to travel to political fund-raisers in New York.

Mr. Smith is the editor, not the publisher.

Also, a picture in some copies of Governor Spitzer with Preston L. Felton, the acting superintendent of the State Police, carried an erroneous credit in some copies.

It was by Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times, not Mike Groll of The Associated Press.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/nyregion...ml?pagewanted=1

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Spitzer Faces Probe in Senate - He Apologizes After Report by Cuomo"

By JACOB GERSHMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun

July 24, 2007

The fallout from a damaging report by Attorney General Cuomo's office detailing the Spitzer administration's use of state police for political attack purposes is likely to spread, threatening to upend Governor Spitzer's agenda and bring down his most senior adviser.

After a three-week investigation, Mr. Cuomo's office yesterday released a 53-page report accusing Mr. Spitzer's communications director, Darren Dopp, and a top state homeland security official of ordering state police to take extraordinary measures to track the use of air and ground police escorts by the Republican Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, in an effort to catch him abusing state resources.

Mr. Spitzer, who suspended Mr. Dopp and reassigned the other official, insisted he was unaware of the plot to discredit Mr. Bruno in the press.

Senate Republicans, however, signaled they would launch their own probe into the matter, raising the possibility that they would use the subpoena power of standing committees to try to uncover e-mails and investigative transcripts implicating other high-level administration staffers, including Mr. Spitzer's top adviser, Secretary Richard Baum, and the governor himself.

"What did the governor know, and when did he know it?" a Republican state senator of Brooklyn, Martin Golden, said.

"There should be a further investigation into the inner circle."

"Somebody signed off on this."

"I urge the governor to get to the bottom of this."

The report does not call for any disciplinary action against Mr. Baum, but it provided passages of e-mails in May to Mr. Baum from Mr. Dopp discussing the existence of police travel records of Mr. Bruno and suggesting a "new and different way to proceed re media."

While the report did not allege a criminal wrongdoing, it was a devastating setback to a first-term governor who was elected last year on a mandate to restore integrity to a scandal-ridden capital.

Mr. Spitzer has sought to use the moral credibility he earned while attorney general as a crusader against white-collar crime to press lawmakers to approve new campaign finance and ethics rules and to make the case to voters for taking control of the Senate away from Republicans, whom Mr. Spitzer has accused of exhibiting the worst habits of Albany.

The report also appeared to vindicate Mr. Bruno, whose use of police escorts to travel to New York City to attend fund raisers were deemed proper because the majority leader conducted official state business during the trips.

It also further the raised the profile of Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who is emerging as a potential primary rival to Mr. Spitzer in the 2010 election.

Seeking to contain the damage, Mr. Spitzer said he endorsed the findings and insisted that he was unaware of the plot to discredit Mr. Bruno, with whom Mr. Spitzer has feuded since taking office.

Offering an apology to Mr. Bruno and the people of New York, the governor said he was misled by his staff and he immediately suspended Mr. Dopp and reassigned the other official.

In an interview with reporters at his New York City headquarters, Mr. Spitzer said he took "full responsibility for the failures that occurred within my administration."

"There were absolute improper judgment calls made and there is no excuse for that," he said.

"My administration I believe stands for — will continue to stand for — ethics, integrity, and we will be measured not only by the inevitable errors that are made but more importantly how we respond to those errors."

With the governor in his most vulnerable position since taking office, Senate Republicans immediately began preparing a strategy to further harm his administration.

Mr. Spitzer said Mr. Baum did nothing inappropriate, and that he has "absolute confidence in his judgment and integrity."

He said he and Mr. Baum thought that administration officials were responding to a proper press inquiry and weren't aware of the special actions undertaken by the police.

"I became aware of this discrepancy recently," Mr. Spitzer said.

Senator George Winner, the Republican chairman of the committee on investigations and government operations, said Senate committees have a "very broad jurisdiction to make inquiries."

"We don't have to create a witch hunt, but I would like the committee to have a look at the underlying e-mails and transcripts to see if there is other stuff out there," Mr. Winner said.

He said the committees could issue subpoenas if the documents are related to legislation under consideration by lawmakers, a hurdle that would easily be cleared if lawmakers introduce legislation, for instance, changing how freedom of information requests are handled by the state.

The report says Mr. Dopp and a top homeland security official, William Howard, a rare holdover from the Pataki administration, had insisted to police officials that they were responding to a Freedom of Information request from a newspaper.

The request never existed, the report says, which points out that police began collecting records weeks before Albany's Times Union newspaper asked for the information and ran an article about Mr. Bruno's trips.

