Joe Bruno

Here’s a little more from David Paterson’s appearance this morning on WFAN. Towards the end of the 30-minute interview, Paterson admits that part of the reason he admitted to having an extramarital affair was because he was “afraid" the state police might leak information about it.  read more »

One day after publicly praising Republican Joe Bruno, Governor David Paterson is keeping a low profile, including taking a pass on a gathering of good-government activists in Albany today.

He did release a public statement saying he “is committed to working with our partners inside and outside of government to achieve significant reforms in ethics, campaign finance, redistricting and the state budget process.”  read more »

Who, exactly, are Michael Bloomberg’s friends in Albany?

Since getting elected in 2001, Bloomberg has always counted on Joe Bruno and Republicans in the State Senate whenever he’s needed help in the capital, and he even gave a $500,000 donation to the Senate majority in the run-up the crucial elections later this year.

But lately, Bloomberg’s Albany team hasn’t counted for much.

First, a small a small band of Assembly members were successfully able to block the billionaire mayor's plan to open a waste transfer station in a part of lower Manhattan.

More recently, lawmakers in the capital shot down his cherished congestion pricing plan, which never made it to the floor.  read more »

Midnight tonight is the deadline for state lawmakers to approve the mayor’s congestion pricing program in order to qualify for $354 million in federal transportation funds. It’s still not clear that there are enough votes to get it passed in either house of the legislature.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Joe Bruno supports it, but may not have enough votes on his side of the aisle to get it through. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been typically lukewarm and has consistently suggested that his members are not inclined to be in favor.

But Michael Bloomberg’s top aid, Kevin Sheekey, still thinks it’s less about cobbling votes behind closed doors and more about forcing legislators to vote on the issue publicly.  read more »

The politics of congestion pricing is nearing a boiling point and opponents continue to make the case for a different approach to traffic reduction.

There are, of course other ways of reducing congestion, but Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal has the advantage of generating new resources for mass transit.

On Friday, our new Governor, David Paterson, demonstrated political courage and came out in favor of the plan to charge drivers for entering New York’s Central Business district during the work day. He joins City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno in support of the bill. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has yet to be heard from.

However, lots of prominent politicians are opposing all or part of the Mayor’s plan.

Today, New York's City Council begins formal consideration of the proposal.  read more »

In case you missed it yesterday, David Paterson spoke about the budget process yesterday on Fred Dicker's radio show. Due April 1, the looming budget deadline means that Paterson comes into his new office under the pressure of needing to get a major task accomplished. Here's what he said:

“I’m coming into a budget process where I have not been innately involved. The governor, while he has been working on it, has basically used me to take care of some other tasks...So I kind of feel like the student getting ready for the final exam, but they haven’t attended any classes.  read more »

On the agenda for David Paterson today…a lot of smiling.

From his schedule, which the governor's office just sent out:  read more »

About 25 seconds into this clip from Joe Bruno’s press conference in Albany yesterday, he explains that when Governor Paterson is out of state, “the majority leader of the Senate assumes all the responsibilities of the lieutenant governor, and that, by definition, includes a vote on the floor of the Senate.”

That vote, plus the one Bruno already has, would give him two votes.

According to the New York Post Senate Minority Leader Malcom Smith's aides have threatened to sue Bruno if he attempts to vote twice..

With Lieutenant Governor David Paterson becoming governor on Monday, the responsibilities and powers of his old job—most notably, the responsibility of becoming governor should the office become vacant—will fall onto the lap of the man who will surely be working to block his agenda: Republican Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

Now, there may be a move afoot to change that.  read more »

Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno just wrapped up a press conference in the Capitol, where he said, “This is a distraction of proportions we have never experienced.”

He also reminded the 17 television cameras and dozens of reporters that “the constitution of New York State indicates the majority leader of the Senate assumes all the responsibilities and the duties of the lieutenant governor.”

When asked if Spitzer should go to jail, Bruno said, “I’m going to stay focused on what we have to do this afternoon.” (Working on the state budget.)  read more »

With all eyes on Eliot Spitzer and the future of the governorship unclear, Joe Bruno is introducing a cap on how much an executive budget can increase state spending.

Because, in case anybody forgot, the state budget is due April 1. And Bruno probably sees this as a good time to challenge the governor's power.

