ALBANY — The state’s inspector general — who brought a landmark case last week against the Public Integrity Commission — says there’s only one way to prevent more scandals: Give the jobs in Albany to honest people.
“You can have the best system in the world, and the wrong people will find a way to beat it,” said Inspector General Joseph Fisch. “And you can have the worst system in the world, and the best people will find a way to make it work.”
Fisch spoke yesterday before the state Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, which is trying to improve ethics oversight.
He discussed his recent report on the PIC, which called for the resignation of its executive director, Herbert Teitelbaum.
The report accused Teitelbaum of unlawfully contacting members of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration in 2007 while he investigated the governor’s aides in the “Troopergate” probe.
The aides were accused of misusing the State Police to release records that embarrassed and undermined Spitzer’s political rival Joe Bruno.
Teitelbaum resigned Monday.
Fisch said people involved in the scandal violated the public-officers law, but the only entity that could have dealt with that was the PIC.
Fisch said it failed to investigate Teitelbaum because “it’s difficult to recognize your executive director betrayed you.”
“There ought to be some provision to deal with people within that ethics commission who maybe violated themselves,” he said.