More details on Spitzer

If either the prurience or the politics of Elliot Spitzer's dalliance with extremely high priced hookers has gotten your attention, then Jeralyn Merrit of Talkleft has collected a great deal of information and since she is a defense attorney, she also explains the relevance and apparent legal strategies.

Laura Rozen (War & Piece) also reports more information, this focusing especially on the details of the prostitution organization, the Emperors Club VIP. I was surprised at the prices the Emperors Club charges. This is from the New York Post (referenced by Rozen)

Two other women, Tanya Hollander, 36, a nutritionist from upstate Rhineback, and Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, of Brooklyn, face similar charges for handling the day-to-day business.

For several years, wealthy men could go online and pick through mini-biographies of the women. Their bodies were pictured but their faces obscured.

"Raquel," who worked in New York and LA, was described as "an avid writer, actress and journalist."

Men paid $1,100 to $5,500 an hour or could get discounted day or multiple-day rates of $25,000 to $50,000. American Express and wire transfers were accepted.

Sometimes the women took imprints of the men's credit cards on the spot and faxed them back to the pimping couple.

The operation started to unravel after one of the hookers agreed to become a confidential source for the FBI in late 2006.

If you wondered where those tax cuts that Bush and Cheney rammed through for their wealthy supporters, this is what those tax cuts were buying. Had to be. No one else except the recipients of those tax cuts could afford those prices.

Somehow this seems to me to be a real justification for a sharply progressive income tax on both investment and wage income, along with hefty inheritance taxes. Paying for sex is not either socially or economically valuable, and should be discouraged.

Elliot Spitzer; Prostitutes; Why is the DoJ involved?

OK. We all know that sex sells media advertising, and it changes votes for politicians. So when Elliot Spitzer, Mr. Clean who made his reputation as an Attorney General going after crooked Wall Street financiers and prostitution rings gets caught hiring a high end prostitute, we can expect a great deal of hullabaloo.

But that was yesterday. Now, today, is time for some questions about how his actions were exposed (leaked?) and why the Department of Justice Public Integrity Unit was after him for what is a state crime a lot less serious than the corruption that sent Congressmen Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Bob Ney to prison.

Those two were both taking bribes and gave government favors for those bribes. That's what the Public Integrity Unit investigates. Where is it in the Spitzer case? There is no allegation that the independently wealthy Spitzer used government money for his recreational activities, nor is that any allegation that he provided favors to anyone. What he did was hypocritically hire a prostitute or a series of prostitutes. As far as I know, America does not use the government to enforce morality or penalize hypocrisy. What DOES happen in the U.S. is that the DoJ under Bush investigates Democrats with the intent to destroy them politically, while protecting Republicans like Rep. Jerry Lewis and John Doolittle.

Is this another case of the Republicans using the Department of Justice to destroy a successful Democratic politician like they did Alabama Governor Don Seigelman?

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake asks some questions that really need to be answered here.

1. Why would the bank tell the IRS and not Spitzer himself if there was a suspicious transfer? Spitzer is a longtime client, a rich guy and the governor. We're talking thousands of dollars here, not millions. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they spotted a "suspicious transfer" made by the governor, and that this is how things began. It's possible it was just ordinary paperwork the bank had to file with the government whenever some particular flag was raised, but if that's the case, why did the DoJ go to DefCon 3?
2. What is a USA doing prosecuting a prostitution case? This isn't normally what the feds spend their time with.
3. Mike Garcia is a Chertoff crony. Sources familiar with the investigation say that he sent a prosecution memo to DC two months ago asking for authority to indict a public figure (Spitzer). Which means they had their case made long before the wire tap of February 13. Why did they then include this line from that conversation in the complaint?

   LEWIS continued that from what she had been told "he" (believed to be a reference to Client-9) "would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe -- you know -- I mean that...very basic things...."Kristen" responded: "I have a way of dealing with that...I'd be like listen dude, you really want the sex?...You know what I mean."

   This salacious detail does not seem like it's necessary to make their case, and appears to be added for no other purpose than to destroy Spitzer's career.

