A lot of people have wondered whether former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer got some help in hanging himself.
Yes, of course, the ex-governor showed spectacularly bad judgment in arranging a visit by a high-priced call girl while staying at a swank Washington hotel. But as many, including this site asked, was a Republican-controlled Justice Department also out to get him?
Now, a congressional committee has called for an inquiry into what prompted the initial look at Spitzer’s bank transactions, which showed he was sending money to a front company for Emperor’s Club V.I.P., reports Danny Hakim of the New York Times.
The House Financial Services Committee will take up the matter early next year, tentatively planning hearings that could include testimony from the United States Treasury’s law enforcement unit, along with Spitzer’s bank, North Fork, and HSBC, which was used by a company connected to the prostitution service.
“The question was: Why were they looking for this? Is this political retribution?” Rep. Michael E. Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat and a member of the committee, told Hakim.
“It raises questions in my mind that he may have been targeted for political purposes,” he said, adding that he had no evidence of that.
The committee also plans to examine the government’s practice of reviewing hundreds of thousands of suspicious activity reports filed by banks each year, and whether such reports are used appropriately.
Such monitoring increased under the Patriot Act and has previously been a subject of inquiry for the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank.
The Democratic leaders of the committee were not asked to pursue the inquiry by Spitzer, officials said, and do not have close ties to the former governor.
Nor has any evidence emerged that he was targeted, despite the powerful enemies he had made because of his high-profile prosecutions.
Hakim points out the irony that one of Spitzer’s last appearances in Washington was before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee - a hearing on bond insurance.
It was on that trip that he stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, where he had the encounter that would lead to his resignation a month later.
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