Here's the statement:  read more »

Lots of political activity in the city tonight, for anyone interested. 

Both Joe Bruno and Sheldon Silver will be raising money, Bruno at a low-dollar fund-raiser for young professionals at Honey on West 14th Street, and Silver and the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee at the Grand Hyatt, 42nd Street and Lexington.

And City Council members will be heading to dinner at Gracie Mansion with Michael Bloomberg. 

The Working Families Party did Joe Bruno a favor and sent word earlier today that, in order to plug the state’s budget gap, the labor-backed progressive group is in favor of raising the personal income tax on rich New Yorkers.

Which is just the sort of policy thing Bruno can latch onto in order to show that if his Republican conference loses control of the state Senate, Democrats would just run amok in state government.

Bruno responded with this statement:  read more »

Assemblyman Sheldon Silver is being challenged to disclose more information about his outside sources of income, something the Democratic Speaker has  read more »

Eliot Spitzer, whose ally Malcolm Smith is now one Republican defection away from taking power in the State Senate, unveiled a new theme this morning at a breakfast hosted by the Association for a Better New York: unity.

During a speech entitled “one budget for one New York,” the governor displayed two maps of the state: one, solid green, showed the topography of the state; the other, multi-colored, was an "overlay" of every state Assembly and Senate district.  read more »

SEIU local 1199 sent out a statement just now saying that they have deep respect for Joe Bruno's leadership in the State Senate, which he is now holding onto by one seat.

"Senator Bruno's commitment to protecting quality care for all New Yorkers has made him a tremendous ally to the entire healthcare community. The Senate majority's advocacy on behalf of caregivers has been second to none. We have the deepest respect for Senator Bruno's leadership and we will continue to work with him to ensure that New York State maintains world class healthcare for all.  read more »

Democrat Darrell Aubertine won today's special election in the heavily Republican 48th state Senate district upstate, defeating Republican Will Barclay.

This officially reduces Joe Bruno's Republican control in that house to just one seat.

Aubertine got 27,712 votes, compared to Barclay's 25,001 votes, according to the unofficial breakdown of election results from the three counties that cover the district:  read more »

Here are excerpts of Eliot Spitzer's State of the State speech, which he will deliver in Albany this afternoon.

In it, Spitzer says lawmakers have to "get real" about the property tax burden facing New Yorkers, co-opting a point raised by Tom Suozzi during the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary, and by Republican legislators.

The excerpts are after the jump.  read more »

Horse racing in New York will "continue unabated tomorrow" even though legislators have not reached the end of a negotiation period that has dragged on for months. N.Y.R.A.'s current contract will expire tomorrow without a replacement, according to a statement by Joe Bruno.

As he has in the past, Bruno blamed Eliot Spitzer and Sheldon Silver.

"Negotiations have been very constructive over the last several weeks. However, we have been unable to get the Governor's staff to meet with us since Friday in an effort to resolve remaining differences. For months I have called for open public leaders meetings to reach an agreement by the end of the year. The Governor and Speaker have rejected those calls. Today, I am renewing that call and asking Governor Spitzer and Speaker Silver to conduct a public meeting on January 2nd to finalize an agreement. I am confident that our differences can be resolved."

What does this say for the chances of an on-time budget next year?

Full statement is after the jump.  read more »

Joe Bruno's spokeswoman Lisa Black is reveling in the news that Eliot Spitzer has been issued a new round of subpoenas by the Albany District Attorney, who is looking into how the governor's aides used the state police to gather information about Bruno's use of state aircraft.

"You can't govern through deceit," Black said via email. "And it seems as though the Governor's deceptions are far reaching - so much so that he managed to push another Democrat into the swamp. If Soares is the man of integrity he was when we watched him with Hevesi, he'll choose not to swim in the mud alone... Bring in the grand jury."

Democratic state Senator Eric Schneiderman, meanwhile, has a slightly different take on the news: He says that Bruno will use it as a reason not to do any work next year.

"I think we need to step back and say everyone has go to start doing business and not use this as an excuse," Schneiderman told me just now. "And I think Joe is just using this as an excuse not to do business because he is desperate to keep control of the Senate and he doesn’t want the governor to be successful."

