It’s up to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo now: Gov. Paterson, as The Post’s Fredric U. Dicker reports today, has asked the AG to open a criminal probe of the State Police in the wake of Eliot Spitzer‘s Dirty Tricks campaign.
Good for the governor.
“Recent reported events raise questions of possible political interference with the State Police,” Paterson wrote to Cuomo, “and I am determined to not only ascertain the veracity of such reports but to do everything within my power to protect . . . the reputation of the State Police.”
Paterson’s move followed Dicker’s report yesterday that troopers may have run a renegade Dirty Tricks unit – possibly for years.
Lawmakers complained to Paterson that troopers targeted them for unwarranted traffic stops and “interfered in their personal lives,” a top Paterson aide told Dicker.
One source said a State Police unit may have kept tabs on numerous lawmakers, “unfriendly” journalists – and maybe Paterson himself.
Spitzer’s Dirty Tricks plot involved information gathered by troopers to smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
Oddly, Albany County DA David Soares, who issued his second report on Spitzer’s scheming Friday, said hardly a word about the role of the troopers in that affair (let alone in any other plot).
Soares had more than enough dots to connect – if he truly wanted to see the whole picture. He even noted that Spitzer arranged for a key former State Police official, Dan Wiese, to tell a newspaper that troopers “had long held concerns” about Bruno.
The obvious question: Did they also “long” keep tabs on Bruno – and others?
Soares’ eyes must have been wide shut. His ears, too.
But that was then; this is now
Cuomo has his hands full.
The brief handed him by Paterson allows him to open a full criminal investigation of the State Police, and a parallel civil undertaking as well.
“I will instruct the State Police to be fully cooperative with your investigation,” Paterson wrote.
Cuomo’s own report last year got the Dirty Tricks scheme right the first time – and he didn’t have subpoena power then; now he does.
And he’s armed for bear.
Go to it, Andrew.