Good for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who has written an advisory opinion (available here (pdf))informing the District Attorney who wanted Gov. Paterson to release documents and communications provided by Eliot Spitzer that Paterson cannot do so -- they are covered by grand jury secrecy.

In response to a request for advice from the Governor's office, Cuomo writes:

You have asked for advice concerning District Attorney P. David Soares’ request, dated March 24, 2008, that Governor David A. Paterson grant a waiver of grand jury secrecy and all applicable privileges with respect to certain documents provided to the District Attorney’s office by former Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Shorter version: Governor Paterson does not have he power to waive Grand Jury secrecy or legal privileges reserved by Spitzer.

The New York Times has the backstory: [More...]

How refreshing to hear a politician, in this case David Paterson, the new Governor of New York, acknowledge using drugs in their youth and rather than apologize for it or calling it a mistake, point out:

"More Americans have tried a lot more during that period of time and gone on to lead responsible lives and hopefully have lived their lives to their fullest," he said.

Here's what Obama said about his drug use:

"I was a confused kid and was making a bunch of negative choices based on stereotypes of what I thought a tough young man should be," he said of the period depicted in that section of the book. "Those choices were misguided, a serious mistake.

I'll take more like Paterson please.

Update: The New York Times has a list of politicians and their comments on past drug use.

Jason Leopold has more on the affidavit filed by the White House in a federal court case this week in which the White House claims it had the hard drives of computer workstations destroyed when it replaced them and that it would be too expensive to search those that remain for e-mails. The period at issue is 2003 - 2005.

The White House also claims:

...there is simply no evidence to back up allegations made in a lawsuit filed by two government watchdog groups that claim the White House has lost as many as 10 million emails—some of which are said to coincide with dates involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson as well as the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. [White House Chief Information Officer Theresa]Payton said that since the watchdog groups’ claims are unsupported the White House should not be forced to undertake a “draconian” process of having to search for emails.

In other words, it's just a coincidence that, as Jason writes,

Bump from 3/19 and Update: Roger Stone did drop a dime on Spitzer after all.

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 is the Republican operative credited with shutting down the Florida recount effort.

In related news, it turns out Spitzer used his own money to pay his call girls.

Original Post (3/19):

Spitzer Political Foe Predicted His Demise Months Three Months Ago

I don't like conspiracy theories, but this is bothersome. According to Raw Story, Robert Novak recently reported:

Republican political operative Roger Stone, Eliot Spitzer's longtime antagonist, predicted the New York governor's political demise more than three months in advance.

"Eliot Spitzer will not serve out his term as governor of the state of New York," Stone said Dec. 6 on Michael Smerconish's radio talk show on Philadelphia's 1210 WPHT. He gave no details.

[More...]

I doubt this will bring any solace to Eliot Spitzer, but after his swearing in today, New York Governor David Paterson and his wife told the New York Daily News they each had had extra-marital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.

What prompted the interviews? Threats of exposure:

The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson's personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.

Paterson and his former paramour trysted at a Manhattan Days Inn Hotel.

Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side hotel, Paterson said, "From time to time I used to take Michelle to that hotel."

In a very long article, Evan Thomas examines the life and background of Eliot Spitzer, trying to understand why he engaged in such reckless conduct. Shorter version: He was trying to please Daddy.

He describes Spitzer's family:

Brought up in a cold-water flat in a New York slum, Eliot's father, Bernard, the son of Jewish immigrants, made a half-billion dollars in the cutthroat world of New York real estate. He and his wife, Anne, a former college literature teacher, are regarded as refined and cultivated, not domineering. But expectations in the Spitzer household in Fieldston, a wealthy enclave of the Bronx, were extremely high.

A series of Eliot's childhood and college friends have reported the intimidation they felt just sitting at the Spitzer dinner table. Each of the three Spitzer children was required to hold forth and debate on worthy topics (social chitchat was frowned upon). Jason Brown, who went to Horace Mann School, Princeton and Harvard Law with Eliot, compares the dinners to "a college class where the professor grills you." Afterward came games of Monopoly that qualified as play only in the loosest sense. "I play to kill," Bernard liked to joke.

More...

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia has released a statement saying that no deal on criminal charges has been reached with Gov.Eliot Spitzer.

Did anyone else notice Libby lawyer Ted Wells entering the press room right ahead of Spitzer?

Shorter version: Negotiations are ongoing.

New York Gov. David Paterson will take over on Monday.

He is New York's first African American Governor. He is legally blind. He's highly respected and well liked.

I hope he puts repeal of the draconian Rockefeller drug laws at the top of his agenda.

Paterson is a super-delegate for Hillary Clinton.

Update: Text of Statement.

Embattled New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is expected to announce he is resigning at 11:30 a.m. ET.

More details of his trysts:

A person with knowledge of the service’s operations said that Mr. Spitzer had begun meeting with the prostitutes of the Emperor’s Club about eight months ago and had had encounters in Dallas as well as Washington. A law enforcement official said Mr. Spitzer also had an encounter with a prostitute in Florida. On some trips of several days’ duration, Mr. Spitzer scheduled more than one visit with a prostitute, this person said.

Update: He's now in the building. Updates below

Shorter version: Forget $80,000. We're down to $19,000. His lawyers are insisting there was no crime, there should be no charges. In other words, no plea bargain. We also get the name of one of the banks that dropped the dime on him: Capital One Corp.'s North Fork unit.

On his gubernatorial financial disclosures, Mr. Spitzer lists North Fork as one of his primary personal banks.

As to the three wire transfers:

[Spitzer]made three payments of roughly $5,000 each through wire transfers in the spring and summer of 2007 from personal bank accounts, according to a person familiar with the matter. The New York governor allegedly paid an additional $4,300 in cash to the ring in connection with an encounter at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, making his total payments to the group more than $19,000.

As to why there may have been no illegality [More...]

Nobody really knows what New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's timetable is. The New York Times says no resignation is likely today.

And Jacob Gershman in the New York Sun says Spitzer senior adviser Lloyd Constantine says Spitzer may not resign at all.

"He has not made up his mind," a senior adviser to Mr. Spitzer, Lloyd Constantine, said. "It is more correct to say that he is not resigning."

Another source close to the governor said Mr. Spitzer was refusing to resign until he clinches an agreement with federal authorities about charges that he could face. "I don't think anything happens for a couple of weeks," the source said.

Reportedly, things aren't going so well at the Spitzer residence: [More...]

Update: The New York Times reports the Attorney General authorized the investigation of Spitzer:

The inquiry, like many such investigations, was a delicate one. Because the focus was a high-ranking government official, prosecutors were required to seek the approval of the United States attorney general to proceed. Once they secured that permission, the investigation moved forward.

****

The S.D. Florida blog has a post on whether it's right (as opposed to legally permissible) to charge Gov. Eliot Spitzer under the Mann Act (18 USC 2421, 2422 are the possible applicable sections.)

Now, should the feds pursue a simple prostitution case just because the prostitute traveled from state to state? There is nothing to suggest that the prostitute was coerced or was forced into this business (in fact, she was making more per hour than just about every lawyer in town). The original Mann Act of 1910 was really meant to outlaw forced prostitution (and was known as the "White Slave Traffic Act.") Although recent cases have greatly expanded the scope of the Act and the prosecution would be permissible, do you think such a prosecution is appropriate?

Trivia -- The most famous person prosecuted under the Mann Act is probably Charlie Chaplin.

Chaplin was acquitted. I'll add Chuck Berry to the list, although in his case the woman was a minor. [More...]