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Was Eliot Spitzer a John?

Long time readers know that Eliot Spitzer is one of my bête noires.

Does this relentless crusader have feet of clay? The New York Times reports:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

“”This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. ”It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

As a comment at the NY Times put it, he’s gone from Elliot Ness to Elliot Mess.

Which leads to the ethics question of the day: Is schadenfreude a sin? If so, I’m sinning big time today. Why? Because Spitzer’s attacks on his various targets have always had a highly moralistic tone. He portrays himself as Mr Clean exposing the dity linen of business. As Roger Donway commented in 2006:

His purpose in these campaigns has not been the narrow one of punishing law-breakers. Rather, he has sought a sweeping restructuring of the business landscape in order to make it accord with his moral vision, as though he were a religious dictator suddenly transplanted from the Middle East to Manhattan. ... Doing good, for Eliot Spitzer, means compelling people, under the threat of prison, to accept, endorse, and follow his own moral precepts.

Now, perhaps, the chickens are coming home to roost. One can only hope Spitzer encounters a prosecutor who brings to the task the same zeal as Spitzer brought to his own crusades.

Past Spitzer highlights:

• Eliot Spitzer: A Picture of A Prosecutor As A Young Thug: John Carney looks back at one of Spitzer’s more loathsome excesses


• Spitzer, 18 USC 1001, and a Question for New York Lawyers: Spitzer’s aides’ abuse of office in trashing Republican NY State Senate Majority Leader Bruno


• Spitzer = Nixon?: Same


• Spitzer Claus:  Spitzer abusing his prosecutorial powers for personal political gain by transferring civil settlements to community groups positioned to support his gubernatorial big

Update: Jim Geraghty:

Spitzer was a state attorney general, and it’s pretty bad for the guy whose job includes enforcing the laws on prostitution to be involved with enjoying it… presuming that’s what’s going on here…

There will now be legitimate questions about Spitzer’s enforcement of the type of cases referred to in the Times story. For example, did Spitzer ever cut plea deals with a service he used?

Update: Leave it to Stephen Green to come up with a perfect one-liner:

Eliot Spitzer: Cleaning up New York one prostitute at a time. Sometimes maybe even two at a time.

Update: MSNBC captures the hypocrisy angle:

Spitzer, 48, built his political legacy on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general. He stormed into the governor’s office in 2006 with a historic share of the vote, vowing to continue his no-nonsense approach to fixing one of the nation’s worst governments.

Time magazine had named him “Crusader of the Year” when he was attorney general and the tabloids proclaimed him “Eliot Ness.”

But his stint as governor has been marred by several problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear Spitzer’s main Republican nemesis.

Spitzer had been expected to testify to the state Public Integrity Commission he had created to answer for his role in the scandal, in which his aides were accused of misusing state police to compile travel records to embarrass Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

Update: Reuters reports on Spitzer’s news conference:

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer apologized to his family for a “private matter” on Monday but made no reference to a New York Times report that he may have been linked to a prostitution ring.

“I failed to live up to the standards I set up to myself. Now I stand to regain the trust of my family,” Spitzer told a packed room of reporters in New York City.

He said nothing about possibly resigning.

Do you think Attorney General Spitzer would have let a target of a prosecution get away with calling it a “private matter”?

Update: In re the “private matter” comment, James Joyner opines:

The “private matter” bit is straight out of Bill Clinton’s playbook.

Update: Larry Ribstein recalls a WSJ column recounting still more of Spitzer’s malfeasances.

Update: Here’s a copy of the complaint. According to reports, Spitzer is “Client 9.” In one case discussed at length in the indictment Client 9 paid $4,300 (possibly including an advance on future encounters. Now for the salacious part. The complaint also states:

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.

So what exactly sort of things was Spitzer into that an apparently experienced high class call girl wouldn’t think were safe?

Update: Is there a valid analogy between David Vitter and Spitzer? Personally, I thought Vitter should have resigned. But it’s important to recognize that the Spitzer case is worse. VCitter is a liegislator. Spitzer is an executive. Vitter’s oath of office merely requires that he “support the constitution” and “faithfully discharge the duties of the office.” In contrast, in his capacity as Attorney General and Governor, Spitzer had an obligation to see that the laws were faithfully enforced. Article IV, section 3 of the NY State Constitution states that the governor “shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed.” For the chief law enforcement officer of the state to be caught breaking the very laws he is charged with (and has in the past) enforced as against others raises questions that simply are not present when a mere legislator breaks the law.