ALBANY – Gov. Spitzer is endangering the recovery of potentially crucial e-mail evidence relating to the Dirty Tricks Scandal by refusing to give investigators the names of Internet service providers used by himself and his aides, sources have told The Post.
The refusal has blocked the Senate Investigations Committee from issuing subpoenas to ISPs for personal BlackBerries and other e-mail-equipped devices known to be used by Spitzer and his senior aides.
“I sent [Spitzer counsel] David Nocenti a letter asking for the names of the ISPs in October, and he hasn’t even answered me,” Senate Investigations Committee Chairman George Winner (R-Elmira) told The Post.
“Then we sent out a subpoena for the information, and the governor is fighting that in court. I can’t just send out a general subpoena to Yahoo! or Hotmail or AOL or Road Runner. I need to know what ISPs are being used by the governor and his aides.”
Spitzer’s refusal to identify the ISPs has led Senate and non-Senate probers to fear that crucial scandal-related evidence has been, or will soon be, destroyed.
A senior official involved in the investigation told The Post that “some of the ISPs only hold copies of e-mails for 30 days, some hold them for 60 days, and maybe some for six months.
“What you have here, I believe, is the governor running out the clock on the evidence,” the official continued.
Spitzer’s spokesman, Errol Cockfield, insisted that the governor and his aides had preserved all “relevant materials” and were resisting the Senate’s requests for information only because “state law makes it clear that it is improper for the Senate – an equal branch of government – to investigate the executive branch.”
The scandal, which is also being probed by the state Public Integrity Commission and the Albany District Attorney’s Office, involved the use of the State Police by top Spitzer aides last spring to gather purportedly damaging information on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer), the governor’s chief political opponent.
The Post first disclosed the existence of the plot on July 5, prompting Bruno to call on Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate. Cuomo issued a blistering report July 23 confirming the existence of the plot, and prompting Spitzer to apologize to Bruno and suspend one top aide and demote another.
Albany DA David Soares failed to return calls and e-mails seeking comment.