Shneiderman added, "I mean, there’s no reason for people not to be negotiating bills just because this investigation is going on. Hell, Joe’s under investigation too. You know what? No one is saying we can’t do business with Joe because he’s under investigation."

A reader emails the following analysis:

"I noticed that Google's search technology gives us another way of showing--not that we really need it, though--that Governor Spitzer has lost his PR war with Joe Bruno.

"This argument assumes that the term 'Choppergate' is generally anti-Bruno and 'Troopergate' is generally anti-Spitzer. Searching pages created over the past year for the words 'spitzer choppergate' gives us 95 results, while searching the same period for 'spitzer troopergate' gives us about 23,600 results. In Google News, the search results are 10 and 78, respectively."

Eliot Spitzer uncharacteristically declined to take a hit at his political rival earlier today when I asked him about Joe Bruno's work for a firm that manages funds for some state labor unions, and about whether other lawmakers should be more forthcoming about outside jobs.

“Let me answer in a way that is completely distinct from Senator Bruno [and] that situation," he said. "I will say nothing on that. I have long believed that greater transparency would be a good thing, but we’ll deal with that down the road with various proposals in due course.”

At the same press conference, held to announce a major insurance settlement, Spitzer less surprisingly called President Bush’s proposed cuts to homeland security “anomalous, surprising” and an example of “poor judgment.”

Over the last few rough months for Eliot Spitzer, it’s been easy to forget that Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno has problems of his own.

One Democratic official I spoke to hopes that the big Times story on Bruno this weekend--it dealt with Bruno's employment with an investment firm that handles money for a number of unions whose interests Bruno champions in Albany--is a signal that the media's critical attention is beginning to shift to Bruno again.

“All that Joe Bruno and the Republicans have been doing to try to embarrass the governor is essentially a smoke screen to divert many of the issues that the Republicans are having,” Democratic state Senator Jose Serrano just told me.

He added, “I think what we’ll see now is a bit more of a level of the playing field, and there will be equal time for everyone to look very closely at what the governor is doing and to look at what Joe Bruno and the Republicans are doing.”

Perhaps the one real benefit of the whole driver's license controversy for Eliot Spitzer was that it did, in fact, serve the purpose of drawing attention away from the whole Troopergate issue.

The license policy, remember, was first announced in the governor’s midtown office on September 21, in a party-like atmosphere, minutes after the Albany District Attorney cleared Spitzer and his top aides of criminal wrongdoing.  read more »

Eliot Spitzer is making his second trip to Washington D.C. today, to explain his decision to back off his plan to allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses.

Spitzer will make the announcement flanked by New York’s Democratic congressional delegation, which almost uniformly opposes a related aspect of that driver’s license policy: the federal Real ID Act.

The long-term political question is going to be whether this will be the beginning of a second act for Spitzer, in which he finally regains control of a governing agenda that's been getting away from him since he took office. Short-term, though, the question will be whether this will really allow him to step away cleanly from the licensing issue at all. Certainly, his Republican opponents will do their best to see that the controversy lingers.

More after the jump.  read more »

Ed Koch sees a reason that Eliot Spitzer and the New York Times want illegal immigrants to be able to obtain a driver’s license: It’s their way to recoup the gains they sought to get in an immigration bill that failed in congress.

From Koch’s latest column, emailed to readers this afternoon:

"I don’t know where Governor Spitzer stood on the Bush-McCain-Kennedy legislation, but I bet he supported it and is doing what he can with The Times to undo the unexpected and enormous defeat suffered by supporters of the self-designated “Grand Compromise.”
 
"If a general election were held today for the office of Governor, or in 2010, when it will, in fact, be held, any candidate who supports the granting of drivers licenses to illegal aliens would, I believe, go down to defeat."

Spitzer and supporters of his plan say the issue is about public and roadway safety, not immigration.

Joe Bruno will be offering his own perspective on this issue on CNN tonight at 6:30 p.m.

Explaining that Democrats in the state Senate paid for recent trips to D.C. out of their own pockets or from campaign funds, and not with taxpayer dollars, Eric Schneiderman simply said, “We weren't doing a Bruno.” [last item].

After hisa press conference on Rudy Giuliani and the presidential race in midtown yesterday, I asked former congressman and Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari about the Republican Party here in New York.

“We are struggling for survival--that’s how serious it is,” he told me.

