He’s Getting More Sorry By The Minute

9:22 pm, 7/26/07

He's Getting More Sorry By The Minute

When I read this story, I knew it wouldn't end that easily.

With the Capitol an empty place as legislators have left, that doesn't mean all was quiet. [New York] Governor Spitzer was busy apologizing for his office's misuse of state police.

Governor Spitzer said, "I think the record reflects they were asked to do things that were not in accordance with ordinary process. That was wrong. It should not have happened."

All this after a 57-page Attorney General report slammed Spitzer's office for the surveillance of Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's usage of state aircraft.

Basically, it seems that the Democratic Attorney General found that Spitzer's aids had the state police assemble a document trying to prove that Bruno, a Republican, was misusing state aircraft for personal and campaign purposes. They then shuttled this information to cooperative Albany reporters. Spitzer and Bruno have had their differences, as one might imagine, and Spitzer was eager to demonstrate something resembling good will, declaring that he had no personal knowledge of the probe and suspending or transferring the aids he accused of cooking it up on their own.

(Nevermind the incredible novelty that I feel at the idea of misusing and abusing state aircraft actually being a serious controversy. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been doing that for years on end.)

As one can imagine, given the seemingly absurd notion of a major smear campaign being orchestrated without the boss's knowledge, outrage did ensue, with Republicans demanding an investigation into what appeared to be a deliberate effort on members of the Governor's staff to use state resources to politically damage the Governor's foes. Then "anonymous sources" informed the New York Times that concerns had existed about Bruno's use of state aircraft, a claim that is flatly denied by the people named.

All three individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they said they did not want to be drawn into the political fight between Mr. Bruno and Gov. Eliot Spitzer, said that the concerns had originated in part with Eileen Long-Chelales, a former Pataki administration official who had worked in the General Services Administration of the federal government.

"I never made a complaint about Joe Bruno and state police," Ms. Long-Chelales said. "It's not my business."

Spitzer officials have cited the complaints in the continuing dispute about Mr. Bruno's travel in New York City with the state police. Mr. Bruno in turn has demanded an inquiry into whether Mr. Spitzer ordered the state police to track his whereabouts.

The new information complicates the uncertain provenance of the complaint, which a Spitzer administration official said last week had originated with Ms. Long-Chelales's father, Michael R. Long, chairman of the state's Conservative Party. Mr. Long, who has had his differences with Mr. Bruno, adamantly denied that he ever raised such concerns.

John E. McArdle, a spokesman for Mr. Bruno, said he had never been made aware of any such complaints.

"It never happened," Mr. McArdle said, adding, "This is nonsense."

Both Mr. Long - saying Mr. Bruno had attended Conservative Party events in New York City - and his daughter reiterated on Monday that they had made no complaints.

"I was hoping that they would make a comment that they were misinformed about me having a complaint," Mr. Long said of Mr. Spitzer and his aides. "But none of that has happened."

The "uncertain provenance" of the complaint only casts more suspicion on Spitzer, who is often described as using intimidation and exaggerated accusations as tools against his opponents. Unfortunately for Spitzer, his opponents when he was Attorney General, usually businessmen, did not have the power to issue supoenas.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer vowed on Wednesday to fight any State Senate inquiry into his administration's internal operations, even as Republican senators were laying the groundwork for an investigation that could lead to subpoenas of top officials.

The administration's stance sets the stage for a potential showdown with the Senate, and it came amid rising concerns even among Mr. Spitzer's fellow Democrats about whether the governor and his staff had been candid about their office's effort to discredit a political rival.

A scathing report issued on Monday by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo concluded that the governor's staff had broken no laws but had misused the State Police to gather information about Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative story about him.

Really, when you think about it, it's ironic, since Spitzer's people were trying to show that Bruno was misusing state resources.

The governor has maintained that he was misled by his staff and knew nothing about the effort to discredit Mr. Bruno. But two of his closest aides refused to be interviewed by the attorney general's investigators, intensifying suspicion, especially among the governor's critics, that Mr. Spitzer and his staff had not been forthright.

"The governor's people refused, people at the highest level, they refused to sit and answer questions," [Bruno] he said. "What did they do? They made a little statement. And these are the people who are the closest to the governor, who are governing the state."

Wednesday night, at the opening ceremony of the Empire State Games in Valhalla, Mr. Spitzer said, "I am not going to, in any way, second-guess Andrew Cuomo, who ran the investigation."

But with the decision to fight a Senate inquiry, Mr. Spitzer appeared to be shifting from quiet contrition to a more confrontational stand....Senator George H. Winner Jr., the chairman of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, wrote to Mr. Cuomo on Wednesday, seeking copies of depositions, statements and e-mail traffic he had obtained. Mr. Bruno, asked if a Senate committee had the power to subpoena the governor, said "I am told by counsel that we have subpoena powers and that we can subpoena the governor, anybody."

But Christine Anderson, the governor's press secretary, said in a statement, "The State Senate lacks the constitutional authority to conduct investigatory hearings into the internal operations of the governor's office."

Ms. Anderson said that the investigations by the attorney general and the inspector general were sufficient because they had determined there had been no unlawful conduct.

"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.

Er, actually, someone should probably explain to Anderson that it's the original misuse of state police that was the use of taxpayer dollars for purely partisan and political purposes. Now, it's an attempt by the state government to check itself and determine who was responsible.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Legislature's top Democrat, did not exactly rally to the governor's defense in an interview Wednesday morning on WROW radio in Albany, calling what was done to Mr. Bruno "horrendous."

"The real question here is how much did the governor know and when did he know it, that's the typical question," Mr. Silver said, though he added that the question was purely a political one. "Those are not legal questions."

I wonder if Silver sees the irony of being the one declaring that "no laws were broken", in the wake of the national Democratic freakout over the Plame leak.