Former New York AG on the Other Side of Investigation

Nine months ago, Eliot Spitzer was a shining star in the Democratic Party with a sterling career as a Wall Street-busting Attorney General, a landslide gubernatorial victory and a promise to bring ethics back to New York politics. That was then.

Now, a plan by his senior staffers to smear a top State Republican has backfired after findings from an investigation by the state’s Attorney General — Democrat Andrew Cuomo — were published this week. (You can get the report here [pdf]). Spitzer’s office supplied false information to reporters, obtained with the help of the Police Superintendent, under the auspices of a Freedom of Information Letter (FOIL) request. The information was used in a July 1st article in the Times Union of Albany attacking State Senator Joseph Bruno’s (R) use of government planes to attend political events. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, is Spitzer’s chief political adversary. (The published report clears Bruno of all charges of ethics violations.)

After the Times Union article was published, Spitzer’s communications director Daren Dopp maintained that Bruno’s travel records were provided in response to a FOIL request from the paper. However, according to the Attorney General’s report, a FOIL request was submitted only three days before the article was submitted, with a second request–asking for information that was already contained in the article–coming on July 10th.

The report says that in January the Governor changed the procedure through which senior politicians could request use of state aircraft, requiring applicants to personally verify what purpose the travel served. By May, Spitzer’s staff was looking to use this new policy to embarrass Sen. Bruno, and then began gathering information on his travels. Spitzer’s police liaison, William Howard, placed several calls to the acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton.

Felton was told to respond to a FOIL request regarding information on the travel schedules of Bruno. He took over the process personally. Felton gathered information on the senator’s flight plans. He had police escorts assigned to the senator submit written reports listing everywhere they stopped. He fed scheduling information directly to Howard. And when records didn’t exist, he asked those in attendance to search their memory and write down synopses.

Needless to say, the report confirms that the vast majority of the collected information is outside the scope of a FOIL request, and certainly such a request should never necessitate the creation of new documents. Felton himself had never actually handled a FOIL report, making it difficult to discern if he was driven by malice or sheer incompetence. And that’s precisely what is at issue. During his investigation, the Attorney General interviewed three superintendents who preceded Felton. According to those interviews:

The three immediately past Superintendents of the State Police, who collectively represent over twenty years of service in that position appointed by two Governors, all stated that they had never personally handled a FOIL request and could not imagine doing so.

It is the responsibility of the Central Records Section of the police to respond to FOIL requests, but the Records Access Officer testified that she had never seen or been informed of one on this matter.

Felton is not ignorant of the standard procedure in responding to FOIL requests. Indeed, he testified that he saw the request from the Governor’s office as a direct order. Howard initially denied any role in the requests, claiming that he notified Felton only as a courtesy. But Felton maintains that he spoke only to Howard on the matter, and he arranged all documents without aides.

Dopp and Howard then cherry-picked facts that they turned over to the Times Union. They gave the paper detailed information on three of ten trips taken by Bruno; the three trips just so happened to correspond with well-publicized Republican political events. As other papers called for corroboration, Spitzer’s office stuck to their story that they had appropriately responded to the FOIL request. Only after the report came out did the Governor change his stance; within minutes of its release he dismissed Howard from his position and suspended Dopp indefinitely.

Amazingly, despite its condemnatory language, the Attorney General’s report found no one guilty of any illegal activity. Nor has any evidence come out to directly connect Spitzer with the plot; and he has denied any knowledge of his staff’s actions. To be sure, the investigation continues; the State Ethics Commission is now beginning its own inquiry. Spitzer suggested on Friday that he would allow two senior staffers to testify on the issue if they were subpoenaed. Meanwhile, state Republicans have not ruled out bringing their own investigation. One thing is for sure: whatever the outcome, this case strikes a staggering blow to a once-sterling politician.