To save it, it’s going to take “strong leadership, people that have access to money. Money is necessary to rebuild the party to where it was, and good candidates. So a lot of recruiting has to go into the future. And it can be brought back.”

But Molinari isn’t too excited about John Catsimatidis, a late addition to the Republican Party and likely 2009 mayoral candidate.

(After the jump.)  read more »

So, how did the draft letter senate Democrats were thinking about sending to the IRS wind up in the hands of the Republicans?

In a story today, the New York Sun speculated that it might accidentally have been sent to Democrat Carl Kruger, a Democrat whose last name is one letter off from Liz Krueger, a Democrat whose name was attached to the letter. Both are on the Finance Committee (like two other people whose name was attached to the letter) but unlike Liz Krueger, Carl Kruger is somewhat of an ally of Joe Bruno.

I asked Kruger’s spokesman, Jason Koppell, about that theory.

“It’s so ridiculous it’s not even worth responding to,” he said. Koppell also said that his office was never sent the letter and that he and his colleagues learned about it from reading the newspapers.

I just got off the phone with Travis Proulx, spokesman for state Senator Liz Krueger, one of the three people whose name was attached to that IRS letter about Joe Bruno.

Although the names of Senators Krueger, John Sampson and Valmanette Montgomery - all members of the finance committee - were attached to the letter, they “did not draft a single word of it,” he said.

Proulx said it was being shopped around to see who would want to sign onto it. None did. Proulx said he does not know who actually wrote it but what is clear is that nobody supported it.

“The big objection is the letter talks about personal gains from state aircraft,” rather than discussing the “political gains.” He added, “They did not write a word of this letter and killed it once they saw it.”

But the issue about using the state aircraft is still weighing on the minds of senators, according to Proulx.

Bruno “shouldn’t be using tax-payer funded state aircraft to raise money for the Republican party. But if the law allows it, we can gripe all we want about it” until the law is changed, Proulx said.

The state Senate is schedule to go back into session on the 22nd. A spokesman for Joe Bruno just told me an agenda for that session is not yet available.

Here is a copy of the letter John Sampson, Liz Krueger and Velmanette Montgomery drafted with the aim of getting the IRS to investigate Joe Bruno.

It reads, in part:

“Both Attorney General Cuomo’s report and the recent disclosure by the Albany Times-Union suggests that Senator Bruno has repeatedly used the aircraft for travel that was not primarily for bona fide state business and as such, we believe that he should be reporting imputed income for unreimbursed travel as members of the New York State Senate, we urge you to conduct a review into Senator Bruno’s use of the aircraft and his obligation and his obligation to pay federal income taxes on the fair market value of the unreimbursed non-official portion of his travel.”

Malcolm Smith released a statement reaffirming the fact that he (and others) have suspicions about Bruno’s travel, but saying that he decided not to pursue the issue because “it would be a distraction from us getting back to the people's business.”

Smith's full statement is after the jump.  read more »

Joe Bruno may be paranoid that Eliot Spitzer is after him. But it doesn’t mean he’s wrong, either.

News of an aborted plan by Democrats in the state Senate to sic the IRS on Bruno broke today. But in a statement Bruno just put out, he talks of a conversation he had with Senator Malcolm Smith who, Bruno says, admitted the governor was involved in the plot, and that more was underway.

From Bruno’s statement:

“Senator Smith called me last night to confirm that his office had
written the letter, but that he stepped in to stop it. He also informed me
that Spitzer administration officials were involved in this plot and that
other similar dirty tricks were planned, the IRS effort being just one.
This latest revelation confirms that Governor Spitzer and his subordinates
continue to obsess with efforts to personally attack me and have no
interest in governing.

The full statement is after the jump.  read more »

The fact that Darren Dopp now has a job at Patricia Lynch’s lobbying firm seems to demonstrate, among other things, that he's viewed as a valuable commodity on the ground in Albany even after being named as a key figure in the biggest scandal to affect the Spitzer administration so far.

(As Wayne Barrett and Bill Hammond note, just because it's the biggest doesn't mean that it's that big.)

“Either Pat Lynch is the smartest person in the world, or the dumbest. And my bet is she is the smartest,” said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

Why?

