Spitzer's Other Scandal

What the Bruno case reveals about Eliot's ethics and honesty.

On Tuesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the Department of Justice can bring former New York State Senate President Joseph Bruno before a jury a second time on corruption charges. After his earlier conviction for fraud was vacated, prosecutors will now be trying him for essentially the same facts but under a different theory.

Mr. Bruno calls it double jeopardy. He's also probably wondering why his onetime political rival, disgraced ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer, has never had to face a jury even once.

While Mr. Spitzer was New York Governor, reporters began to ask questions about his use of state aircraft, which is supposed to be for official business. As the New York Post recently revealed, those reporters were right to be skeptical. Turns out that Mr. Spitzer travelled on a state airplane on the infamous 2008 trip to Washington where he had arranged to meet a prostitute.

Anyway, in 2007, Team Spitzer enlisted the state police in an effort to gather information on the use of state aircraft by another politician—Mr. Bruno. Mr. Spitzer's staff then shared with the media the data they dug up on Mr. Bruno. According to then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, this exercise to get and leak the Bruno travel records represented an inappropriate use of police resources to smear a political rival, and the details of Mr. Bruno's travel were also inaccurate

As the smear campaign quickly backfired, Mr. Spitzer claimed to be unaware of the effort and denounced it. Later, in an interview with the District Attorney of New York's Albany County, Mr. Spitzer denied directing the effort to gather dirt on his rival and also denied ordering its release to the media.

We told you last month how this conflicts with the sworn 2008 testimony of a former Spitzer aide, Darren Dopp, who had been granted immunity. Mr. Dopp said that not only did Mr. Spitzer order the release of the Bruno travel records, but he told Mr. Dopp to "shove it up [Mr. Bruno's] [expletive deleted] with a red hot poker."

There's additional information in a 2008 report from the Albany County DA. The Bruno travel story appeared in the July 1, 2007 edition of Albany's Times Union newspaper. In the early morning hours of that day, Mr. Spitzer sent an email from his private account to Mr. Dopp. Entitled "TU," the note said, "Havent seen paper yet. How does i[t] look?"

The DA's report stated that "If Dopp's testimony is credited, then former Governor Spitzer's answers were not truthful. Accordingly, we intended to present these conflicting accounts to a grand jury."

The DA decided not to proceed after Mr. Spitzer resigned his office. But now he's seeking another office, as New York City's comptroller, claiming to have learned his lesson about cavorting with prostitutes while he was the state's chief law enforcement officer but otherwise defending his record in office.

If he becomes overseer of the city's five pension funds, Mr. Spitzer has made it clear that he intends to use the funds' ownership stakes in public companies to pursue his political agenda and seek changes in corporate governance. What in this clear and documented record of abuse of power suggests Eliot Spitzer should be trusted with governance of any kind, over anyone, in any circumstance?

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I would love to see this slimy bastard get some jail time. Beyond being a sleaze, he was totally corrupt and abused his power as an elected official to target rivals.

I forgot all about Joe Bruno! Could be interesting!

It's a good thing for Spitzer that he's a democrat. Otherwise he'd likely be in jail.

Spitzer will be fine. This is NY we are talking about,and corruption is a requirement.