GOV. PATERSON secretly offered newly retired Sen ate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno a highly paid post as a “special adviser” to his administration, sources close to Paterson have told The Post.
The extraordinary offer, made this month by the lifelong liberal Harlem Democrat to the Rensselaer County Republican powerhouse, reflects the unusually strong friendship between the two and reveals a potentially savvy strategy by Paterson to broaden his appeal to GOP voters, insiders said.
Bruno viewed the offer as a vote of confidence at a time when he is still under federal investigation for possibly misusing his Senate office on behalf of several clients of his private consulting business.
But the offer is also a sign of Paterson’s widely known unhappiness with Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens), who is just one vote from ending the Republicans’ 40-year-plus control of the Legislature’s upper house.
“For David to offer Joe a job is a slap at Malcolm, because it’s another sign that the governor doesn’t want the Senate to go Democratic,” said a Democratic activist close to the administration.
Tensions have simmered for months between Smith and Paterson, the state’s two highest-ranking black officials. Those tensions are rooted, in part, in Smith’s allegedly cruel mistreatment of two former aides to Paterson, his predecessor as minority leader.
But Paterson was also described by sources as unimpressed with the quality of Smith’s staff, and has even been heard wondering how successful Smith would be leading a Democratic-controlled Senate.
Bruno, 79, was described as “flattered” by Paterson’s offer, but determined to pursue a far more lucrative private-sector job. While the longtime businessman was paid $121,000 annually as majority leader, he has told friends that he lost millions in potential earnings during his 14 years as Senate leader.
And he has told interviewers that he is determined to boost his earnings dramatically, so as to be able to do more to help his four children, seven grandchildren and great-grandchild.
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The widely reviled state Public Integrity Commission is bitterly divided over how to proceed with its 1-year-old Dirty Tricks Scandal probe.
A source close to the commission said Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum was pushing for the release of an 80-page report on the scandal, as well as the filing of at least two charges against Darren Dopp, one-time communications director to then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
But Teitelbaum, who has been accused by the Albany district attorney of interfering in a criminal probe of Spitzer’s use of the State Police to damage Bruno politically, was described by another source as being restrained by commission Chairman John Ferrick.
Paterson, meanwhile, has told associates he’d like to be rid of Ferrick, Teitelbaum and several other commission members appointed by Spitzer.