More after the jump.  read more »

The latest round of stories questioning Joe Bruno's use of state aircraft is making it a little easier for state Democrats to push their argument that it's Bruno, not Eliot Spitzer, who has been behaving suspiciously.

As consultant Jonathan Rosen told me on IM just now, "I think it made clear that Joe Bruno is a hypocrite with questionable ethics who has abused taxpayer dollars since you and I were in junior high school."

(In case you're wondering: for me, junior high was 1990 to 1992. Bruno became the Majority Leader of the state Senate in 1995. But you get the point.)

This has a déjà vu quality to it.

On Sunday, there was a story in the Albany Times Union about Joe Bruno’s use of state aircraft. And just a few minutes ago, state Democratic Party Chairwoman June O’Neill issued a statement saying that she is “extremely troubled” by the “gross abuse of the public trust” and demanding “further investigation.”

“We now know that for years Senator Bruno has misused state police aircraft for political fundraising and meetings with special interests seeking the Senator’s assistance,” O’Neill said in a statement.

It’s sort of what happened a few months ago at the start of the Troopergate controversy.

The difference is that the itineraries of Bruno’s travel on which Sunday’s story was based were compiled while George Pataki, a Republican, was governor.

I wonder whether any Republicans will join O’Neill in calling for an investigation into that.

After hearing that Republican Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s conference subpoenaed Eliot Spitzer’s top aides, Rich Baum and Darren Dopp, State Senator Tom Duane offered the following piece of advice: go see a shrink.

In a telephone conversation just now, Duane told me, "I think Senator Bruno’s feelings were hurt. I can understand that. But to drag the legislature through his hurt is, I think, unfortunate. At this point, I would suggest seeing a mental health professional, since we passed Timothy’s Law. He’s eligible."

Duane added, "I feel bad for him. I do. But enough of the public sympathy. Time to move on. People have done means things to me and I just decided to let go after a while."

The subpoena for Baum was for records, while the one for Dopp was for him to testify in front of the investigations committee. But that’s not such a big deal, said Duane.

“I don’t think there is a penalty for not showing up. Somebody told me there is a $50 fine for not showing up.”

Eliot Spitzer's top aides Rich Baum and Darren Dopp were subpoenaed by the state Senate Republicans. The subpoena to Baum, Spitzer's secretary, is for documents, emails and information. The one issued to Dopp, Spitzer's director of communications, is for him to testify before a Senate Committee on October 29th.

Both men played prominent roles in the plan to use the state police to track Senate Republican Leader Joe Bruno's use of state aircraft.

In a public statement from Senate Republicans, they said,

"The subpoenas demand that, by Friday, October 19, a detailed compilation of a range of Executive Chamber communications and policy directives dating back to January 1, 2007 be delivered to the committee. The committee is seeking documents, public and private e-mails, correspondence, meeting notes, memoranda, Blackberry communications, and other information from Spitzer’s inner circle relevant to the 'crafting, drafting, and !-- D(["mb","with respect to uses and abuses of the FOIL procedures.”  The Spitzer aides\u003cbr /\>are also being asked to produce a list or description of any relevant\u003cbr /\>documents or communications that have been destroyed or changed in any way.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>      Winner said the subpoena issued to Baum is for documents and\u003cbr /\>information.  Dopp was subpoenaed to appear personally before the committee\u003cbr /\>by October 29th, and testify on his role in what has been widely reported\u003cbr /\>as a political plot to damage State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.\u003cbr /\>The committee also expects to issue subpoenas for testimony to Baum, former\u003cbr /\>Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security Bill Howard, and acting State Police\u003cbr /\>Superintendent Preston Felton.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>      An investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo revealed that key\u003cbr /\>members of Spitzer’s inner circle -- including Dopp, Howard and, possibly,\u003cbr /\>Baum -- worked in concert with New York State Police Acting Superintendent\u003cbr /\>Preston L. Felton to create travel records and information under the\u003cbr /\>pretext of a FOIL request from the Albany Times Union.   Cuomo found that\u003cbr /\>their “conduct deviated from State Police standard operating procedures and\u003cbr /\>past practices, and was not required by FOIL.”  He added that his\u003cbr /\>investigation “raised serious issues about the State Police’s handling of\u003cbr /\>documents and information.”\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>      Since the release of Cuomo’s investigative report on July 23, the\u003cbr /\>Senate Investigations Committee has convened three public hearings to\u003cbr /\>solicit testimony in response to the Attorney General’s recommendations for\u003cbr /\>a review of the FOIL process to evaluate whether FOIL requests directed to\u003cbr /\>the governor’s office should be referred to the relevant entity within the\u003cbr /\>executive department, and to establish a new ethics policy and protocols\u003cbr /\>between the State Police and the governor’s office.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>      At its third hearing, on September 24, the committee formally called\u003cbr /\>",1] ); //-->introduction of legislation concerning the administration of government with respect to uses and abuses of the FOIL procedures.' "

