Was Eliot Spitzer targeted?

    Info source for most of the foregoing: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/354729_spitzeronline13.html

    The integrity of our criminal justice system rests on the notion that we investigate crimes, not people. As Robert Jackson, probably the greatest attorney general of the last century, put it:

“If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.”

    The way prosecutorial power is wielded separates real democracies from banana republics.

    As mentioned in the Intro to this piece, the story emerging around the fall of Eliot Spitzer suggests that the case did not start with the report of a crime. Rather it started with a decision to look into Spitzer’s financial dealings to see if any dirt could be spotted and then ‘developed’ into something consequential. In the course of that open-ended investigation, information about a prostitution circle surfaced. This suggests that when his case is done, the public should be pressing some tough questions, under oath, about why, and by whom, this particular investigation was launched and pushed forward.

    In review:

    The official narrative claims that a Long Island bank noticed an odd pattern of payments made by Spitzer between different accounts. The payments were not enormous sums yet the bank claims to have been “concerned” that a large number of transfers were made “so as to fall below the $10,000 reporting threshold.” The Republican bank officials then submitted a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to the IRS. The payments which totaled up to $80,000, looked suspicious, we are told, and were examined on the basis that they might be an effort to money-launder some bribes. This was reported to the IRS in Hauppauge, Long Island, which in turn referred the matter to the Public Integrity Section in the Department of Justice.

    But here are some fair questions as to the credibility of the claims about “possible bribes.” Thanks to his father's real estate fortune, Spitzer is an extremely wealthy man, and his channeling of payments at this comparatively meager level can hardly be viewed as something that raises legitimate suspicion. As money laundering goes, $80,000 is peanuts -- not the sort of thing that would normally raise an eyebrow. So it is reasonable to conclude that it was not the sum involved that captured the interest of the investigators, but rather the name, political affiliation, and office of the person who had been making the money transfers.

    Several reports about this case have suggested that it is somehow routine for prosecutors to go through the financial records of public officials to look for evidence of corruption. But in the absence of specific grounds justifying the investigation (for instance, an informant complaining about a bribe), prosecutors have no such authority. And in this case, the basis for action is extraordinarily weak. Most importantly, the investigators do not appear to be looking into an alleged crime; they appear to be investigating Spitzer in the hopes of finding something compromising.

    As already stated, the IRS (according to the official line), noting that the matter related to a public official, turned it over to the Public Integrity Section (PIN) at the Department of Justice. In theory, the PIN of DOJ exists to avoid an appearance that prosecutions are politically motivated. They supposedly do this by insuring the application of uniform national standards. Practice at PIN has, however, been difficult to reconcile with theory. PIN has emerged as one of the most highly politicized branches of a highly politicized Bush Justice Department. According to a study done by two university professors, under President Bush PIN has initiated 5.6 cases involving Democrats for every one case involving a Republican. This statistical data strongly suggest that PIN has a habit of aggressively pushing cases on the basis of partisan political criteria.

    Considering that the official account claims this was a "routine" examination of bank records, the level of resources allocated to it, including investigators and prosecutors, was quite lavish. This again suggests a politically motivated prosecution, which usually takes the form of a generous allocation of resources for political targets. Clearly, moving the case against Spitzer had become a politically-based priority.

    Two more questions should be asked about the prosecution. The first is whether a selective attitude is taken in prosecution -- that is, whether the Justice Department is treating Spitzer in a manner consistent with other (notably Republican) figures caught in similarly compromised positions. The second is how the matter was broken to the press.

    On each of these points, the information now available raises unsettling issues about the conduct of the Justice Department. Example: A case somewhat similar to that of Spitzer involved a prostitution investigation of the "D.C. Madam." In that case, federal prosecutors had proceeded against the prostitution ring yet showed little interest in the customer list, which included a former high-ranking Bush Administration official (Randall Tobias, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development) and a U.S. Senator (David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana). The prosecutors' conduct in the "D.C. Madam" case was remarkably deferential to the public figures involved. So why the double standard when it’s a Democrat that gets caught in the net?

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=c5005f31-237e-4f9d-bca1-891c7aa2b7b2

    Finally, look at how the investigation got started. There is no dispute that Spitzer’s alleged attempt to keep his money transfers under the $10,000 reporting threshold would have been a justifiable basis for the bank to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR). Problem is, Spitzer’s transfers were in the four and five thousand dollar range, and that is nothing unusual for a multimillionaire like Spitzer. Nevertheless, these wire transfers were quickly reported to the IRS, and the IRS immediately put this info into the hands of the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice.

 1  |  2  |  3