The findings say the acting superintendent of police, Preston Felton, cooperated with the administration by directing police to recreate and begin preserving detailed records of Mr. Bruno's schedule, information that was later leaked to the Times Union late last month.

The report chastises Mr. Felton for cooperating with the administration, saying the information he supplied was clearly not required under freedom of information law and that he took no effort to ensure the records didn't jeopardize Mr. Bruno's security.

Mr. Spitzer said he would consider disciplinary actions against Mr. Felton, whom Mr. Pataki appointed last year and was expected to become the first black superintendent of police.

Mr. Dopp, a former Associated Press reporter and press aide to Governor Cuomo, has been Mr. Spitzer's top communications aide since the governor started his political career in 1999.

He speaks regularly with Mr. Spitzer, to whom he refers colloquially as "boss man," and with Mr. Baum, a former Orange County legislator who has been the governor's most senior adviser for more than eight years and managed his 2006 race.

A source close to Mr. Spitzer said it was highly unlikely that Mr. Dopp would resume working for the administration once his suspension ends.

http://www.nysun.com/article/58958?page_no=1

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK POST

"ELIOT HAS BLOWN RE-ELECTION, DEMS FEAR"

By KENNETH LOVETT, Post Correspondent

July 24, 2007 -- ALBANY - Republicans yesterday demanded "What did Gov. Spitzer know and when did he know it?" about a plot by his aides to ruin Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, while Democrats privately worried the governor may be irreparably damaged by the scandal.

A Democratic ally in the Legislature said not only are Spitzer's future presidential ambitions harmed, but perhaps his 2010 re-election bid as well.

"Would it shock me right now if Eliot Spitzer does not run for governor in [2010]?"

"No," the well-known Democrat said.

The lawmaker added, "It seems like the governor is spiraling out of control."

"His whole reputation has been shot."

"It's almost like he's got to go into rehab and change his style completely."

Outside observers also said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's report was devastating for Spitzer.

"This is a major scandal."

"It's reminiscent of Watergate," said Baruch College public affairs professor Doug Muzzio.

"You have a chief executive's office spying on the opposition and then lying about it."

"And then it leads to the inevitable question of what did Spitzer know and when did he know it."

"And was he responsible directly in, 'Let's get Joe Bruno,' or implicitly with his ranting and raving . . ."

"Instead of the golden prosecutor, he's become a persecutor," Muzzio added.

"This is not good," confided a Spitzer aide.

"He came in promising to be Mr. Clean."

"This is definitely going to hurt moving forward."

Republicans demanded further investigation.

"This disturbing abuse of power by a governor is unprecedented," said state GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello.

"The public needs to know when Gov. Spitzer was aware of this blatant set-up attempt and what the governor's role was in its execution."

"This must be investigated immediately," he added.

Senate Investigation Committee Chairman George Winner said he will seek the e-mails and other background information Cuomo's office compiled "to see if there are any unanswered questions that need to be examined through the jurisdiction of a legislative committee."

kenneth.lovett@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/news/...rrespondent.htm

[Livyjr]

NEWSDAY

"E-mails come back to haunt Spitzer"

DAN JANISON

dan.janison@newsday.com

July 24, 2007

E-mails are jamming up the Spitzer administration.

E-mails, of all things.

Less than two years ago, when asked his advice for business success, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said:

"Never write when you can talk."

"Never talk when you can nod."

"And never put anything in an e-mail."

In the investigative report that rocked Albany yesterday, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo used a couple of crucial electronic messages to smash a thin pretense of propriety by Gov. Spitzer's office.

Officials there claimed they were merely responding to a legal news-media request when they released what they deemed embarrassing information about the state-paid travels of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick).

On June 3, Gov. Eliot Spitzer's communications director Darren Dopp e-mailed Rich Baum, the governor's secretary, citing a story in the Albany Times Union about a federal grand jury probing Bruno's horse dealings.

"Think a travel story would fit nicely in the mix," Dopp wrote to Baum.

He clearly meant a planted story that would say Bruno was taking state aircraft and state police on trips that were political, not governmental, in purpose.

Later that morning William Howard, the assistant deputy secretary for homeland security, under Deputy Secretary Michael Balboni, wrote Baum:

"The impending travel stuff implies more problems ... I think timing right for that move."

"These e-mails," concluded Cuomo, showed that "persons in the governor's office were ... engaged in planning and producing media coverage concerning Senator Bruno's travel on state aircraft before any FOIL request was made."

In other words, the information ordered generated at the highest levels of the state police was political, not governmental, in purpose.

To get the full irony, you need to know just a bit about Spitzer's recent career.

