Spitzer's staff misused State Police, report says
ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York's governor, Eliot Spitzer, indefinitely suspended his communications director and reassigned another top official yesterday after Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo's office issued a scathing report accusing the governor's staff of using the State Police for political purposes.
The report was a devastating blow to a governor who had promised to bring a new dawn of ethical responsibility to state politics and validated growing outrage among state Republicans about Spitzer's politicization of the governor's office.
The report said that the governor's staff ordered the State Police to keep special records of Senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno's whereabouts when he traveled with police escorts in New York City and to create records if they did not exist.
The report said that the acting superintendent of police, Preston Felton, took an unprecedented role in assisting requests from the governor's staff and the media for information related to the senator's whereabouts.
And the report concluded that there was an orchestrated campaign by the governor's office to obtain and provide information to the news media, with the help of the State Police, to essentially discredit Bruno, the state's top Republican.
The findings of the report were endorsed by Spitzer's own inspector general, Kristine Hamann. The attorney general's report does not say any laws were broken by the governor's staff.
The governor said he accepted the findings, saying his administration had "grossly mishandled" the situation.
"As governor, I am accountable for what goes on in the executive branch and I accept responsibility for the actions of my office," he said at a press conference this morning, with many of his staff members looking on somber and staggered.
"I apologized to Senator Bruno and I did so personally this morning," he added. "In addition, I apologized to the men and women of the State Police, and to acting Superintendent Preston Felton personally for allowing this esteemed institution to be drawn into this matter."
Darren Dopp, Spitzer's communications director and one of his closest aides, was put on indefinite unpaid leave of at least 30 days. William Howard, the assistant secretary for homeland security, will be reassigned to a post outside the governor's office.
Spitzer said he had no knowledge of the improper actions by his staff and believed "everything was done properly pursuant to media requests."
But Republicans were skeptical that a governor who is known to be intensely involved in details and intensely political did not have a hand in the effort.
"Today's explosive report by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo validates the frightening charges that Governor Spitzer's administration abused the New York State Police . . . in an attempt to set up Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno," said Joseph Mondello, the chairman of the state Republican Party. "This disturbing abuse of power by a governor is unprecedented." 