4. How did Spitzer's name get leaked to the media, and who did it? Didn't happen to Dave Vitter.
5. Why did Mike Bloomberg suddenly start talking about running for governor recently? And why did he give $500,000 to Joe Bruno? He's good buddies with Mike Mukasey. What did he know and how did he know it?
6. The Mann Act? Are you kidding?
7. Spitzer's been in the line of fire of the GOP hit squad for a while. Roger Stone, Roger Stone, Roger Stone.

There are all kinds of things about this that just don't pass the smell test.

This isn't a totally fraudulent federal prosecution for political purposes like the one Wisconsin U.S. ATtorney rammed through in oder to get of the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired (see:

• Wisconsin US attorney rammed through fake corruption case of Democrat before last Governor's election.,
• US Atty Biscupic (Wisc) saved his job by prosecuting Georgia Thompson and


• US attorney Biscupic (Eastern Wi.) again reversed by Appeals Court - can't convict for no crime.

) but it is awfully close. There is no federal crime here. Not even an allegation of one that could be prosecuted effectively. There is clearly no political corruption, which is what the DoJ Public Integrity Unit is designed to investigate and prosecute - ans which they have failed to do in the cases of Rep. John Doolittle and William Jefferson.

Elliot Spitzer does appear to have pulled off a real political screw-up, but a crime? It's not one the DoJ's Public Integrity Unit was set up to investigate or prosecute. Given the history of the Justice Department as a tool of political assassination for the Bush administration and the Republican Party, this Spitzer situation is highly suspicious.

Once again the Bush administration is using public money and resources to maintain their power. I'd watch for Bloomberg to run for NY Governor as a Republican next election myself. This case stinks to high heaven of Republican corruption. It's what they do.

Bush White House protecting Rep. Jerry Lewis

Scott Paltrow at the Wall Street Journal reports that the investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has been slowed by failure to fund the instigation. [H/T to Laura Rozen.]

This is another defense, following the bribe given to the U.S. Attorney Debra Yang who had been investigating Rep. Lewis. See

• Debra Yang was investigating Rep. Lewis, left to work for his law firm.
  March 21, 2007
• Did Republicans pay Debra Yang $1.5 million to stop the investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis?
  April 20, 2007
• More on the very fishy Debra Yang bribe job offer
  April 25, 2007

Question: Does Rep. Jerry Lewis know something that will further damage the Republican Party and/or the White House, or is this just the Republicans acting to defend one more Republican Congressman and his Congressional seat?

Speculations on the Gonzales resignation

I wonder if Alberto Gonzales is resigning in order to lower the level of conflict between the Executive Department and the Congress? If so, it isn't going to work. If anything, the conflict is going to increase.

Does the resignation of Gonzales make it less likely that the Department of Justice will attempt to influence the 2008 elections? I'd say that depends on the degree of openness that the DoJ is forced to undergo, especially Voting Rights Division. One commitment the Senators need to extract it the rebuilding of the Voting Rights Division and making it more transparent.

The new Attorney General needs to firmly agree that he will take Contempt of Congress cases against White House employees to Court. Gonzales has publicly stated that he would not act on such Congressional requests.

Gonzales' resignation becomes effective September 17th. I wonder if there is any significance in that date? It appears to shut out any possibility of a recess appointment by bush.

Gonzales' legacy will almost certainly be that he is responsible for the effective destruction of the Department of Justice and a sharp reduction of the DoJ's reputation for the honest enforcement of law. It may also be the complete discrediting of the theory that U.S. Attorneys can be fired for purely political reasons, and that the Attorney General sometimes has to tell the President that something the President wants done cannot be done because it violates the Rule of Law.

More corruption in the politicized Department of Justice

It seems that U.S. Attorneys and their assistants were not the only jobs in the Department of Justice (DoJ) that Gonzales, Rove(?) and company were politicizing. They were also placing unqualified people into the job of Immigration Judge. It got bad enough that so that they shut down appointments as Immigration Judge last December and the DoJ Inspector General opened an investigation of the procedures used for choosing new Immigration Judges.

The reasons and final outcome are not yet known, but we know a lot more than a short time ago. Go read EmptyWheel for more details.