"Judicial conventions face test - Rival Democratic slates of delegates pit county committee against city"

By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, July 23, 2007

New York's age-old, politically rigged system of judicial conventions -- now headed toward U.S. Supreme Court arguments -- will go on as usual in September.

Political parties send delegates to these conventions to vote for candidates to the state Supreme Court, a formality because the bosses have usually picked the nominees beforehand.

The sessions are rarely without controversy.

This year is no different.

The latest local dustup involves the filing of two competing slates of Democratic delegates.

One group was picked by the Albany County Democratic Committee, the other by Mayor Jerry Jennings' first-ever Albany City Democratic Committee.

While it's possible the dispute could end up in a court challenge, it will likely be resolved in a Sept. 18 primary with one winning slate.

The dueling delegate slates are another chapter in the increasingly heated city-vs.-suburbs saga of the once almighty Albany Democratic machine.

Each slate has 14 names.

Three people made it to both sheets -- County Legislators Gary Domalewicz and William Clay, who both live in the city of Albany, and city ward leader and county committee member Jason Rice, one of the longest-standing party operatives.

"We felt it was important that we have people who reflect what our city Democratic Committee stands for," Jennings said in explaining why he assembled a slate to go up against the county's.

The mayor is included every year on the county delegates' slate because "he belongs on it," County Democratic Co-chairman Frank Commisso said.

But this year Jennings called Commisso and told him: "I am going to have my own slate."

Commisso said Jennings only had to pick up the phone and instead of saying, "'Frank, take my name off,' it should have been, 'Frank, we have to sit down.'"

"This stuff takes dialogue."

County Republican Chairman Peter Kermani quipped, "I'm watching the brothers and sisters in the Democratic Party do battle."

He's not ready to name any GOP judicial candidates "until I see how everything falls out," he said.

But he added, "there will be Republicans stepping up."

Supreme Court justices are elected in each of the state's 12 judicial districts.

Locally, the seven-county 3rd Judicial District comprises Albany, Rensselaer, Columbia, Greene, Ulster, Sullivan and Schoharie.

Supreme Court in New York is a trial court, an oddity that confuses outsiders.

New York's top court is the Court of Appeals, and the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court is the midlevel appeals court.

Delegates to the nominating conventions come from each of the counties in the district.

Democrats and Republicans traditionally meet for their one-day convention at the Albany County Courthouse.

Minor parties also hold judicial nominating conventions, but they don't draw the attention the major parties do.

It's too early to speculate on cross-endorsements, another thorn in the side of reformers.

Not only are the delegates expected to vote for the choices of their party leader, but often the two major parties cut a deal to endorse each other's candidates for the November ballot.

The politicians like it because it's a way to balance the partisan affiliation on the bench.

It also avoids costly campaigns.

Three state Supreme Court seats are up this year, all held by Democrats.

Justices Joseph Teresi of Albany County and George Ceresia of Rensselaer County, who is also the administrative judge of the district, are seeking re-election to 14-year terms.

The third seat of Ulster County Justice Vincent Bradley, who died in November, is being sought by Bradley's law clerk, Christopher Cahill, who was sworn in last month after Gov. Eliot Spitzer appointed him to fill the vacancy until the end of the year.

The post pays $136,700.

Meanwhile, last month Albany County Surrogate Cathryn M. Doyle, a Democrat, announced plans to run for Supreme Court.

In addition to her surrogate duties, Doyle had been assigned to temporary duty in Supreme Court, but she lost that honor in May four months after being censured by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

The commission concluded that Doyle gave "evasive and deceptive" testimony during its investigation into a trust fund set up to help former GOP state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Spargo, a good friend of Doyle's.

Spargo was ousted from the bench last year.

Commisso, who is also the County Legislature's majority leader, and Co-chairman David Bosworth, who doubles as Guilderland's Democratic chief, have county Democrats leaning toward the incumbents.

Jennings is noncommittal.

Last August, the federal 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson Brooklyn that the convention system imposed by state Election Law was unconstitutional.

Gleeson called for the state Legislature to revamp the method of electing state judges.

Margarita Lopez Torres, a civil court judge in Brooklyn, had challenged the convention system in a lawsuit after a dispute with then-Brooklyn Democratic boss and former Assemblyman Clarence Norman about the hiring of a law clerk.

After that, Norman repeatedly refused to consider her for a Supreme Court seat.

Norman was subsequently convicted of selling judgeships.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School was lead counsel for Lopez Torres.

After the 2nd Circuit upheld Gleeson, lawyers for the state Board of Elections were successful in a bid to have the nation's highest court hear the case.

Judicial reformers, who have filed a friend-of-the-court brief, favor a state constitutional amendment to create a merit-based appointment system for state judges in place of elections.

Recognizing that would take years, for now, they support legislation curbing abuses in the convention format.

Arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court are scheduled for Oct. 3.

In the meantime, lawyers for both sides agreed that conventions would be held again this year.

Carol DeMare can be reached at 454-5431 or by e-mail at cdemare@timesunion.com.

A year before Election Day 2006, at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, candidate (Eliot "STEAMROLLER") Spitzer gave a detailed presentation on his vision for government reform.

Having built a national reputation by driving structural changes in major financial-services industries, Spitzer declared:

"In Albany - as it was on Wall Street - the status quo is a system that lacks accountability."

"It is a system that is controlled by special interests."

"It is a system that is not efficient, is not open and transparent."

Promising dramatic change, he added:

"What happened on Wall Street ... can also happen on State Street here in Albany."

The address touched on many of the major issues facing the state.

For instance, Spitzer called for:

* Changes to the court system, promoting the "rule of law" with reforms such as merit appointment rather than election of judges; consolidation of the "Balkanized" system of trial courts; and creation of more integrated courts to reduce costs and improve the quality of judicial decisions.

- pp.12,13 of New York State Government, 2d Ed. by Robert B. Ward

"Grandeau describes his exit as 'chilling'"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, July 23, 2007

David Grandeau, executive director of the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying, says he will indeed be out of a job Sept. 22.

Grandeau also wonders whether the Spitzer administration's decision not to keep him on will send a message to the next industry watchdog to watch his step and not ruffle any high-level feathers.

"It's kind of a chilling thing," said Grandeau, whose hard-charging approach earned praise from government reform groups, but enemies among lobbyists and public officials.

"You reward the enablers, and you punish the enforcers."

He wryly observed, "If you do the job right, you make a ton of friends."

Grandeau, a former Troy city manager, has run the lobbying commission for 13 years.

But in September, the state will merge the lobbying and ethics commissions into a Commission on Public Integrity.

Ethics Commission Chairman John Feerick, who also will head the new board, last month picked Manhattan attorney Herbert Teitelbaum as his $140,000 executive director, putting Teitelbaum in line to run the merged commission, too.

The writing is clearly on the wall, Grandeau said: "I'm done."

Grandeau, a lawyer, can't go into lobbying under a revolving door policy that prohibits him from appearing before his former agency.

But he said he may go into consulting people on how to avoid running afoul of state lobbying laws.

NYRA arrangement

The independent monitor assigned by a federal court to watch over the New York Racing Association three years ago is in line to make $125,000 a month as a consultant to the operator of the state's three thoroughbred tracks that is under bankruptcy protection.

Manhattan-based Getnick & Getnick, which issued a favorable report to a federal court about NYRA's performance under its 18-month oversight, would get a contract for a minimum of five years if U.S. Bankruptcy Court approves the proposal, filed with the court last week.

Chairman C. Steven Duncker said the firm and its leader, Neil Getnick, could support integrity programs.

The court papers say Getnick's firm would be the integrity business counsel, focusing on backstretch operations, anti-money laundering programs, simulcast sales, use of rebate shops, financial systems, pre-race horse monitoring, segregation of horsemen's funds and implementation of a code of ethics.

Getnick would not discuss the matter, nor would he say if it is uncommon for monitors to take contracts from entities they formerly policed.

NYRA paid Getnick's firm hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a deferred prosecution deal to satisfy a criminal indictment in 2003 stemming from NYRA's participation in a tax-evasion scheme with its employees.

The racing association is now operating under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to protect it from creditors.

The association's bankruptcy lawyer told the court that hiring Getnick's firm would be important because Gov. Eliot Spitzer has placed a high premium on integrity as NYRA competes for the rights to retain its racing franchise.

Contributors: State editor Jay Jochnowitz and Capitol bureau reporter James M. Odato. Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

And talking about juxtaposition as well as barter of OUR rights as NYS citizens as well as compromise of OUR state Constitution here in NYS by Eliot “STREETDAWG” Spitzer, we have, side by side, as follows:

“Improving the Business Climate” by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer

New York State Business Council, Bolton’s Landing, NY

[As Prepared for Delivery]

Spetember 21, 2006

Well, I have a message for you: If I am elected Governor, on Day One of next year we are going to begin to implement an aggressive strategy to reduce the cost of doing business in New York and make New York the best place to do business in the world.

And we will streamline regulations to make them friendly to business.

It’s time that our State government becomes part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Thank you.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...mp;#entry640897

AND ….

A year before Election Day 2006, at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, candidate (Eliot “STEAMROLLER”) Spitzer gave a detailed presentation on his vision for government reform.

Having built a national reputation by driving structural changes in major financial-services industries, Spitzer declared:

“In Albany - as it was on Wall Street - the status quo is a system that lacks accountability.”

“It is a system that is controlled by special interests.”

“It is a system that is not efficient, is not open and transparent.”

- p.12 of New York State Government, 2d Ed. by Robert B. Ward

HHHHhhhhmmmm …

Is the New York State Business Council a “SPECIAL INTEREST”, I must wonder ….

And so …

Comment by John Galt — July 23, 2007 @ 8:24 am

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5083#comments

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by hotdogfan — July 22, 2007 @ 11:35 pm:

Who is John Galt?

“a fictional character from ‘Atlas Shrugged’ by Ayn Rand” or….

http://nyc.metblogs.com/archives/2005/10/w..._john_gal.phtml

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5092#comments

"AG report faults Spitzer aides in Bruno scheme - Governor suspends aide, transfers another"

By JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 1:44 p.m., Monday, July 23, 2007

A top aide to Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been suspended and another reassigned following a report today that found they set about trying to create unfavorable media coverage of Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The report by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office found the administration deviated from standard practice in having the State Police create special reports on Bruno's use of police and state aircraft.