As a zealous prosecutor, he turned the use of e-mails into a major tactical tool against his famous Wall Street targets.

Thousands of e-mails, collected and studied, figured in his cases against insurance companies, record labels, hedge funds and investment firms.

Now an electronic boomerang has struck the governor's men, who are caught in a "gotcha" over their own attempted "gotcha."

One year ago, Republican John Faso was on his way to the losing end of Spitzer's landslide election.

Yesterday, he was reached for comment through the law firm to which he has returned.

"There is a certain poetic justice to that, I guess," Faso said a bit wistfully of the e-mail angle.

"It's clear this is a very serious misuse of the state police."

"I am flabbergasted that they did this."

But to understand this controversy, cyber-space can take you only so far.

The lingering intrigue has to do with who was involved.

Dopp, now suspended, comes from Spitzer's longstanding inner circle.

He's as mannerly as a clergyman - far from the shrill shills that politics can produce.

People know him as disciplined and loyal, not a rogue operator.

Of Howard, who'd served skillfully under Gov. George Pataki, one Democratic activist said yesterday:

"Anybody who knows Bill knows he's a soldier."

"He'd never, ever range beyond what he's assigned to do."

As Cuomo's report tells it, Howard told probers he did not even discuss this get-Bruno project with his boss, Balboni - "because Balboni was a former Republican senator and Howard did not want to 'put him in an uncomfortable position.' "

The human elements of this case precede the advent of e-mail.

Perhaps one of these is the concept of the fall guy.

Key e-mails

Contact among Spitzer aides, cited in the report:

May 23: Communications Director Darren Dopp to Secretary Richard Baum: "... Records exist going way back."

"Itineraries showing where the individual [Joseph Bruno] was taken and who was in the car."

"[William Howard] has the last two trips in his possession."

"Also, I think there is a new and different way to proceed re media."

"Will explain tomorrow."

June 3: Dopp to Baum, remarking on a story about a federal grand jury probe of Bruno's private business dealings:

"Think a travel story would fit nicely in the mix."

June 3: Assistant Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security William Howard to Baum:

"The impending travel stuff implies more problems - particularly in the tax area I think."

"I think timing right for that move."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny...enews-headlines

[Livyjr]

"Bruno wants Spitzer questioned in state police scandal"

By CHRIS CAROLA, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:23 p.m., Wednesday, July 25, 2007

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- After two days of apologies, prosecutor-turned-Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Wednesday criticized as "purely partisan" a call for more investigation into his administration's misuse of state police against a political opponent.

The target of the tracking by state police, Republican Senate leader Joseph Bruno, insisted the public needs to know if Spitzer was involved in the plot that has resulted in one top aide suspended and another about to be reassigned.

"I believe for the first time in the history of this state, an executive -- the governor's office -- has seen fit to abuse the power of that office to spy and track and attempt to really destroy what apparently the governor's office considers a political rival," Bruno told reporters Wednesday.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's report released Monday concluded that Spitzer Communications Director Darren Dopp and William Howard, assistant
deputy for public safety, compiled and created records with the direct involvement of the acting superintendent of state police to show Bruno used state aircraft on days he attended Republican fundraisers in New York City.

Dopp and Howard planned to release the records to the media, the report concluded.

In the investigation, Secretary to the Gov. Rich Baum and Dopp refused to be interviewed by attorney general's office investigators, who did not have subpoena power to compel testimony.

Baum and Dopp submitted brief written statements, but didn't mention Spitzer.

Howard was interviewed.

Baum and Dopp both served as senior advisers to Spitzer during his two terms as attorney general where the Democrat earned the nickname "The Sheriff of Wall Street" for forcing reforms of conflicts of interest in the financial and insurance industries.

"If there are cover-ups, the public has a right to know what has been covered up," Bruno said.

The Senate Committee on Investigations has begun a review and could investigate, using subpoenas that could be issued to the governor, Bruno said.

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said Bruno's suggestion that more investigation is needed is "unfounded and serves only to distract state government from the people's business that must move forward."

"Two independent investigatory entities -- the state Attorney General's Office and the State Inspector General's Office -- just completed comprehensive reviews of the allegation that Sen. Bruno had been `surveilled,'" Anderson said.

"Both investigations concluded that no `surveillance' or criminal or civil illegal conduct had occurred."

"Any new Senate hearings on this same issue would be a complete waste of state taxpayer dollars for purely partisan and political purposes," she said.

She also said the Senate has no authority to investigate the governor's office under the state constitution; Senate Republicans say they do.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver also made his first comments on the case and said he wouldn't support any joint legislative investigation.

