The W$J reports:
With the disclosure this week that close aides misused state police in an effort to damage a Republican rival, [NY Governor Eliot] Spitzer is facing the same kind of high-profile scrutiny that he was famous for inflicting upon others -- from Wall Street executives to radio conglomerates -- as New York's attorney general. In a role reversal, the aggressive Mr. Spitzer now is on the defensive and vowing to make amends. ...
While the report by [Democratic] Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found that no laws had been broken, it found that a close Spitzer aide schemed to create and give detailed reports to the media showing that Mr. Bruno had been using state aircraft to attend fund-raisers and other political events, rather than for state business as Mr. Bruno had certified. ...
The report found that the governor's communications director, Darren Dopp, and his top liaison to the state police pressured the state police to create, and in some instances re-create, records of Mr. Bruno's use of state aircraft and police escorts.
The report also suggested that the governor's staff gave a false story to investigators to explain why the information was being gathered, saying they were acting on a Freedom of Information Act request from a newspaper.
How can it possibly be the case that lying to investigators and pressuring police to falsify records broke no laws? Does NY have no equivalent of the federal provision in 18 USC 1001 that criminally penalizes, by up to five years in prison, any person who "knowingly and willfully— ... (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry." I'm no fan of 18 USC 1001, but it's just the sort of statute Spitzer would have loved back when he was NY Attorney General.