The investigation, which looked into both Bruno's travel and the senate leader's allegation that Spitzer used State Police to spy on him, concluded that beginning in May 2007, people in the governor's office planned to generate press coverage of Senator Bruno's use of state aircraft to attend fundraisers and other political events, rather than for official state business as he had certified.

The report by the Democratic attorney general's office says Spitzer aides did not simply produce records, as the state Freedom of Information Law requires, but were instead engaged in planning and producing media coverage concerning Senator Bruno's travel on state aircraft before any FOIL request was made.

Spitzer said spokesman Darren Dopp has been suspended in the matter.

William F. Howard, assistant deputy secretary for homeland security, has been reassigned to an unspecified post.

Spitzer plans no action against Preston Felton, acting superintendent of the State Police, who was involved in the matter.

The 53-page report also found that Bruno's use of state aircraft was legal, although it noted that in some cases he did only a small amount of legislative business.

The report recommended the state's policy on aircraft use - which allows officials to conduct political business while traveling at taxpayer expense as long as they do some government work, no matter how little - is overly permissive and porous and allows for an abuse of taxpayer funds.

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by John Galt — July 23, 2007 @ 2:00 pm: This Spitzer has been bad news for Constitutional government and order for the common citizens in NYS through the application of law since he was the state AG, and so, it is good to see this pretentious fop getting some comeuppance here at the hands of AG Andrew Cuomo, who has shown he is not Eliot “STREETDAWG” Spitzer’s “BOY” in any way … ….

Spitzer is a masterful politician, alright …

With a very media-savvy crew ….

But nonetheless, he and his crew are all a cheap piece of goods …

THUGS ….

Although in a recent NEW YORK MAGAZINE article entitled “The Steamroller in the Swamp - Is Eliot Spitzer changing Albany? Or is Albany changing him?” by Steve Fishman:

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...mp;#entry736520

One SPITZER-ITE AIDE was quoted as saying:

“The reality is Spitzer does have the smartest people in the room working with him” …

end quotes

And what a load of BULL **** that all was …

As this story clearly shows …

And so …

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5096#comments

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Posted by: John Galt | July 23, 2007 2:52 PM: William Sulzer (March 18, 1863 – November 6, 1941) was a Governor of New York who was was impeached and removed from office on October 13, 1913, after just 10 months on the job for allegedly diverting campaign contributions to his own use ....

And although some in Albany maintain that he was impeached unfairly ...

And although there have been several pieces of legislation introduced in the New York State Assembly and Senate to have his political record repaired ....

None have been successful ....

And thus, what is called the "SULZER PRECEDENT" for the impeachment and removal of a NYS Governor still exists ...

The NYS Senate would be doing the citizens of NYS a great service by investigating Eliot "STREETDAWG" Spitzer to see if the "SULZER PRECEDENT" applies to him, and if it does in any way, Eliot "STREETDAWG" Spitzer should be impeached and removed from office pursuant to OUR NYS Constitution for the good of the state ....

And so ....

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

THE NEW YORK POST

"GOP PUTS HEAT ON ELIOT'S $5M LOAN"

July 23, 2007 -- SENATE Republicans are looking to subpoena records held by Gov. Spitzer and his 82-year-old megamillionaire father, Bernard, dealing with a controversial $5 million loan that helped Spitzer get elected attorney general in 1998, The Post has learned.

The unprecedented subpoenas - which would represent a major escalation in the ongoing war between Democrat Spitzer and the state Senate GOP - were requested Friday by Senate Investigations Committee Chairman George Winner (R-Elmira.)

Winner, in a letter to Elections Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Griffo (R-Utica,) wrote that a recent profile of Spitzer in New York magazine suggested the governor broke state election law in obtaining a loan that helped bankroll his first winning campaign for attorney general.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, Winner told Griffo the article "outlined what may have been a willful effort by Eliot Spitzer and his father to circumvent campaign-contribution limits in New York state law and then conceal their actions . . .

"Accordingly, I believe the Senate Committee on Elections should investigate this matter immediately, and urge you, as chairman, to utilize the subpoena power of the committee to ensure that all of the facts relevant to this matter are known so that we might prepare better reform legislation," Winner wrote.

Winner, a lawyer, told The Post the subpoenas should be used to find out "what were the guarantees for the loan, what were the provisions for the notes [and] were they executed with original guarantees from the father?"

"Clearly, the bank files for such loans would have them, and certainly, they would be in the possession of the individuals involved, the governor himself and his father, obviously," Winner continued.

Asked about Winner's request for subpoenas, Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson declined to comment.

Spitzer claimed during the campaign that he secured the $5 million loan by mortgaging eight apartments his developer-father had given him.

But as his election challenge to then-Attorney General Dennis Vacco neared the end, Spitzer admitted that his father was actually paying off the loans and, therefore, financing his campaign - a possible election-law violation.

"I didn't realize how necessary it was to be transparent about every personal financial transaction," Spitzer was quoted as saying in the article.

Winner, whose Investigations Committee may soon issue its own subpoenas for e-mails and other documents involving Spitzer's alleged use of the State Police to spy on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer), said he wanted Griffo to obtain the Spitzer documents before the final touches are put on last week's announced agreement to pass a new campaign-finance law.

He said that the agreement - announced by Spitzer and Bruno on Thursday - was only "conceptual" and noted that it did not address "loan abuse" situations like the one involving Spitzer's 1998 campaign.

Griffo had no immediate reaction to the letter.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07232007/news/...c_u__dicker.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Posted by Upstate Dem: And why was Howard still employed in this job?

Aren't there any qualified Democrats available to fill these types of jobs?

While we are on the subject, why are all of those other Republicans still in their non-competitive positions some seven months later?

JOHN GALT REPLIES: Actually, it seems laughable, based on Eliot "STREETDAWG" Spitzer's own record, and public statements, to call him a Democrat, or to even consider that he could be a Democrat ....

To the contrary, I would say that "STREETDAWG" Spitzer is a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN much in the mold of Texas peckerwood George W. Bush ...

In the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS article entitled "2 sides of Spitzer - Love-hate relationship with civil libertarians" by Ben Smith, originally published on August 6, 2006, it was stated:

Politicians are known by their enemies, and when Eliot Spitzer ran for state attorney general in 1998, the Democrat's best-known enemy may have been the American Civil Liberties Union.

He ran a commercial that mocked the liberal lawyers who opposed searching schoolchildren for guns.

After he was elected, he backed state financing for parochial schools and "roving" wiretaps for police.

The NYCLU's Christopher Dunn says Spitzer "has been conspicuously silent when it comes to civil rights and civil liberties," and that he is "astonished at what a completely free ride he has gotten."

end quotes

And in the recent NEW YORK MAGAZINE article entitled "The Steamroller in the Swamp - Is Eliot Spitzer changing Albany? Or is Albany changing him?" by Steve Fishman, it was stated:

William Taylor, Eliot’s Princeton roommate who later co-founded the magazine Fast Company, says, “I was never more relieved than when dinner was over and I’d survived.”

It was pretty good fun to beat up on Eliot’s soft-minded schoolmates, usually liberals if not lefties, which the Spitzers were not.

Eliot, like most of the family, was for the death penalty and against rent control, a subject he seems to have debated endlessly.

Once he and Mayer tackled it at Princeton, where Eliot was student-government president, a moderate counterweight to the college leftists.

(“He was more likely to be playing squash with the president of the university than on a picket line,” as one lefty friend puts it.)

The night Eliot and Mayer talked rent control, Mayer says, “people were stunned by the level of intensity, as most humans would be.”

end quotes

In his address to the New York State Business Council, Bolton's Landing, NY, on September 21, 2006 entitled “Improving the Business Climate”, "STREETDAWG" Spitzer stated as follows:

I want to recognize Dan Walsh and thank him for his leadership over the past 18 years as President and CEO of the Business Council.

I also want to welcome Ken Adams as the Business Council’s new President.

Ken, I look forward to working with you to make New York the best place to do business in the world.

Revitalizing our state’s economy — especially the Upstate economy — demands a major effort.

But today, I want to speak about what I believe should be our first priority, and that is making New York companies more competitive by improving our business climate.

Well, I have a message for you: If I am elected Governor, on Day One of next year we are going to begin to implement an aggressive strategy to reduce the cost of doing business in New York and make New York the best place to do business in the world.

And we will streamline regulations to make them friendly to business.

We have much more to accomplish than what I discussed today if we are to restore our State to its historic position of economic strength.

But the starting point of any economic development strategy is creating a climate that is friendly to business instead of hostile to it.

It’s time that our State government becomes part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Thank you.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...mp;#entry640897

Being for the death penalty and being against rent control and civil rights and public health puts Eliot "STREETDAWG" Spitzer squarely into the corner with Joe Bruno here in NYS ...

That makes "STREETDAWG" Spitzer a REPUBLICAN in my book ...

And the state Health Commissioner that he chose, this Daines dude, well, he is a REPUBLICAN ....

And so ...

I think that you people who thought Spitzer was a real Democrat got snookered, myself, by his slick-running PROPAGANDA MACHINE run by Darren Dopp ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | July 23, 2007 4:42 PM

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

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

"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."

"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.

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

"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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.

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

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Say, GregNYC ....

This is not to attack you or call you a LIBTARD, or anything, but we upstate folks notice that you are always hoping that Joe Bruno will go to jail soon ....

And dude, to be frank with you, we are wondering how you envision that scenario going down ...

Do you think that Joe Bruno is going to just wake up some day, and say to himself that he is a really bad dude who deserves to go to jail, and then he is going to get in his car and drive himself there?

Because if it don't happen that way, it is not going to happen at all ...

The George W. Bush/Karl Rove U.S. DEPARTMENT OF NOT A SCINTILLA OF JUSTICE is sure not going to send him there if that's what you are thinking, dude ....

Not after BUSHITE Bertie Gonzales made an example out of U.S. Attorney Carol Lamm by firing her for putting Randy "HEY, BIG DUKE MY MAN IN THE SLAM" Cunningham in stir for being corrupt, anyway ....

Who do you think picks the head U.S. Attorney up here, anyway?

When Karl Rove is in charge of who gets to be a U.S. Attorney, and who doesn't, there is no hope coming from that quarter, if you thought they were going to put Joe Bruno in jail ...

And so ....

Hate to burst your bubble, but that's the way we see it up here ....

And in 2005, a BUSH judge on the federal bench up here openly condoned the "marketing" of political protection up here by Joe Bruno's crowd ....

And so ...

