N.Y. GOV. SPITZER PUT ON DEFENSIVE BY AIDES

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer made his name as a corruption fighting attorney general who forced reforms on Wall Street and the insurance industry. As governor, he promised to take that campaign to Albany and end the state government’s reputation for political dysfunction.

More recently, though, it was Spitzer who was under fire for underhanded tactics.

His successor as state attorney general, fellow Democrat Andrew Cuomo, issued a report saying two of Spitzer’s top aides were involved in a plot to smear the governor’s political nemesis, Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, by releasing records to the media on Bruno’s use of state drivers and state aircraft for trips.

Spitzer said he had been unaware of the operation. In response, he suspended one of the aides and reassigned the other. He apologized to Bruno and voters.

The report found that longtime Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp and the state’s assistant deputy secretary for homeland security, William Howard, with the help of the acting state police superintendent, Preston Felton, conspired to release politically damaging information about Bruno’s use of state transportation. They told Felton that records on Bruno’s aircraft use were being sought in response to a reporter’s state Freedom of Information Law request but no reporter had requested them.

Felton said he didn’t realize he was part of a political scheme.

Bruno’s use of the state aircraft was appropriate under state policy, the report said.

“Certainly for Spitzer it’s politically damaging,” said Lee Miringoff of Marist College. “When you come in on the winds of reform, anything that feels like old school politics works against you. If he wanted to be cleaning out Albany, the last thing he wanted to do was to be starting with his own senior staff.”

Associated Press writer Sara Kugler in New York City contributed to this report.