Michael Caputo

Here's the latest from Michael Caputo: a flier which delves into an old court case that is intended to expose a connection between Eliot Spitzer and David Soares, the Albany District Attorney who just cleared the governor of criminal wrongdoing.

It's a reflection of the broader Republican strategy of undermining Soares' findings by highlighting what they say is a conflict of interest.

On a whim, I called Oliver Koppell, the former attorney general who is a Democrat but no fan of Spitzer, and asked him what he knew of this suggested connection.

Koppell told me, "I recall that I think the Working Families Party gave money to him for use in the Democratic Primary, or in his election and there was questions as to whether that was appropriate or not. He was heavily supported by George Soros and this was a way of getting money to him not directly from Soros."

Koppell later said if the lawsuit against Soares was a private lawsuit, the attorney general would then have a lot of discretion as to whether or not to get involved.

If anyone knows more, please let me know.

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?

I got an email this morning from the author of the latest round of anti-Eliot Spitzer emails being sent from the address WJMAHONEY@gop-club.com. The web site was registered on August 14th and has been a source of regular dispatches about Spitzer’s shortcomings.

The sender's name is Sergio Rodriguez, and he is running for office in Buffalo. He asked not to be quoted but provided the following information:

He is the chairman of the Walter J. Mahoney Republican Club (which may or may not really exist). A member of the group does the graphic design, and the pieces are then emailed to reporters and activists. Rodriquez said he is not working with Roger Stone or Michael Captuo, two other Republican operatives working hard to get the anti-Spitzer message out there.

As for who actually gets the mail, Rodriquez says he rented some Conservative email lists and got email addresses for reporters from a friend with the Giuliani campaign.

Here is a new graphic sent out to reporters and operatives yesterday, courtesy of the Walter J. Mahoney Republican Club in Buffalo. It’s basically a poster that outlines the Roger Stone argument (and, for that matter, the Michael Caputo argument) that Eliot Spitzer has been distracted by scandal and ineffective, while the state Senate Republicans have tended to pressing matters like fixing the upstate economy.

The distribution list for this piece, apparently, is the same as the one for Caputo's regular anti-Spitzer emails. (Readers who contacted me wondering about why they’re receiving Caputo’s emails also got this one.)

I responded to the address at the bottom of this flier asking for more information and have yet to hear back.

Michael Caputo, a Republican operative who has been circulating unflattering news stories about Eliot Spitzer to reporters, said this morning that Democrats are attacking him and threatening his family.

“They made very clear threats to me and my family in New York City,” Caputo said in a radio interview with WROW. “I’m getting abused and threatened. Harassing someone who is just trying to be an active conservative is just silly.”

Caputo declined to specifically characterize the nature of the threats or say who they were coming from.

He added “I’m fairly certainly this is coming from the Democratic side of the aisle.”

Caputo is behind the web site “SpitzerFile.net.”

Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Spitzer, declined to comment.

Here’s a link to a new-ish anti-Eliot Spitzer web site called SpitzerFile.com, which is supposed to be a one-stop shop for information (19 pages’ worth) about how the governor financed his 1994 and 1998 campaigns for attorney general.

After calling a number at the bottom of the page, I got to Michael Caputo, a former campaign aide to George H.W. Bush and public relations buddy of Republican operative Roger Stone.

“It’s fairly clear that there is much more afoot in the governor’s mansion,” Caputo told me. “He’s shown his true colors to the electorate since Election Day and especially in the last few weeks.”

In addition to the web site, Caputo has been emailing a compendium of Spitzer-in-trouble stories to reporters and activists under the neutral-sounding title “NYFacts.com.”

I asked Caputo -- who said he isn’t getting paid for his work on this project and that he’s acting purely out of the conviction the press is letting Spitzer get away with something -- whether it wouldn’t have been better to be raising issues about Spitzer’s past before he was actually elected governor.

“Every day is election day when you’re in office,” Caputo said.

As for the notion that he’s doing the dirty of Stone, who is currently working as a paid advisor to the state Senate Republicans, Caputo said, “I don’t work for free. Ever. I never have. If I’m doing Roger’s dirty work, a check is well overdue.”