Joe Bruno has a federal "STAY OUT OF JAIL" card, thanks to that Bush judge ...

And so ...

Reality bites, don't it, dude?

But that's the way real life is ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | July 26, 2007 6:45 PM

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

"AP NewsBreak: Ethics Commission probes Spitzer scandal"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:22 p.m., Thursday, July 26, 2007

ALBANY -- The state Ethics Commission has authorized its staff to start a preliminary investigation into the scandal in which top aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer used state police in a plot to discredit Republican Senate leader Joseph Bruno, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The letter from the Ethics Commission's executive director states the commissioners have acted and "authorized staff to review facts and circumstances" of the case that has dominated the Albany agenda since state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released an investigative report Monday.

Unlike Cuomo, in this case, the Ethics Commission has subpoena power to compel testimony.

The letter, dated Thursday and addressed to Cuomo, was provided by a state official on the condition of anonymity because the investigation hadn't been officially announced.

When told of the letter, state Ethics Commission spokesman Walter Ayres confirmed it came from the investigative agency.

Ayres said the probe is a "preliminary investigation" reviewing all that Cuomo produced, which could be followed by the commission's own interviews and documents searches.

Spitzer's office, however, considers it a routine "review" of Cuomo's records.

The commission seeks all interview transcripts, notes, e-mail and other material from Cuomo's investigation, but it can compel testimony under oath.

Cuomo's interviews were voluntary because he lacked subpoena power in this case.

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said the governor's office has offered to produce all the records it had provided to the Office of the Attorney General and the Inspector General's Office.

"After the issuance of a report like the Attorney General's, it is common practice for the New York State Ethics Commission to ask to review pertinent documents to determine whether it should open its own investigation," she said.

"We trust that the commission will appropriately determine whether or not further inquiry beyond the OAG's and IG's now closed investigations is warranted."

Cuomo's report released Monday concluded that Spitzer's 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 a reporter, the report concluded.

Neither Dopp nor Secretary to the Gov. Rich Baum, mentioned in the report as receiving e-mails from Dopp and Howard, gave testimony to the attorney general.

The letter was written the same day Spitzer, a former prosecutor, refused during a news conference to say whether it was appropriate that his top aides failed to fully cooperate with investigators looking into their use of state police against Bruno.

"I was not involved" in the decision, Spitzer said at the raucous news conference.

He said he knew of the request that the aides testify.

Spitzer has repeatedly denied knowing about the plot to discredit Bruno, the state's top Republican.

"I find it very difficult to believe these trusted staffers and confidants kept their leader in the dark," state Sen. Stephen Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican, said Thursday.

Cuomo's report "raises questions about what the governor knew or should have known."

The Ethics Commission is headed by Chairman John Feerick, who Spitzer has chosen to lead a new entity in the coming months that will regulate ethics and lobbying in Albany.

Feerick appointed Herbert Teitlebaum as executive director of the Ethics Commission in June.

The Senate Committee on Investigations also sought records from Cuomo on Thursday and is considering its own probe, stated Sen. George Winner Jr., an Elmira Republican.

On Sunday, the day before the report was issued and after the Cuomo investigation was largely completed, Baum and Dopp submitted sworn statements through the governor's counsel's office.

Spitzer, the former crime-busting attorney general who made international headlines as the "Sheriff of Wall Street," defended the decision not to provide testimony.

He said Thursday that it wasn't necessary for Baum and Dopp to be questioned after Cuomo determined no crime was committed.

Baum, in an interview Thursday, said the decision was consistent with policy.

"The Attorney General's Office asked the counsel's office for testimony from me, and I guess from Darren Dopp," Baum said.

"In general, the counsel's office frowns on sworn testimony of people in the executive chamber who advise the governor because they prefer to not have wide reaching questions about the advice to the governor."

"It was all done through counsel's office," Baum said.

Hours before, Spitzer was pressed in a news conference on whether refusal to testify would have been acceptable if he was still attorney general.

"As a prosecutor, I will tell you (that) you pursue facts until it's your conclusion, unquestioned, and you reach the legal determination that needs to be made," he said.

"The attorney general reached its conclusion, and without any hesitancy or doubt, there were no violations of the law."

"There were judgment errors that were made that were egregious."

Spitzer said Thursday that the written statements by Baum and Dopp were "sufficient for the attorney general to close its investigation."

But the statements weren't accepted for use in the report.

"We told the governor's counsel's office that we wanted to interview Darren Dopp and Richard Baum," Cuomo spokesman Jeffrey Lerner said Thursday.

"Our investigators decided not to include the written statements as they did not have the chance to interview Dopp and Baum."

Baum said the decision by the counsel's office not testify isn't in writing.

He also said he doesn't know why Howard's interview with investigators was approved.

"The counsel's office offered a sworn statement from me that spoke to the core accusations or the core questions being posed by the report and the sworn statement spoke to those questions," Baum said.

"And they received that and closed the investigation."

"That's what I know."

Baum said he received two e-mails from Howard and Dopp apparently regarding the political scheme, but "I didn't respond or engage ... I have no recollection of engaging."

Baum said neither he nor Spitzer knew of the political scheme underway by Dopp and Howard.

Spitzer also refused to comment on what he would do if subpoenaed by the Legislature to compel testimony about how much the governor knew about the political plot.

"We have not gotten there," Spitzer said before the Ethics Commission probe was confirmed.

"It is not necessary at this point."

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Pardon me here, folks, but WE are getting gamed here by Eliot Spitzer and young Andrew Cuomo and the media when we are told that young Andrew Cuomo does not have the right to subpoena testimony in the CHOPPER-GATE FIASCO that is now playing in the on-going SOAP OPERA that is NYS government ...

And in support of that statement, I refer to section 6 of ART. 2 of the NYS Executive Law wherein is clearly stated as follows:

S 6. Examination and inspection by the governor.

The governor is authorized at any time, either in person or by one or more persons appointed by him for the purpose, to examine and investigate the management and affairs of any department, board, bureau or commission of the state.

The governor and the persons so appointed by him are empowered to subpoena and enforce the attendance of witnesses, to administer oaths and examine witnesses under oath and to require the production of any books or papers deemed relevant or material.

end quotes

EMPOWERED TO SUBPOENA AND EXAMINE WITNESSES UNDER OATH ...

Supposedly, "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer acted under this authority when he tasked young Andrew Cuomo to investigate this matter, because "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer's duty is to "take care that the laws are faithfully executed" and any authority that he has to act DERIVES from OUR laws ....

And this language does not require a law degree to understand ...

A five year old child up here can understand it ...

So, please, the media, and "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and young Andrew Cuomo, stop lying to us and stop trying to mislead us ...

We had way too much of that crap back in the days of Mario Cuomo, and then George Pataki, and so ...

We are sick to death of it now ...

And now ...

Well, we have the BLOGS which we never had before ...

And we are expressing our disgust with this lying by people in positions of high authority that is going on now, and here I am referring directly to "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer, and perhaps young Andy Cuomo, as well ..

And so ....

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...0.html#comments

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Posted by topo: John, I'm wondering about the interpretation of the word "appointed" particularly given that the AG is an elected official in his own right with his own duties and responsibilities laid out in the state constitution ....

JOHN GALT REPLIES: Howdy, topo, good to see you back around, dude ...

And as you say, topo, yes, the AG is an elected state official in his or her own right, and all ARTICLE V of the NYS Constitution, entitled "Officers and Civil Departments", has to say about the NYS AG is as follows:

Section 1. The comptroller and attorney-general shall be chosen at the same general election as the governor and hold office for the same term, and shall possess the qualifications provided in section 2 of article IV.

The legislature shall provide for filling vacancies in the office of comptroller and of attorney-general.

No election of a comptroller or an attorney-general shall be had except at the time of electing a governor.

end quotes

So all the NYS Constitution does, topo, with respect to the NYS AG, is to provide for his or her election, nothing more ....

The NYS Constitution DOES NOT provide the NYS AG with his own duties and responsibilities ...

Those duties and responsibilities ARE NOT spelled out in the state constitution ...

To the contrary, they are laid out in quite specific detail, as are all things in NYS government, in the laws of OUR state as enacted, and in the case of the NYS AG, that is ART. 5 of the NYS Executive Law, wherein is stated in section 60 as follows:

S 60. Department of law. There shall continue to be in the state government a department of law.

The head of the department of law shall be the attorney-general who shall receive an annual salary of one hundred fifty-one thousand five hundred dollars.

end quotes

So in NYS, topo, the AG is a part of the Executive Branch of OUR NYS government, and as such, the NYS AG is not an independent position!

In essence, the NYS AG works at the direction of the governor, not independent of the governor, as can be clearly and plainly seen from a review of section 63 of ART. 5 of the NYS Executive Law, to wit:

S 63. General duties. The attorney-general shall:

1. Prosecute and defend all actions and proceedings in which the state is interested, and have charge and control of all the legal business of the departments and bureaus of the state, or of any office thereof which requires the services of attorney or counsel, in order to protect the interest of the state, but this section shall not apply to any of the military department bureaus or military offices of the state.

No action or proceeding affecting the property or interests of the state shall be instituted, defended or conducted by any department, bureau, board, council, officer, agency or instrumentality of the state, without a notice to the attorney-general apprising him of the said action or proceeding, the nature and purpose thereof, so that he may participate or join therein if in his opinion the interests of the state so warrant.

Section 63(2} is more relevant to the relationship between the governor and the AG, in this case, young Andrew Cuomo, with respect to this exact investigation:

2. Whenever required by the governor, attend in person, or by one of his deputies, any term of the supreme court or appear before the grand jury thereof for the purpose of managing and conducting in such court or before such jury criminal actions or proceedings as shall be specified in such requirement; in which case the attorney-general or his deputy so attending shall exercise all the powers and perform all the duties in respect of such actions or proceedings, which the district attorney would otherwise be authorized or required to exercise or perform; and in any of such actions or proceedings the district attorney shall only exercise such powers and perform such duties as are required of him by the attorney-general or the deputy attorney-general so attending.

end quotes

In NYS, topo, pursuant to OUR Bill of Rights, the citizen Grand Jury makes determinations about violations of law where misconduct by a public official is alleged, NOT YOUNG ANDREW CUOMO .....

The job of the NYS AG, when requested by the governor, is to manage that inquiry, NOT TO SIDESTEP IT, OR FIND WAYS AROUND IT IN COLLUSION WITH "STEAMROLLER" SPITZER AND HIS COUNSEL, which is exactly what appears to have taken place here, at least according to this Rich Baum dude ...

