Spitzer Narc Was Hard Core GOP Operative

Harper's Scott Horton...










finds More Political Taint in the Spitzer Case:

According to accounts that prosecutors and investigators have leaked to the New York Times and other publications, the Spitzer case was launched by a Suspicious Activity Report submitted by the North Fork Bank. Today, however, the Miami Herald ties the investigation to a tip furnished by the notorious G.O.P. dirty trickster Roger Stone.

Among other partisan feats Roger Stone organized the 2000 Florida demonstrations protesting the recounts. He has a history of bad blood with Spitzer. Last year Stone was fired as consultant to NY Senate Republican majority leader Joseph Bruno for threatening Spitzer's father.

-AF

+Update: McClathy has latched onto the story too:

Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in Florida.

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club.'' It offered one potentially identifying detail: The man in question hadn't taken off his calf-length black socks "during the sex act.''

Stone, known for shutting down the 2000 presidential election recount effort in Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer nemesis whose political experience ranges from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton's presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the letter containing the call-girl allegations after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone, though he says the FBI did not specify why he was contacted.

''Mr. Stone respectfully declines to meet with you at this time,'' the letter states, before going on to offer ''certain information'' about Spitzer.

''The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services. It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer,'' the letter said.

''It is also my client's understanding from the same source that Gov. Spitzer did not remove his mid-calf length black socks during the sex act. Perhaps you can use this detail to corroborate Mr. Stone's information,'' the letter said. It was signed by attorney Paul Rolf Jensen of Costa Mesa, Calif.

The letter also notes that while Stone believes the information is true, he ''cannot swear to its accuracy'' because it is second-hand.

James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI's New York office, would not say whether the bureau had received the letter. A spokeswoman for Spitzer also had no comment.

The letter was written several months after allegations were leveled at Stone that he had left a threatening phone message at the office of Bernard Spitzer, the ex-governor's father, regarding ''phony'' campaign loans involving his son's unsuccessful 1994 bid for attorney general. Stone denied making the call but resigned as a consultant for state Senate Republicans in Albany.
(emphasis added)

(HT: TPM).

-AF

+In my haste to post this, I neglected to call attention to Roger Stone's learning the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club. WTF does that mean?

++Update #1 (3/24@4:26PM): The eminently readable Majikthise has more dirt on Stone's history and the lowdown on the Miami adult-themed club he referenced.

++Update #2 (3/24@4:46PM): In light of Roger Stone's "revelation," Marcy Wheeler has questions about the Feds' account of the Spitzer investigation time line and a reminder that Roger Stone is a notorious wife swapper.

Nation Ed. Expresses Concern That Spitzer Was "Targeted"

Via Raw Story:

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough talked with Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel about the Elliot Spitzer scandal. Vanden Heuvel, a classmate of the New York governor's at Princeton, expressed concern that Spitzer was targeted unfairly, while the MSNBC host called the probe a waste of resources.

Newsflash: Joe Scarborough makes sense! It does happen once in a great while. Although if I were Scarborough (and thank Jeebus I'm not), I'd avoid such quotes as "I'm against hookers being wiretapped." It sounds creepy.

AF

PS Why is it that every time I hear Katrina vanden Heuvel's name I'm reminded of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-
schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-
dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-
apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-
grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-
bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-
gerspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-
shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft
of Ulm?

Spitzer Investigation Time Line

TPM Muckracker has the skinny.

AF

Set Up? Not!

Raw Story mauls yet another important story with an unfortunate and inaccurate headline: Lawyer questions whether Spitzer was set up, noting political prosecutions. Scott Horton's story says nothing about a "set up." Set up is defined as "something done by deceit or trickery in order to compromise or frame someone." Elliot Spitzer wasn't framed. He committed a crime. He may be a huge hypocrite and disappointment but he wasn't "set up.".

By falsely crying "Set Up!", Raw aids the right wing noise machine's attempts to obscure the extremely disconcerting Ken Starr-like aspect of this story: the US government was apparently investigating Spitzer, the once rising star of the Democratic party, not because they had any evidence that he had ever committed any crime but to see if they could find any evidence that he had ever committed a crime.

This is not a minor distinction. As Scott Horton puts it more clearly:

All of these facts are consistent with a process which is not the investigation of a crime, but rather an attempt to target and build a case against an individual.

The contrast between a swift politically motivated investigation of Spitzer to determine if there was evidence (plus the accompanying leak) and the many stalled and undisclosed or reluctantly disclosed investigation of Republicans couldn't be more distinct.

I guarantee that if you devote enough resources to investigate anyone, you will find them guilty of some crime large or small. (This is doubly so when combing through someone's financials). Ken Starr spent $40 million+ and seven years to find Bill Clinton guilty not for murdering Vince Foster, the alleged Whitewater swindle, Travelgate et al but lying about his infidelity. I'm not absolving Bill Clinton or Spitzer of their guilt. Even smart people do very stupid things. Eliot Spitzer was very, very stupid.

It will be interesting to see how the Bush Administration attempts to justify this one.

AF

Harper's Horton & Silverstein on Spitzer Investigation

Harper's Scott Horton has this thought provoking take on the Spitzer investigation. Here's the nub of The Spitzer Sex Sting: A Few More Questions:

So here are the rather amazing facts that surface in the Spitzer case:

(1) The prosecutors handling the case came from the Public Integrity Section.

(2) The prosecution is opened under the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910. You read that correctly. The statute itself is highly disreputable, and most of the high-profile cases brought under it were politically motivated and grossly abusive. Here are a few:

• Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson was the first man prosecuted under the act — for having an affair with Lucille Cameron, whom he later married. The prosecution was manifestly an effort “to get” Johnson, who at the time was the most famous African-American. (All of this is developed well in Ken Burns’s film “Unforgiveable Blackness”).

• University of Chicago sociologist William I. Thomas was prosecuted for having an affair with an officer’s wife in France. Thomas was targeted because of his Bohemian social and his radical political views.

• In 1944 Charles Chaplin was prosecuted for having an affair with actress Joan Barry. The prosecution again provided cover for a politically motivated effort to drive Chaplin out of the country.

• Canadian author Elizabeth Smart was arrested and charged in 1940 while crossing the border with the British poet George Barker.

(3) The resources dedicated to the case in terms of prosecutors and investigators are extraordinary.

(4) How the investigation got started. The Justice Department has yet to give a full account of why they were looking into Spitzer’s payments, and indeed the suggestion in the ABC account is that it didn’t have anything to do with a prostitution ring. The suggestion that this was driven by an IRS inquiry and involved a bank might heighten, rather than allay, concerns of a politically motivated prosecution.

Horton's colleague Ken Silverstein catches this powerful point from a reader:

Amazing how Senator David Vitter’s name never leaked out of the Justice Department after the arrest of the D.C. Madam, but Eliot Spitzer’s name leaked out of the Justice Department within a week of the initial arrest in the Emperor V.I.P. case.

Yes, amazing isn't it?

AF