"The attorney general has determined that laws were not broken so any further investigation would be political in nature and would be a distraction from the Legislature dealing with many issues important to New Yorkers," said Silver spokesman Dan Weiller.

Spitzer has said he was never asked to be interviewed or provide e-mails to the investigations.

But if he had been, he would have nothing to add because he didn't know of the political scheme.

Two top Spitzer aides who refused to be interviewed in Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe of the scandal insisted they were responding to unidentified reporters' inquiries, but acknowledge they should have gone through other channels to avoid "the appearance of impropriety," according to a sworn statement.

"I understand that Darren Dopp was working with the press on a story about the alleged misuse of state aircraft by Sen. Bruno," Baum stated in a sworn statement to investigators.

"I did not direct the state police to conduct any surveillance of Sen. Bruno, and did not direct anyone else to do so," Baum stated.

"I did not direct the State Police to change their standard operating procedures relating to travel record keeping in any way, and did not direct anyone else to do so."

The statement doesn't say when Baum knew of the plan or what, if any, role he played in it.

Anderson said the governor knew that investigators wanted to interview Dopp and Baum.

"The Gov.'s Office offered sworn written statements from both Mr. Baum and Mr. Dopp in lieu of that testimony," she said.

"Mr. Baum's sworn statement made clear that he did not participate in the improper activities outlined in the report, and Mr. Dopp expressed regret for his actions."

She didn't say why statements were provided instead of participating in an interview, but she said it was satisfactory to investigators based on the e-mails, documents and other testimony they collected.

Calls seeking comment from Dopp, Baum and Howard were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Dopp said he was acting on the spoken requests of unidentified reporters.

Cuomo's report makes a point to say the plan to compile and release Bruno's flight records began a month before a written Freedom of Information request was submitted by a reporter in late June.

"I sought information that the public had a right to know," Dopp stated.

"Although I never directed the state police to conduct a 'surveillance' program on Sen. Bruno, I did receive from William Howard information relating to Sen. Bruno's travels generated by the state police."

"I now recognize that any requests for State Police records relating to those travels should have been handled through other channels, and I regret any appearance of impropriety that was created," Dopp said in the statement.

On Monday Spitzer put Dopp on unpaid suspension for an indeterminate time and said he would transfer Howard out of the executive chamber.

On Wednesday, State University of New York Spokesman David Henahan said Howard has been on loan to the governor's office since January, and is technically already employed by SUNY as director of the Center for Homeland Security, Research, Training and Education at a salary of $179,500.

Howard is using personal days until his next assignment is set, Henahan said.

Spitzer filled Howard's post in the governor's office with another staffer Wednesday.

Anderson said Budget Division spokesman Jeffrey Gordon will be temporarily transferred into the governor's press and public communications office, which has been headed by Dopp.

She said Gordon is expected to serve an interim role in "the coming months."

------

Associated Press Writer Michael Gormley contributed to this report from Albany.

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Hello, anon ....

I have to wonder what the folks who put out that 2d edition of Robert B, Ward's "New York State Government" are thinking about now ....

That book was a pure PROPAGANDA PIECE for Eliot Spitzer courtesy of Robert Ward of the NYS Business Council and that Robert P. Nathan dude of the Rockefeller Institute in Albany ...

I quote from the Foreword by the Nathan dude as follows:

This second edition of Robert B. Ward's book on New York State Government comes at a PROPITIOUS TIME.

Eliot Spitzer's election as New York's 54th governor has produced HIGH EXPECTATIONS ABOUT MAJOR POLICY AND GOVERNMENTAL REFORMS.

end quotes

And then there are Ward's own words on p. 12:

While campaigning for governor, Eliot Spitzer PROCLAIMED that "everything" would change on the first day of his administration.

*****

With the advent of a new governor for the first time in 12 years, there was a widespread sense in Albany that dramatic changes may well be coming.

end quotes

Boy, was he ever prophetic there ...

Oh, but I have to chuckle each time I read that book and think about those words in the light of what is going on with Eliot Spitzer right now ....

And so ...

Up here, the HIGH EXPECTATIONS are that Eliot Spitzter will either resign or get impeached and tossed out on his ***, which would certainly be a DRAMATIC CHANGE from the usual crap down in Albany .....

And it would be a welcome change ....

Get rid of incompetence and corruption in NYS government in one fell stroke by getting rid of Spitzer, for a start, anyway ...

Which will certainly send a very strong message to the next guy to not screw around and play petty politics in that office ...

And so ....

That 2d edition of Ward's book is going to be a real collector's item, is my thought ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | July 26, 2007 5:15 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...of_the_day.html