And sect 63(3) of ART. V of the NYS Executive Law is instructive as well:

3. Upon request of the governor, comptroller, secretary of state, commissioner of transportation, superintendent of insurance, superintendent of banks, commissioner of taxation and finance or commissioner of motor vehicles, or the head of any other department, authority, division or agency of the state, investigate the alleged commission of any indictable offense or offenses in violation of the law which the officer making the request is especially required to execute or in relation to any matters connected with such department, and to
prosecute the person or persons believed to have committed the same and any crime or offense arising out of such investigation or prosecution or both, including but not limited to appearing before and presenting all such matters to a grand jury.

end quotes

I submit, topo, that there, we are very close to the heart of the matter here ....

"Upon request of the governor ...."

That is what started this investigation, topo ....

"Investigate the alleged commission of any indictable offense or offenses in violation of the law which the officer making the request is especially required to execute ...."

That, topo, I submit, was the nature of the request made of young Andy Cuomo by "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer ...

I submit that according to section 63 (3) of the NYS Executive Law which binds both "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and young Andy Cuomo's actions in this matter, once that request was made, and it was, young Andy Cuomo had no choice but to follow through ACCORDING TO THE LAW:

"And to prosecute the person or persons believed to have committed the same and any crime or offense arising out of such investigation or prosecution or both, including but not limited to appearing before and presenting all such matters to a grand jury ...."

end quotes

According to Rich Baum in the story "AP NewsBreak: Ethics Commission probes Spitzer scandal" by MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press, last updated: 6:22 p.m., Thursday, July 26, 2007, NONE OF THAT EVER HAPPENED ....

According to what I am reading, "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and young Andy Cuomo and the "STEAMROLLER'S" counsel all got together, and they pulled a SHAM on us ....

They concocted a faux investigation that protected Spitzer and Baum and the DOPPSTER and the Howard dude, as well, by by-passing a Grand Jury and by indemifying them from criminal prosecution by saying there IS NO EVIDENCE of criminal conduct, when Spitzer and his counsel and young Andy Cuomo in essence hid the evidence instead ...

They are trying to gull us, topo ....

Play us for fools ...

They are by-passing the law, topo ...

Spitzer and young Andy Cuomo are making a mockery out of OUR state laws ....

And that brings us to section 63(4) of ART. 5 of the NYS Executive Law, wherein is stated:

4. Cause all persons indicted for corrupting or attempting to corrupt any member or member-elect of the legislature, or the commissioner of general services, to be brought to trial.

end quotes

Were Eliot Spitzer and his crew trying to corrupt Joe Bruno?

In my mind, anyway, that is something that needs to be investigated ....

But Eliot Spitzer and young Andy Cuomo now appear to be compromised, the pair of them, and so, young Andy Cuomo cannot be trusted to uphold and enforce section 63(4), and that is a problem, topo ...

For it denies those of us in Joe Bruono's district equal representation under the law ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | July 27, 2007 6:26 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...the_day_74.html

"Poll: Spitzer needs to testify in scandal; Cuomo stock rises"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:43 p.m., Friday, July 27, 2007

ALBANY -- Half of New Yorkers suspect Gov. Eliot Spitzer knew more than he has said about a plot by his aides to use state police against Republican Senate leader Joseph Bruno, according to a WNBC-Marist College poll released Friday.

Eight in 10 voters also think Spitzer should testify in any further investigation.

Even so, Spitzer -- who has told reporters he was misled by his aides -- continues to enjoy strong job approval ratings in the poll, which was conducted Wednesday and Thursday amid heavy news coverage of the controversy.

Meanwhile, the man who detailed the scandal in a report Monday, Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, is for the first time Albany's most popular statewide official.

Cuomo's rating jumped to 52 percent, up from 40 percent in March.

Even Republicans -- 40 percent -- and upstaters -- 46 percent -- say he is doing an excellent or good job.

Cuomo's investigative report found that although no laws were broken, two top Spitzer aides collected state police data for release to a reporter to discredit Bruno for using state aircraft on days he attended Republican fundraisers.

Spitzer suspended one aide and transferred the other.

Cuomo has also spent much of the spring on his national investigation of conflicts of interest between student loan companies and colleges.

The state Legislature and Congress acted on reforms Cuomo recommended.

But the poll focused on Spitzer, the "Sheriff of Wall Street" during his eight years as attorney general and a Democrat who won a historic share of the vote last year, in part by promising to clean up Albany.

"On the one hand, you have political fallout of a major nature for the governor," said Lee Miringoff of the Marist poll.

"The good news is that the events of the past week didn't dramatically change how voters view him."

Spitzer was rated excellent or good in his job by 47 percent of those polled, up from 43 percent in March.

But that's low for the Democrat who won office in November with a historic 69 percent of the vote, Miringoff said.

And New Yorkers still think Spitzer is the guy for the job: 66 percent -- more than in March -- think he is good for the state and more than half think he is a "new kind of independent politician" who is changing Albany for the better.

Still, 41 percent feel his style is too confrontational for a governor.

"People don't think he was forthcoming (in the scandal)."

"They think he should testify," Miringoff said.

"But as far as how he's doing in Albany, that is basically intact."

Bruno, however, remains in low esteem outside his Albany-area district.

The poll found that just 26 percent of New Yorkers said the longtime Senate majority leader was doing an excellent or good job.

The story is the same for Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of lower Manhattan, who attracted the highest ratings from only 28 percent of those polled.

There was no immediate comment from Spitzer or Bruno.

Cuomo spokesman Jeffrey Lerner declined comment.

The telephone poll of 554 registered voters has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

------

On the Net:

http://www.maristpoll.marist.edu

"Ethics Commission takes on Spitzer scandal"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 12:03 a.m., Friday, July 27, 2007

ALBANY -- A scandal that snares two of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's top aides and has prompted questions about the reform-minded governor's knowledge of a plot to use state police to discredit a political opponent is now in the hands of an ethics investigations body Spitzer has sought to strengthen.

The state Ethics Commission has authorized its staff to start a preliminary investigation into the plan by two Spitzer aides to use state police to track Republican Senate leader Joseph Bruno's use of state helicopters to New York City on days he attended GOP fundraisers.

Spitzer suspended one aide indefinitely -- Communications Director Darren Dopp -- and transferred a public security aide -- William Howard -- after the plan was revealed in an investigative report by Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

But the state Ethics Commission has subpoena power, which in this case Cuomo didn't.

That means the Ethics Commission could compel Dopp and Secretary to the Gov. Rich Baum or even Spitzer to testify on the matter.

Dopp and Baum refused to be interviewed by Cuomo's investigators, submitted written statement instead, and Spitzer wasn't asked.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum wrote Cuomo on Thursday saying the commissioners have acted and "authorized staff to review facts and circumstances" of the case.

Ethics Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said the letter refers to what he termed a "preliminary investigation."

It involves a review of all that Cuomo produced, and could lead to the commission's own interviews and documents searches.

Spitzer's office, however, considers it a routine "review" of Cuomo's records.

"The Ethics Commission has requested the attorney general and the inspector general to provide their files for the Commission's review," state Ethics Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said late Thursday in a written statement.

"The Commission has made no determination as to whether to investigate these matters."

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said the governor's office has offered to produce all the records it had provided to the Office of the Attorney General and the Inspector General's Office.

"After the issuance of a report like the Attorney General's, it is common practice for the New York State Ethics Commission to ask to review pertinent documents to determine whether it should open its own investigation," she said.

"We trust that the commission will appropriately determine whether or not further inquiry beyond the OAG's and IG's now closed investigations is warranted."

"I am absolutely certain that the ethical footing of this administration is on firmer ground than it ever has been," Spitzer told reporters Thursday afternoon.

He said he hopes to move on to other state issues, working with Bruno.

The Ethics Commission is headed by Chairman John Feerick, who Spitzer appointed and has chosen to lead a new and stronger entity in the coming months that will regulate ethics in the executive branch and lobbying in Albany.

Feerick appointed Teitelbaum as executive director of the Ethics Commission in June.

The Senate Committee on Investigations also sought records from Cuomo on Thursday and is considering its own probe, stated Sen. George Winner Jr., an Elmira Republican.

Bruno had no comment Thursday.

Cuomo's report released Monday concluded that Dopp and 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 a reporter, the report concluded.

The letter was written the same day Spitzer, a former prosecutor, refused during a news conference to say whether it was appropriate that his top aides failed to fully cooperate with investigators looking into their use of state police against Bruno.

"I was not involved" in the decision, Spitzer said at the raucous news conference.

He said he knew of the request that the aides testify.

Spitzer has repeatedly denied knowing about the plot to discredit Bruno, the state's top Republican.

"I find it very difficult to believe these trusted staffers and confidants kept their leader in the dark," state Sen. Stephen Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican, said Thursday.

Cuomo's report "raises questions about what the governor knew or should have known."

Spitzer, the former crime-busting attorney general who made international headlines as the "Sheriff of Wall Street," defended the decision not to provide testimony.

He said Thursday that it wasn't necessary for Baum and Dopp to be questioned after Cuomo determined no crime was committed.

Baum, in an interview Thursday, said the decision was consistent with policy.

"The Attorney General's Office asked the counsel's office for testimony from me, and I guess from Darren Dopp," Baum said.

"In general, the counsel's office frowns on sworn testimony of people in the executive chamber who advise the governor because they prefer to not have wide reaching questions about the advice to the governor."

"It was all done through counsel's office," Baum said.

Hours before, Spitzer was pressed in a news conference on whether refusal to testify would have been acceptable if he was still attorney general.

"As a prosecutor, I will tell you (that) you pursue facts until it's your conclusion, unquestioned, and you reach the legal determination that needs to be made," he said.

"The attorney general reached its conclusion, and without any hesitancy or doubt, there were no violations of the law."

"There were judgment errors that were made that were egregious."

Spitzer said Thursday that the written statements by Baum and Dopp were "sufficient for the attorney general to close its investigation."

"The counsel's office offered a sworn statement from me that spoke to the core accusations or the core questions being posed by the report and the sworn statement spoke to those questions," Baum said.

"And they received that and closed the investigation."

"That's what I know."

But the statements weren't accepted for use in the report.

"We told the governor's counsel's office that we wanted to interview Darren Dopp and Richard Baum," Cuomo spokesman Jeffrey Lerner said Thursday.