Earlier, Dopp's lawyer, Terrence Kindlon, told me he probably fight any effort by Senate Republicans to question his client.  read more »

Here's an invitation to Joe Bruno's Fall Fest at 7th Avenue and 51st Street, on October 17. That's quite a way away from Bruno's Rensselaer district and right in Eliot Spitzer's backyard. It's also taking place around the time some people expect the state's new Commission on Public Integrity to issue its report on Spitzer's use of state police to track Bruno's traveling. (It'll be interesting to see how he's getting there.)

This fund-raiser should, if nothing else, provide some indication of how enthusiastically donor-class Republicans are rallying around Bruno.

On an unrelated fund-raising note...On October 1, Jonathan Bing is having an event featuring Chef David Burke. It's being hosted in the home of Sally Minard, who is a pretty generous contributor to local and national Democrats.

UPDATE: A reader brought to my attention the fact that three of the four people listed on Bruno’s fun-raiser as members of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee are also members of the committee investigating the governor.

UPDATE 2: Bruno's spokeswoman, Lisa Black, emailed to say, "Members of any Senate committee are chosen by the Majority Leader based on seniority. (Just look at the members of the highly coveted Finance Committee - Majority members sitting on that committee have a decade or more of Senate tenure).  The Investigations and Government perations Committee members were in place far before the Governor's dirty tricks campaign, aka 'Troopergate.' "

 read more »

It's worth pointing out that one of the guests at a fund-raisers Eliot Spitzer attended last night was state Senator John Bonacic, a Republican.

Bonacic is the same state Senator who said the leader of his conference, Joe Bruno, should step down because he's being investigated by the FBI for possibly steering state money to his private clients.

Bonacic was one of about 45 guests in attendance for the $2,500 fund-raiser, according to this article. A Democratic source told me Bonacic was invited by the organizer of the event and gave a "glowing" introduction for the governor.

The event took place shortly after the Albany County District Attorney announced he found no criminal wrongdoing by the governor's people in the Troopergate investigation.

UPDATE: A reader emailed me a link to this ad Eliot Spitzer filmed for Bonacic's opponent last year, which I suppose goes to show how far their relationship has evolved, for various reasons, since then.

Michael Caputo, the "editor of NYFacts.net, makes Joe Bruno seem shy and retiring on the subject of bringing Eliot Spitzer to justice.

In a letter to the Buffalo News (a link to which he emailed around earlier today), Caputo says Spitzer violated Bruno’s civil rights and committed a serious crime. He writes:

"This is a felony and an impeachable offense. Targeting Sen. Joseph Bruno for such treatment is a violation of the longtime leader's civil rights, a federal offense and grounds for impeachment. But to The News, Troopergate is much ado about nothing.
Nothing? Comptroller Alan Hevesi used state cars to cart his wife around, got berated in The News and was eventually bounced. But not Spitzer -- it was a staff snafu."

This is a sort of a tangential question, but at what point does this sort of talk make other Albany officialssuspected of misbehavior uncomfortable?

A law professor testifying in an Albany hearing said of the inspector general who investigated the Spitzer administration that "perhaps she should have referred it" to the attorney general.

The professor, Michael Hutter of Albany Law, later opted not to get more specific than that about the actions of Inspector General Kristine Hamann, saying, "I honestly just don't have any position on that."  read more »

The lawyer for Eliot Spitzer's aide, Darren Dopp, said his client is cooperating fully with any and all "legitimately constituted" investigations into the Troopergate scandal. 

"Darren Dopp has nothing to hide. He hasn’t done anything wrong. And he is answering any and all questions that are being asked of him