Did One Spitzer Aide Threaten Another?

Now that Eliot Spitzer has wisely junked plans to hand out driver's licenses to illegal aliens, he's far from in the clear.

More problem lies ahead in his dirty tricks campaign against Joe Bruno.

For instance, did his political director threaten his communications director?

The Albany DA (an ally of Spitzer, by the way) would like to know.

A top aide to Gov. Spitzer is expected to be asked by the Albany district attorney if he or others threatened former Spitzer communications director Darren Dopp with dismissal if he refused to sign a controversial affidavit on the Dirty Tricks Scandal, it was learned last night.

The question will likely be posed to Spitzer policy director Peter Pope, who has been summoned to appear before DA David Soares as soon as today as part of a potentially explosive new investigation of whether Dopp, a central figure in the scandal, committed perjury when he signed the statement, a source said.

"Pope is expected to be asked if he or others threatened Darren with termination unless they signed the affidavit," the source said.

Pope, along with Spitzer counsel David Nocenti and Sean Patrick Maloney, the governor's first deputy secretary, helped prepare a sworn statement signed by Dopp on July 22, a day before Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released a blockbuster report on the use of the State Police by top Spitzer aides to gather purportedly damaging information on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer.)

Question: How would the rest of the media treat this case if it were a Republican doing this?

UPDATE: Hot Air links. Thanks!

Allahpundit also notes an egregious tax grab by Spitzer.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin also links. Thanks!

UPDATE III: Spitzer held a DC press conference along with the congressional delegation from New York, regarding dropping the licenses for illegals scheme. Full of sophistry, solipsism and santimony, it's all pretty much Bush's fault. As we predicted, he'll be back trying to weasel this plan through.