"Our investigators decided not to include the written statements as they did not have the chance to interview Dopp and Baum."

------

AP Writer Michael Hill contributed to this report from Albany.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Posted by Slow Hands: How did this guy go from "The Steamroller" to "Tricky Dicky" in 8 months?

JOHN GALT RESPONDS: He already was "TRICKY DICKY, THE STEAMROLLER" in upstate NY when he was the AG ....

But his slick press operation kept people's attention focused off of that, which was easier back then because we upstate folks did not have the BLOG-O-SPHERE available to us as we do today ...

Now, it's a whole different "game" for these politicians like the "STEAMROLLER" ....

The exclusivity in getting out their "message" they enjoyed in the past has been stripped from them by UNCENSORED BLOGS such as this one ....

This is a first in our lives up here in upstate NYS, where we never had direct access to our fellow citizens in NYS like this before ...

In August of 2001, the "state" inproperly used a state employee and the NYSP BCI to "remove" a licensed professional engineer in upstate NYS who was investigating on-going government corruption in the NYS Dept. of Health and the DEC and the Office of Professional Discipline of the NYS Education Dept. involving politically-connected licensed professionals making and filing false reports to obtain what were bogus "approvals", which is a misdemeaneor carrying a sentence of a year in jail ...

The "state" removed this individual by creating for him a false criminal and psychiatric history, and then had a political doctor in Troy, NY write up a false psychiatric involuntary commitment order for this individual which destroyed him and his credibility ...

"TRICKY DICKY, THE STEAMROLLER" covered that all over, as if it had never happened, and in doing so, indemnified the perps from any criminal prosecution whatsoever, despite a written letter from Hon. Patrick McGrath of Rensselaer County Court expressing his belief that federal and state criminal statutes had been violated ....

The compliant "press" in the Albany area aided and abetted that cover-up, and we had no way of getting the news out, ourselves ...

So we look at what is happening now as the reward of "TRICKY DICKY, THE STEAMROLLER's" HUBRIS back then ...

It restores our belief in TRUE JUSTICE being beyond the ultimate control of people with no integrity such as "TRICKY DICKY, THE STEAMROLLER" Spitzer ....

What happened to that engineer to us is an unforgivable offense against the people of the State of NYS ...

Spitzer saw to the destruction of that individual as if he were nothing but vermin, and in the course of doing so, the SPITZER-ITES buried the sworn statements of an Albany, NY Police Officer who was an eye-witness to the alleged criminal conduct, as well as the statements of an NYSP BCI Investigator who was himself complicit in what went down ...

And now ...

The past catches up with "TRICKY DICKY, THE STEAMROLLER" Spitzer ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | July 28, 2007 8:00 AM

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

"Ethics panel has ties to Spitzer - Committee may have conflict in probing governor's conduct"

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

First published: Saturday, July 28, 2007

ALBANY -- When it was revealed earlier this week that the state Ethics Commission might look at the Troopergate scandal enveloping Gov. Eliot Spitzer, it didn't go unnoticed that the commission's chairman, former Fordham law school Dean John Feerick, was chosen by Spitzer for the job.

As it also turns out, the former law firm of Herbert Teitelbaum, the ethics panel's executive director, has been a six-figure contributor to Spitzer.

Some, including Sen. Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, the Senate deputy majority leader and a member of the Senate Committee on Investigations, question the commission's independence.

"Senator Skelos holds Dean Feerick in high regard but there are certainly concerns about the governor's influence over the commission," said Skelos' spokesman Thomas Dunham.

The Senate investigations panel is also considering an inquiry into whether more people in the governor's office were involved in a scheme to misuse State Police to discredit Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Teitelbaum previously worked at a prominent New York City law firm that has donated more than $100,000 to the governor, according to state Board of Elections records.

The Bryan Cave law firm has donated to both the Spitzer-Paterson '06 and Spitzer 2010 campaign funds.

The donations accounted for $117,208 of the $118,796 the firm gave to various committees in the past four years.

Teitelbaum, who was named last month to the $140,000-a-year position on the Ethics Commission, has since left the firm and severed any financial connections to it, said commission spokesman Walter Ayres.

Teitelbaum has also made personal contributions to former Gov. George Pataki, as well as given $1,000 to John Faso, the Republican who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to Spitzer.

Such contributions aren't unusual in Albany, where political supporters of state officials frequently end up on key panels.

While critics may wonder how a commission can fully investigate people whom the panel's members have been appointed by or have supported politically, Ayres said that may come with the territory when it comes to getting well-informed members.

"If you're going to say the only people who serve on the commission are people who've had no interest in politics their whole life, are those the people you want here?"

"I'm not so sure," said Ayres.

Spitzer's spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said the administration trusts the commission will "appropriately determine" whether further inquiry is warranted, and that "the commission's charge is to provide impartial deliberations and we're sure they'll do that."

Others on the five-member Ethics Commission have made contributions over the years, with Robert Giuffra giving to Spitzer during his attorney general days, as well as to Pataki and Faso.

Giuffra was selected by Pataki.

Additionally, Carl Loewenson gave money to Spitzer's 2002 attorney general campaign.

(The attorney general and state comptroller choose one commission member each, while the governor chooses three).

The Ethics Commission is the latest organization to emerge as a potential player in the scandal.

The affair began earlier this month with a Times Union story that relied partially on records of flights and ground travel during trips that Bruno, R-Brunswick, made to New York City using a State Police helicopter and police drivers.

The story, which noted three of the trips occurred on days Bruno attended major Republican fundraisers, used records obtained through the state Freedom of Information Law.

But it was later revealed that those records had been re-created by State Police at the behest of Spitzer's advisers, now-suspended communications director Darren Dopp and William Howard, deputy secretary for homeland security.

Howard has since been reassigned.

Cuomo's report concluded Dopp and Howard improperly had State Police create records of Bruno's travels for the purpose of discrediting him.

And Bruno has characterized the creation of those records as a form of political espionage.

The plot thickened with news that two key players, Dopp and Spitzer's secretary, Richard Baum, refused to testify in Cuomo's investigation.

Instead, they supplied sworn statements, which the report did not use.

Friday, Spitzer told the New York Times he would allow Baum and Dopp to testify before the Ethics Commission and was inclined to testify himself if he received clearance from his legal counsel, David Nocenti.

Meanwhile, trouble grew inside his own party.

On Friday, the Staten Island Advance reported Democratic Sen. Diane Savino of Brooklyn was calling for Baum, Dopp and Howard to be fired.

Also, a WNBC/Marist Poll showed half the 554 registered voters questioned said Spitzer knew his advisers were trying to plant a negative story about Bruno and 80 percent said the governor should testify.

Spitzer's approval rating, however, was up to 47 percent from 43 percent in March.

The poll was done Wednesday and Thursday, with a margin of error of 4.5 points.

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

In the State of NY, topo, WE, THE PEOPLE elect OUR Attorney General, INDEPENDENT of who we elect as governor ...

The ATTORNEY GENERAL IS OUR ATTORNEY GENERAL, not Eliot Spitzer's Attorney General ...

In the State of New York, topo, the right of the PEOPLE to inquire into misconduct in office of public officers like "STEAMBOAT" Spitzer is ABSOLUTE!

ART. 1, SECTION 6:

The power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law.

end quotes

To make that inquiry properly, topo, WE, THE PEOPLE of the State of New York need a truly independent Attorney General to manage that inquiry pursuant to sect. 63(2)&(3) of the NYS Executive Law ....

And so ...

I am of the mind that in this matter of TROOPER-GATE, young Andy Cuomo has compromised his integrity as OUR Attorney general in whatever deals he made with "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and the "STEAMROLLER'S" counsel to protect Spitzer and Baum and the DOPPSTER, and the Howard dude, who makes a salary of $179,500 from SUNY as director of the Center for Homeland Security, Research, Training and Education ...

So big punishment for him, ain't it?

Having to go back to his high-paying day job, while Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and young Andy Cuomo play games with us by talking of his punishment ...

Yeah, right!

This guy Howard's salary could go a long way toward helping this state be a better place for its citizens by tossing the Howard dude out on his ***, and by putting that money back in OUR treasury for a start on a tax break for us older folks on fixed incomes who are living in poverty in upstate NY ...

To me, topo, young Andy Cuomo is no longer trustworthy to protect OUR Bill of Rights from Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer and his crowd ....

And so ...

Just my thoughts on the matter, right now .....

Take them for what they are worth, as always ...

And we shall all be well served by that ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | July 28, 2007 2:54 PM

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

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

We country folk are simple folk, topo ....

So your words come through, loud and clear ...

JUSTICE ..

IS NOT ...

THE PROPERTY ....

OF ELIOT SPITZER ...

Nor Joe Bruno, for that matter ...

JUSTICE BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE ...

At least in NYS ...

WHERE WE HAVE OUR OWN BILL OF RIGHTS ...

Which means what it says independent of what George W. Bush might think about it, at least according to OUR NYS Court of Appeals in 1996, in Ricky Brown et al. v. State of New York, 89 NY2d 172:

"Constitutions assign rights to individuals and impose duties on the government to regulate the government's actions to protect them."

"It is the failure to fulfill a stated constitutional duty which may support a claim for damages in a constitutional tort action."

"The underlying rationale for the decision, in simplest terms, is that constitutional guarantees are worthy of protection on their own terms without being linked to some common-law or statutory tort, and that the courts have the obligation to enforce these rights by ensuring that each individual receives an adequate remedy for violation of a constitutional duty."

"If the remedy is not forthcoming from the political branches of government, then the courts must provide it by recognizing a damage remedy against the violators much the same as the courts earlier recognized and developed equitable remedies to enjoin unconstitutional actions."

"Implicit in this reasoning is the premise that the Constitution is a source of positive law, not merely a set of limitations on government."

end quotes

And where we upstate countryfolks still thank a higher power than Eliot Spitzer for OUR LIBERTY ...

And so ...

Ring-side seats, topo, and here we are ....

How is that about the meek inheriting the earth?

Ah, something sappy like that, anyway ...

And so ..

Posted by: John Galt | July 28, 2007 2:29 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...z.html#comments

THE WASHINGTON POST

"Half of New York voters say Spitzer knew of smear: poll"

Reuters

Friday, July 27, 2007; 3:36 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About 50 percent of New Yorkers say Governor Eliot Spitzer knew about an attempt by his top aides to use a local newspaper to discredit his chief Republican foe, according to a WNBC/Marist Poll on Friday.

