Someone should look into this. isn't interesting to think about the arc of this story? It was such a stunner-- hard-nosed prosecutor brought down by his own hypocrisy-- that I'm not sure anyone has thought about it much, but consider that Spitzer was never charged with anythingThe Mann Act stuff is sleazy, but a slam dunk. If they were going to charge him, they could have done it. The "structuring" charge was creative, and I don't think there is enough out there to say if it would stick. Spitzer apparently used his own dough to pay for hookers, and if he was careless about the way he spent his money, that's still not usually the sort of thing the US Attorney for the Southern District gets worked up about, or you'd hear about a lot of guys in trouble for cashing two $5,000 buck checks a week. There might be a conspiracy to commit tax fraud or money laundering charge in there, but if there were, what was holding up the indictment? The Feds obviously had what they needed to indict, and they didn't, or hadn't to that point.

According the New York Observer, on the Friday before the story broke Metro desk reporter William Rashbaum got a tip that an individual named in a criminal complaint that had been unsealed two days earlier was a “New York official”. The Times' reporters ran the tip down over the weekend, then ran the story that Monday, releasing it on the web first.

Now, here's the thing. Spitzer wasn't identified in the Complaint-- there is nothing in the Complaint to identify Client 9. The fact that Client 9 was a “New York official,” is information that could only have been within the knowledge of a few people. Maybe the members of the grand jury knew it-- but probably not. Maybe the Magistrate Judge-- Judge Ellis-- knew, but that also is unlikely. That leaves the FBI Agents who did the investigation-- we know they knew-- the US Attorney for the Southern District, (who also knew) and the Assistant US Attorneys who worked up the case. Disclosing grand jury information is a big deal. Grand Jurors don't do it, and people in the US Attorney's office know damn well that it is illegal to do so. And look at the timing of it: the tipster gave Rashbaum a weekend to do the necessary legwork-- lots of time, and ideally timed for an early week release.

In other words, it looks a lot like someone in the Bush DOJ-- specifically in the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York-- leaked grand jury information to a reporter for political purposes. Although the Complaint doesn't say anything about the identity of Client 9, it is full of what and where. A few phone calls, a look at the published schedules of a dozen or so New Yok officials and you are right on it. In fact, there is nothing in the Observer's account that suggests that the tip didn't include Spitzer's identification, which would have made the whole investigative process more a matter of verifying that he was in DC on the date in question. The leaker had to have figured that the story would break by Monday or Tuesday-- maybe Wednesday, latest. With no weekend to cool things off, and no notable Presidential primaries that week or other big stories to deflect the full glare of the media the Spitzer story would-- and did-- dominate the news cycle.

When you think about it that way, it starts to look a little like a coup, doesn't it? And wasn't that the effect? The leaker brought down a government.

Why did the government look into Spitzer's shady money transfers? Probably because it appeared that he was being bribed. If you saw an elected official dealing in so much cash, you might be tempted to think so, too.

But this is a wonderful waste of time for the Democratic Congress. A hypocritical whoremongering politico gets caught in his web of lies, and they're gonna spend time searching for the conspiracy. If the roles were reversed, you'd be blasting the Republicans for their behavior.

He did it. And now he's gone. Let it fucking go.

More regarding this is at www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/ posted 14 March 2008. This "affair" has always seemed to have remarkable (slightly suspicious) timing.