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.

All the Governor's Men

After some new revelations came to light in the dirty tricks campaign run by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and his henchmen, the Albany DA will now be interviewing a top aide of Spitzer.

DA WILL PUT SPITZ MAN ON THE GRILL

Albany District Attorney David Soares will interview a top aide to Gov. Spitzer later this week about the circumstances under which the aide and two officials helped prepare a sworn statement by former Spitzer communications director Darren Dopp, who is under investigation for possible perjury, it was learned last night.

Peter Pope, Spitzer's policy director, will be questioned about the role he played with Spitzer counsel David Nocenti and Sean Patrick Maloney, the governor's first deputy secretary, in the statement signed by Dopp on July 22, one day before Attorney General Andrew Cuomo issued a blockbuster reporter on the Dirty Tricks Scandal.

The Commission on Public Integrity, which is probing the scandal, asked Soares late last week to investigate Dopp after determining that his testimony to the commission appeared to contradict the sworn statement.

A source in the governor's office said Pope had been assured by Soares that neither he, Nocenti nor Maloney were "targets" of the DA.

"We were told that Soares' inquiry at this point is solely and exclusively about whether or not Darren testified falsely before the Ethics Commission," said the source.

The source insisted Dopp himself had the final say as to what was in the sworn statement and no effort was made to encourage him to tell anything but the truth.

Word of Soares' widening new probe came as The Post learned that several aides to Spitzer - not just Dopp - gave conflicting testimony on the scandal to the Public Integrity Commission.

"There clearly have been absolutely contradictory sworn statements between witnesses from the governor's office, and I think very few people realize how serious this is," a source close to the commission told The Post.

Read the rest.

I don't exactly hold much faith this probe will get very far, as Democrats control every top position in New York State, but be assured Joe Bruno will be keeping this issue alive.

Meanwhile, it appears more likely Spitzer will abandon his cockamamie plan to grant driver's licenses to illegals. There is much hand wringing going on in Democrat circles, especially after Mrs. Clinton's inept attempt defense of this ridiculous plan.

What won't help is for Mr. Spitzer to stay on the fence over the volatile issue. He has to make a decision, and soon. The issue has morphed from a state matter to a national one, and may well have done serious damage to the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been lambasted by her primary rivals for trying to have it both ways by sympathizing with the Spitzer plan, while at the same time distancing herself from it.

UPDATE: Instapundit links. Thanks!

UPDATE II: John in Carolina has some questions about Governor Nifong.

UPDATE III: My, isn't this news just delicious?

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to provide illegal immigrants with driver’s licenses has sunk his favorability rating to an all-time low of 41 percent, and has left only 25 percent of voters planning to re-elect him, according to a poll the Siena Research Institute released Tuesday.

More again from Instapundit, as well as Lawhawk.