Governor Spitzer was faulted by a report last week by the state attorney general which said Spitzer's aides tried to blot the senate majority leader's reputation by saying he misused state helicopters.

Some 62 percent of New Yorkers also want another probe into whether Spitzer's staff tried to plant stories claiming Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno misused state aircraft, the WNBC/Marist Poll said.

Though the governor has said his staff misled him, two of the aides involved only gave the attorney general brief sworn statements, and their decision not to answer questions under oath has kept the controversy alive.

An even bigger majority of voters -- 80 percent - said the Democratic governor "should be required to testify" in another investigation.

The feud has derailed much of Spitzer's reform agenda and left many financial issues hanging, from a $300 million package to boost the economy and construction laws that drive up the cost of public schools.

The scandal also has dealt the governor a major setback in his bid to gain control of the senate.

Bruno, who only has a three-seat majority, now has a much stronger hand.

Spitzer, the hard-driving former prosecutor who won office last November with a commanding 70 percent majority, has been criticised in the media since Monday when the state attorney general reported the results of his investigation.

Though Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said no crimes were committed, the Democrat added that Spitzer's aides wrongly inserted the state police into politics when they requested data on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's trips.

Spitzer responded by indefinitely suspending his chief spokesman and reassigning his liaison to the state police.

Despite unfavorable coverage, Spitzer has a 47 percent approval rating, according to the July 25-26 poll.

That is up from 43 percent in March, according to the survey, though it had a 4.5 percent margin of error.

Bruno, in contrast, has only a 26 percent approval rating though one in four voters had no opinion.

The state's top GOP leader has demanded more probes and at least one more is already underway.

The ethics commission, which unlike the attorney general can subpoena the governor's office, has begun its own review.

New York's governors appoint the bipartisan commission's five members though one is nominated by the comptroller and one by the attorney general.

Cuomo clearly has gained from the scandal, partly because his report was seen as hard-hitting.

His approval ratings shot up 12 percentage points to 52 percent from March, according to the survey of 554 voters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...577.html?sub=AR

DATE July 29, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A

TIME 6:30-7:00 AM AUDIENCE 119,036

NETWORK LOCAL

PROGRAM News Forum

State Senator JOE BRUNO: The steam has gone from the steamroller, the wheels have come off the steamroller, and now he's got to face facts.

Governor ELIOT SPITZER: I spoke to Joe yesterday morning, as I've recounted, and said to him, `Joe, we have got to put what happened in the past behind us.'

I--as I've said before, I said, `What happened was in error.'

I said very clearly, `I apologize, but let's move forward.'

GABE PRESSMAN, host: In microcosm, that's the story of the clash that's dominated Albany politics in the past week.

A report by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found Governor Spitzer's staff had used the state police to gather information about the Republican majority leader of the state Senate, Joseph Bruno; that the police were used to collect and create information about Bruno's use of state planes and helicopters on trips that involved both business and political activities.

The report said there was no unlawful conduct, but two of the governor's aides refused to be interviewed by the attorney general.

And Bruno says he's determined to have a Senate committee investigate further, something the governor rejects as a waste of taxpayers' money.

Announcer: From Studio 6B in Rockefeller Center, this is a presentation from News Channel 4 HD, NEWS FORUM.

Now your host, senior correspondent Gabe Pressman.

PRESSMAN: Good day.

And we'll examine this controversy from two perspectives today.

We'll interview Governor Spitzer's press secretary Christine Anderson first, and later, the deputy majority leader of the State Senate, Dean Skelos.

Welcome, Miss Anderson.

Ms. CHRISTINE ANDERSON: Thank you.

PRESSMAN: Miss Anderson, the State Ethics Commission has just announced that it will investigate the scandal or controversy in which two top aides to the governor have been involved, or are alleged to have been involved.

They have subpoena power.

Do you think that the governor's aides will testify?

Ms. ANDERSON: Look, the investigation by the attorney general's office and the inspector general's office is closed.

But what's often common is for the Ethics Commission to request documents and to determine -- make a determination as to whether or not they should look into this and investigate the matter further.

And that's kind of what's going on right now.

We've reached out to them and offered to produce all the documents that went to the attorney general's office and the inspector general's office.

And we have every, you know, faith that they will make the determination as to whether or not they need to look into this further.

PRESSMAN: Do you expect that if they ask the governor's staff to testify that they will do so willingly, or under subpoena?

Ms. ANDERSON: You know, it's a hypothetical question right now, so I probably wouldn't go into it.

That said, we cooperate with investigations.

PRESSMAN: The governor has said in the past that his staff was fully cooperative, and yet the attorney general's report said that they did not testify.

They didn't interview them.

They put out statements--sworn statements.

Ms. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm. Right.

PRESSMAN: But they did not go before the investigators.

Ms. ANDERSON: Right.

I think this is one of those substories within the story that's--could have been contributed to by statements on both sides.

Let me just step back and tell you what did happen.

They had obviously requested interviews of Darren Dopp and Richard Baum.

When they did request those interviews, which was at some point, I believe, over--end of last week or the weekend, they had already informed our counsel's office that they had made a determination that there was no illegal conduct and no surveillance.

So at that point we decided to submit--our counsel's office made the decision to submit sworn statements.

PRESSMAN: Mm-hmm.

Ms. ANDERSON: Those were accepted, and they closed their investigation.

So the important thing to remember is they thought they had enough evidence to make a determination, which they did, and they closed their investigation.

PRESSMAN: Darren Dopp is the communications director.

Your boss, actually.

Ms. ANDERSON: Right.

PRESSMAN: And Richard Baum is the secretary to the governor and the chief of staff.

Ms. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm, right.

PRESSMAN: And these two individuals, do you think that they're likely to cooperate fully, including testifying if they're asked to by the commission?

Ms. ANDERSON: By the Ethics Commission?

PRESSMAN: Yeah.

Ms. ANDERSON: Again, it's a hypothetical question.

PRESSMAN: Right.

Ms. ANDERSON: I think, you know, we have to look back on what did happen, which is sworn statements were given that were very clear.

The attorney general's office saw fit to close their investigation.

We don't believe any further investigations are necessary, but we leave it up to the Ethics Commission to make that determination.

And we'll get to that point when we get to it.

PRESSMAN: And what about...

Ms. ANDERSON: That said, we cooperate with investigations.

PRESSMAN: What about Senator Bruno?

He seems intent on having an investigation by a committee of the State Senate.

Ms. ANDERSON: Well, again, hypothetical question.

We do not believe an initial investigation at this point, or hearings, are necessary.

You know, personally, I wonder what that--what that says for the attorney general's report.

He did a very thorough investigation.

Senator Bruno referenced that it as a thorough investigation, that it was fair and independent.

And now he's questioning that report.

So, hypothetical at this point.

PRESSMAN: You don't think that Bruno has the truth at heart?

Ms. ANDERSON: Excuse me?

PRESSMAN: Is Bruno--is his motivation to find the truth?

Ms. ANDERSON: Look, I have every respect for Senator Bruno, and I understand the position he's in right now.

I think it's important to remember what Eliot has said, which is that he's taken responsibility for this, and stepped up to the plate and said this cannot be allowed to happen under my watch.

One of the first things he did Monday morning was called Senator Bruno to say, `I'm terribly sorry.'

'This should never have been allowed to happen, and we are taking corrective measures to insure that we clean up our house.'

One of the two things we stand for--and if you look back on the state of the--state of the--state of the state, or the inaugural address, Eliot said the two things--two pillars were economic development and ethics in government and government reform.

So when one of those two pillars is shaken, Eliot is the type of leader to really take a step back and think, `What do we need to do to make sure this is not repeated?'

So in terms of Senator Bruno we've called, we've acknowledged that mistakes were made, and that we are taking corrective measures that are -- were recommended by the attorney general's report.

We're taking that very seriously.

We are definitely internally giving this--giving this a really solid look.

PRESSMAN: Do you think Senator--do you think Senator Bruno's playing politics?

Is that what you're saying?

Ms. ANDERSON: You know, I wouldn't want to go and make any allegation like that.

I think if you look at it, we are not going to quibble with the findings of this report.

We are accepting--we're taking responsibility for it, accepting its recommendations, and we are attempting to both correct, take disciplinary action in the hopes that we can move forward.

I certainly would hope that Senator Bruno wouldn't try to turn this into a partisan issue, you know, and distract from the work at hand.

I think, you know, this has been an issue that Eliot has said, `I will confront head-on,' which he is doing currently and has done all this week.

But Senator Bruno's a public servant, and I know he wants to see us move on with governing.

Yesterday, the Senate moved to pass congestion pricing in the Assembly.

And that was great progress, and we're hoping we can continue.

PRESSMAN: Do you think this is going to jeopardize the governor's reform agenda?

Ms. ANDERSON: I think I have to go back to what I just said about the two pillars of our administration, which are, you know, ethics in government and
government reform, and economic development and transforming our economy.

When one of those two pillars is shaken by something like this, clearly, that's going to cause us to take a step back, look at how that occurred, and what we can do to correct it and move on.

I think history will show that this governor is on the side of reform, that he is pushing a reform agenda, and he will continue to.

He will spend the next, you know, months and years working to ensure the public that that...

PRESSMAN: How's it...

Ms. ANDERSON: ...that hasn't changed.

PRESSMAN: How's it possible, since he's known as a micromanager?

Ms. ANDERSON: Right.

PRESSMAN: How's it possible that he didn't know what was going on?

Ms. ANDERSON: Micromanager might not be the right word, so I'll quibble with that a little bit.

PRESSMAN: OK.

Ms. ANDERSON: He's a manger in the sense that he knows what to be personally involved with, and he also knows what to delegate.

He's not the type of manager that would be personally involved in FOIL requests or media requests.

As his press secretary, I certainly know that from a day-to-day basis.

He's certainly interested in what's coming in the papers.

He's a--he's a reader of several newspapers every day, and a voracious consumer.

But is not--he's not personally involved in FOIL requests, and shouldn't be.

We wouldn't be able to govern if we had a governor that was involved at that level.

PRESSMAN: I'd like to play something that Senator Bruno said in the recent past.

Here it is:

Sen. BRUNO: The governor's people refused--people at the highest level, they refuse to sit and answer questions.

What did they do?

They made a little statement.

And these are the people who are the closest to the governor.

I'm indicating that we have a committee with subpoena powers.

The Assembly has a committee with subpoena powers.

If we have to activate that committee we will.

PRESSMAN: You have said that it's a waste of the taxpayers' money...

Ms. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm.

PRESSMAN: ...to have a further investigation.

Ms. ANDERSON: It could potentially be.

Well, again, I think it calls into question the attorney general and the inspector general's findings.

They concluded their investigation, they thought they had enough evidence to do so.

And they said there was absolutely no illegality or surveillance going on.

Their job is not to investigate legal conduct, their job is to investigate illegal conduct.

And that is what they did.

They accepted--the attorney general's office accepted sworn statements and felt they had enough to close their investigation.

And I think that's telling.

PRESSMAN: In view of what the attorney general found, do you think that the ethics of this administration very early in the game are in tatters?

Ms. ANDERSON: Well, let me take another step back.

I think if you look at how productive the last six months have been--and I don't think there's any arguing that this governor has done some tremendous things very early on, from ethics reform, budget reform to a budget that cut a billion dollars in health care spending.

And you know--you know the list as well as I do.

I think that's why--the early accomplishments, and the speed with which we were really getting things done is why that this is so--this is such a troubling
occurrence to all of us, that it's caused us to take a step back and regroup and think through how this is allowed to happen.

So I think Eliot, what he said to all of us when he first joined the administration, is we are going to hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards.

Those two pillars, again, were what he was referencing.

And he said we have to be better, and we have to hold ourselves to the highest standards.

Clearly, there were some lapses in judgment, and clearly to members of the administration did not exercise good judgment, and allowed themselves to lose sight of what we stand for.

That doesn't mean the larger administration has lost sight of our goals.

The governor will be dogged in making sure that the administration realizes--continues to realize, you know, that we need to stand for that.

PRESSMAN: Is he very upset about the fact that a man he trusted, people he trusted, have been implicated in this?

Ms. ANDERSON: Yes.

PRESSMAN: Upset about his own judgment?

Ms. ANDERSON: He is upset that this was allowed to happen on his watch, and he takes full responsibility for it.

These are people that he likes very much, that he's had, in one instance, a long relationship with; in another instance, this is a public servant of several administrations, Bill Howard, who really is great man who helped us coordinate natural disasters and others during our past six months, and what -- he's a holdover from the Pataki administration...

PRESSMAN: Right.

Ms. ANDERSON: ...who we all had a great deal of respect for.

So I think at a personal level it's very hard for the governor to lose close advisers who he trusted.

That said, I think he is very deeply troubled that A, he was misled, and secondly, that these individuals lost sight of a very clear line that should never have been crossed.

We cannot allow the state police to be politicized, and the governor has said that, has taken full responsibility for it.

He's put in place...(unintelligible)...to try and correct that.

PRESSMAN: But as Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here."

Stops on his desk.

Ms. ANDERSON: Eliot continues to say that.

He believes it.

PRESSMAN: Thank you...

Ms. ANDERSON: He does.

PRESSMAN: ...very much, Christine Anderson, the governor's press secretary, for joining us this morning.

After the break we'll continue our discussion with deputy majority leader of the State Senate, Dean Skelos.

Stay with us.

Ms. ANDERSON: Thank you.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...l.html#comments

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And who she really seems to pull the rug out from under in that interview is young Andy Cuomo ....

The more I read, the more certain it seems that that faux "investigation" by Cuomo was contrived right from the get-go in a lame attempt by Spitzer, Cuomo and the "STEAMROLLER'S" consigliere to pull the wool over our eyes ....

Which is standard operating procedure in these instances ....

Tell people that you are going to investigate, and then tell them that you did investigate, but you did not find any evidence of wrongdoing ...

Which is a "conclusion" that you already decided on BEFORE the "investigation" was announced ...

The "DAME SNOW JEOPARDY" ...

Pick your conclusion first, and then "arrange" the "facts" to support the conclusion that you want supported ...

A cheap lawyer's trick that is easy to see through in reality, but what the hey, it still works every time because people are so gullible ...

And they don't question "AUTHORITY", in this case, both Spitzer and young Andy Cuomo, who is very popular in NYS right now ...

And so ...

Ms. ANDERSON: Right.

I think this is one of those substories within the story that's--could have been contributed to by statements on both sides.

Let me just step back and tell you what did happen.

They had obviously requested interviews of Darren Dopp and Richard Baum.

When they did request those interviews, which was at some point, I believe, over--end of last week or the weekend, they had already informed our counsel's office that they had made a determination that there was no illegal conduct and no surveillance.

So at that point we decided to submit--our counsel's office made the decision to submit sworn statements.

Posted by: John Galt | July 29, 2007 8:29 AM

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

"Harassment rampant on rails"

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press

First published: Friday, July 27, 2007

NEW YORK -- The daily $2 subway ride comes for many city straphangers with the peril of unwanted advances, lewd comments or random groping as they zip beneath the city, according to a report released Thursday on subterranean sexual harassment

report, titled "Hidden in Plain Sight," found that 63 percent of those responding reported they were sexually harassed on the subways.

Of that group, 96 percent said they didn't report the incident -- an indication that lecherous behavior on the trains is often accepted, said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

"The credo of 'what happens underground, stays underground' has got to be broken," said Stringer, who released the report.

"The harassment and assault of women in the subway system has been going on for decades."

The survey was compiled from 1,790 responses collected from New York City subway riders in all five boroughs, although Stringer acknowledged the results were not scientific.

Instead, the report said, the responses provide "an invaluable snapshot of a problem that persists but is inherently difficult to quantify."

The New York Police Department responded that crime on the transit system is at a record low, and police have arrested 119 people this year for sexual abuse or lewdness on the subways.

Jeremy Soffin, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his agency's work with police has contributing to record numbers of subway riders.

"That said, we understand how important it is to provide a safe, secure and comfortable environment for our riders," said Soffin, citing increases in high-tech subway cars and video surveillance as evidence of the MTA's safety commitment.

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by Mike: John, Your argument has an inherent fallacy — the Governor cannot and will not request the Attorney General to investigate HIMSELF under the circumstances.

Self-incrimination, anyone?

JOHN GALT RESPONDS: Mike, in all sincerity, dude, your argument is the one with the inherent FALLACY with regards to “self-incrimination” ….

This is New York State, Mike …

I don’t know how they do it anywhere else, but here in NYS, the right of citizen GRAND JURIES to make inquiry into alleged misconduct in office by public officers such as “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer is ABSOLUTE, Mike …

And if public officers like “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer refuse to testify before such a GRAND JURY, they are out of office, dude …

Section 6 of ART. 1 of the NYS CONSTITUTION BILL OF RIGHTS, Mike:

§ 6. No person shall be subject to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; nor shall he or she be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself or herself, providing, that any public officer who, upon being called before a grand jury to testify concerning the conduct of his or her present office or of any public office held by him or her within five years prior to such grand jury call to testify, or the performance of his or her official duties in any such present or prior offices, refuses to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent criminal prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, shall by virtue of such refusal, be disqualified from holding any other public office or public employment for a period of five years from the date of such refusal to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, and shall be removed from his or her present office by the appropriate authority or shall forfeit his or her present office at the suit of the attorney-general.

The power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law.

end quotes

Eliot “STEAMBOAT” Spitzer is NOT EXEMPT from the provisions of sect. 6 of ART. 1 of OUR State Constitution, Mike ….

If he won’t talk, then it’s time to toss his *** out, and to get a more honest person in there in his place …

And so …

The NYS CONSTITUTION trumps Eliot “STEAMBOAT” Spitzer, Mike ….

That’s reality in NYS, if nowhere else in America …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — July 28, 2007 @ 7:16 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5122#comments

"Pursuit of Bruno story is a public service"

By REX SMITH, Editor

First published: Sunday, July 29, 2007

of people will find it amusing, others simply ironic, for a newspaper editor to complain about inaccurate reporting. Yes, ha ha ha.

A lot has been said and written in recent weeks about the Times Union's role in the current blow-up at the Capitol.

Surely you know about it: Aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer induced State Police to track Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's movements when he used state aircraft, then lied about why they compiled the information.

We're involved because the material they put together was the basis for a July 1 story in this newspaper.

The state Republican chairman suggests that means we must have been guilty of "collusion or incompetence."

Bruno, who was already angry about our coverage of him, insists we "don't care about the facts."

The fact is that nothing in our story was inaccurate.

Nothing our reporters did was unusual or unethical.

I'm not hanging my head these days, folks.

I thought you might want to know why.

Guilt by association is a pretty easy way to get your reputation tarnished.

Just ask anyone who has been identified as a "mob associate" or who met with Jack Abramoff.

Alongside that, the notion that our staff was colluding with the wrong-doers was given weight by an inaccurate and unfair characterization in a report issued last week by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Regular readers of this column (which usually appears on Saturdays) may remember my explanation that our reporter Jim Odato, acting on a tip from a confidential source, had filed a request under the state Freedom of Information Law for information about travel on state aircraft of all the state's top officials.

He got documents revealing details of flights by Bruno, Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson, the only officials who flew on the taxpayers' dime during the first five months of the year.

What we couldn't have known was that some of the information turned over to us under that FOIL request had been created by the acting State Police superintendent specifically at the request of Spitzer aides -- and that their goal apparently was to embarrass Bruno.

The governor's communication director and liaison to the State Police pulled troopers and investigators "squarely into the middle of politics, precisely where they do not belong," according to the Cuomo report.

There's nothing unusual about a reporter listening to a confidential source for story leads.

Consider, for example, the role of the source known as Deep Throat in telling reporters for The Washington Post where to look for evidence of White House criminality during Watergate.

Our tipster surely had a motive other than an aversion to the waste of taxpayer resources on state helicopter flights, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have acted upon the tip to seek information of value to our readers.

Kelly McBride, who leads the ethics program at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, told an interviewer on WNYC radio Friday that what the Times Union had done was "the standard way of doing business in journalism," yielding "an incredibly valid story, journalistically."

Nor is it unusual for newspapers to publish true information that may have been produced by sources who didn't follow all the rules.

In that regard, the Pentagon Papers come to mind -- documents that were illegally released to the Post and The New York Times that revealed the lies being peddled to American citizens about the disaster engulfing our troops in Vietnam.

There's an analogy here that may be useful.

Prosecutors often can't use evidence against criminals because it turns out to have been obtained illegally, a concept often known in the law as "the fruit of the poison tree."

That's not the way it works in journalism.

One person's snitch is another person's whistle-blower.

If the information we obtain is true, it's appropriate to share with readers.

None of this is to suggest any disagreement with the conclusion of Cuomo, Bruno and even Spitzer that what was done to compile information that eventually came to our hands was wrong.

But there was no wrongdoing at the hands of this newspaper.

We filed a FOIL request, got documents and wrote a solid story based upon those records.

Unfortunately -- here's the part where the bad reporting comes in -- Cuomo's report raises suspicion about a second FOIL that we filed on July 10, nine days after our first story on Bruno's travels was published.

The report called the timing of that FOIL "odd," suggesting it was asking for documents already provided.

If anybody from Cuomo's office had asked before impugning our reputation, we could have cleared things up.

The second FOIL request virtually matches the first, except for two phrases.

"I want to make it clear that I also request records through the end of June 2007," Odato wrote.

That sentence wasn't cited in the Cuomo report, but it explains Odato's motivation: We intend to continue monitoring state aircraft use, and the first batch of information turned over to us covered only the first five months of the year.

A second new phrase in that FOIL asked the governor's office to turn over schedules and other information on "anyone else... for which you have such materials."

That arose, I believe, from my concern that we closely examine travel by any officials, not just Bruno.

Our first story had found that Bruno's travels on the helicopter coincided with major political fundraisers, but that Spitzer and Paterson also had done some political work while traveling on the state aircraft.

We wanted to make sure we weren't being steered to information only on Bruno when others might have been acting similarly.

It turned out, of course, that the steering had begun long before we got the tip that we should look into the travel.

Cuomo's investigation concluded that Spitzer's aides set out to gather the information on Bruno specifically to pass along to the media.

That wasn't illegal, Cuomo said, but it was surely unethical.

What Bruno did with the state aircraft wasn't illegal, either, the report concluded.

But Cuomo found that on some of the days we reported about Bruno's chopper trips downstate he did a minuscule amount of official business -- about 40 minutes on one day when there was a big GOP fundraiser.

McBride says the role of the press is rightly "not just being a watchdog over laws, but asking, 'Do the laws appropriately protect the taxpayers' money?' "

That's what we did.

Many people are attaching the word scandal to what has unfolded here, and there's every indication we could be hearing about it for a long time.

Some keen political observers tell me that outside Albany and those who follow state politics in New York City, people aren't paying much attention.

But it's big news for us, and we'll be covering it fully and honestly.

In fact, heads held high, that's what we've done so far.

Rex Smith is editor of the Times Union.

"Dr. Richard F. Daines"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, July 23, 2007

Commissioner, Department of Health

56, Stanfordville, Dutchess County

Personal: Married to Linda Daines, manager of private client services at Goldman Sachs; children William, 27, third-year student at Cornell Medical School; Katherine, 25, financial analyst; Andrew, 21, student at the U.S. Naval Academy, currently on leave as a Mormon missionary in Malaysia.

Hobbies: Gardening on his farm and woodworking.

What he does: Oversees the state Department of Health.

How he got there: Bachelor's degree in history from Utah State University, 1974; served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bolivia, 1970-1972; medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1978, residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital and board-certified in internal medicine and critical care medicine; medical director at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York, 1987-1999; medical director at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in 2000, promoted to president and CEO in 2002. Nominated as health commissioner by Gov. Eliot Spitzer in January.

Salary: $136,000

How is this job different from being a hospital CEO?

"The spectrum is just quite amazing."

"The public health, epidemiology and science piece that we have all the way up to hospital financing and regulatory things, its tremendous breadth of challenges."

What was it like being on the government side of the budget process?

"I moved so quickly from being a hospital CEO and looking at it from that point of view to joining the administration and seeing it from a different point of view."

"I thought I brought some balance to it, in understanding how hospitals both look at the specific policy implications of reimbursement changes and at the same time you have to add up a bottom line."

"You have to make the bottom line agree with the policy buckets that the money comes in from."

Did the Berger Commission go far enough?

"They went as far, in their judgment, that they could, and given the challenges that we are meeting in implementing it, I think we've got plenty to do with it."

"We think it will also precipitate more changes."

"We are hearing about additional plans from systems that are subject to Berger requirements and systems that aren't."

"... Some forward-looking people are using it as a springboard to do even more."

What do you hope to accomplish during your term as commissioner?

"I list a lot of things."

"In terms of public health goals, we have goals to improve health care indicators for large groups of people."

"A very discrete one is to reduce the number of smokers."

"We are also looking at obesity and diabetes.

"A second one is to implement an information technology structure for the whole state."

"We have a hospital and long-term care restructuring which begins with Berger but will continue."

"We are in the midst of re-evaluating health care reimbursement, and Medicaid is the piece we control most directly."

"We are revising both hospital and ambulatory reimbursement."

"We are taking a look at the indigent care system.

"... The overarching goal for all of that is to incrementally move toward universal health care so essentially every New Yorker has health insurance."

How did your experience as a Mormon missionary shape your career?

"Learning Spanish and living in a different culture for two years piqued my interest."

"Just simply the Spanish alone made my career in New York City medicine a lot easier because I started practicing in the south Bronx."

"I probably spoke more Spanish than English."

Why do you work at a standing desk?

"It's been shown that one of the ways people can successfully balance their intake of calories and how many calories they burn is some people naturally stand and move and agitate around their office all day and they burn a few more calories than people who just sit in a chair."

"The difference of a few calories a day, over a year, over a decade, is why some people get overweight and some don't."

-- Cathleen F. Crowley

NEWSDAY

"Official Misconduct"

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo gets lots of kudos for the way his office put together the facts in his report last week on the Bruno-Spitzer fiasco.

But his conclusion that Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s office engaged in no “unlawful” conduct is raising a few questions.

The problem: They reached that conclusion while two top Spitzer aides — Secretary Rich Baum and now-suspended communications director Darren Dopp -- refused to be interviewed.

They reached it while accusing another key player, homeland security aide William Howard, of lying to them.

They didn’t put Spitzer himself under oath.

One prominent law professor, NYU criminal-law expert Stephen Gillers, believes Spitzer aides may in fact have violated New York’s “Official Misconduct” statute, a misdemeanor.

It prohibits a public servant from knowingly engaging in an “unauthorized exercise of his official functions” with intent to obtain a benefit, including financial or political advantage.

If Dopp and Howard lied to the state police about a freedom of information request to get them to compile data on Bruno, as Cuomo’s report found, it could apply, says Gillers:

“I think it’s a pretty close fit.”

Cuomo's office won't respond publicly, but not all legal experts are so enthused.

Former Manhattan prosecutor Daniel Horwitz says New York doesn't have a law that explicitly makes it a crime to lie to the state police superintendent, and the official misconduct law is typically directed at a more concrete personal benefit than the discrediting of Joe Bruno.

"I just don't see it," Horwitz says.

"...To try to fit a square peg in a round hole here would be inappropriate."

Another expert, Eric Lane of Hofstra law school, said that if, for example, Spitzer ordered his aides to lie to the police to get them to create documents that would hurt Bruno, it might technically make up official misconduct.

But Lane’s still not sure there’s enough of a tie between the aides and the benefit to prove the crime, and his gut tells him that Cuomo was right to leave it to politics, not prosecution.

“I just don’t think this is what the criminal statutes are for,” Lane said

Lurking in the background: Questions about the process used by Cuomo's office.

He didn't have subpoena power.

When Baum and Dopp refused to talk, he didn't ask Spitzer to make them and didn't ask the state Inspector General -- who was running a parallel investigation -- to subpoena them.

And the office has given no sign that it intends to pursue sanctions against those that, the report indicates, may have lied.

In another recent case, CIA leak prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald refused to reach a conclusion about whether any underlying crime was committed while some people were refusing to talk and others were, he believed, lying.

That, argues Gillers, is the more standard practice.

"Any law enforcement agency is not going to come to a conclusion with gathering all the facts," he says.

"The failure to do that is not good prosecutorial practice."

Posted by Admin, web@newsday.com, on July 30, 2007 9:36 AM | Permalink

http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/long..._continued.html

"Capital Region housing market continues slide"

By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 12:31 p.m., Monday, July 30, 2007

The Capital Region housing market continues to cool, according to numbers released today by the Greater Capital Association of Realtors.

Albany County, where the overall number of closed sales in the years first six months edged up one percent, compared to the same period last year, was the regions only county to see an increase in sales.

In Saratoga County, closed sales fell a whopping 15 percent.

In Rensselaer County, sales were down six percent.

Schenectady County saw the regions deepest decline in the years first six months.

The number of closed sales there was down 17 percent.

"More Spitzer staff changes possible - Internal review under way in wake of attorney general's report on misuse of State Police"

By DANNY HAKIM, New York Times

First published: Monday, July 30, 2007

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been reviewing his administration's internal operations, and more personnel changes are possible in the wake of a report that his staff misused the State Police to discredit a political rival, people with knowledge of the review said Sunday.

Spitzer has already taken action against two staff members.

Christine Anderson, the governor's press secretary, said Sunday that there is no "shake-up planned; we're still in the process of doing our internal review."

"Are changes a possibility?"

"Sure," she added.

The governor is moving swiftly to try to put the matter behind him, but he and his staff will likely face scrutiny for months.

Republicans appeared unmoved by the governor's apology "to all New Yorkers" in an article published on the Op-Ed page in Sunday's editions of The New York Times.

In the article, Spitzer said that "we made mistakes" and that his administration's recent conduct "represents just the opposite" of the high ethical standard he promised to bring to Albany.

Referring to Spitzer's article, John E. McArdle, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, said "there's nothing in there that's going to deter us from proceeding with what we are doing."

"My sense is that we still haven't gotten to the bottom of who was involved and what did they know and when did they know it," he said.

Senate Republicans are seriously mulling their own investigation, and McArdle said that Sen. George Winner Jr. would meet on Monday with officials from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office in anticipation of a potential inquiry.

Winner is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations.

A week ago, Cuomo's office issued a scathing report that found the governor's staff had misused the State Police to gather information about Bruno in an effort to plant a negative article about him in the media.

The attorney general's report concluded that no laws were broken.

Spitzer, a Democrat, has maintained that he was misled by his staff and knew nothing about the effort to discredit Bruno, the state's top Republican.

The governor indefinitely suspended his communications director, Darren Dopp, and reassigned William F. Howard, the assistant secretary for homeland security and the governor's liaison to the State Police.