Spitzer Shifts to Silence on Scandal

Expect no more apologies from Governor Spitzer.

After weeks of expressing remorse over his administration's improper use of state police, Governor Spitzer today signaled a major shift in dealing with the aftermath of the scandal, deflecting questions from reporters while defending the effort by senior officials to retrieve and leak to the press private travel records of the Republican majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno.

"I'm not answering those questions anymore, except to say that the uncontested, unambiguous conclusion is that the information that was revealed in the article should have been public information … and that no laws were broken," Mr. Spitzer said, referring to an article published on July 1 in the Times Union of Albany about Mr. Bruno's use of state aircraft to travel to fundraisers.

Attorney General Cuomo's office issued a report last month that found that the travel records provided to the Times Union were leaked to the newspaper by senior administration officials who conspired with the state police to publicly damage Mr. Bruno.

After Mr. Cuomo released the report, Mr. Spitzer suspended his communications director, Darren Dopp, and his liaison to state police, William Howard.

"If judgments were made improperly," Mr. Spitzer said, "I have acted upon that and reacted to that appropriately.

Asked about a newspaper report alleging that Mr. Spitzer sought to silence his staff after learning that Mr. Howard testified before state investigators in Mr. Cuomo's office, Mr. Spitzer said: "I'm simply not saying anything more on that stuff. I have … answered every question and have been totally forthright, and so now we're back to governing the state."

Mr. Spitzer also refused to answer a question about the status of his chief of staff, Richard Baum, whom Republicans accuse of playing a role in the scheme against Mr. Bruno. "I'm not answering those questions anymore," the governor said.

The governor is assuming a defensive posture after repeatedly apologizing for his administration's actions against Mr. Bruno. "It is crystal clear that what members of my administration did was wrong," Mr. Spitzer wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on July 29.

The governor, a former two-term attorney general, said he would consider granting Mr. Cuomo's request for new investigative powers to tackle public corruption but said he needed first to see the specifics of Mr. Cuomo's proposal. "When I was attorney general for eight years, we did fine with the powers we had … If the attorney general thinks he needs more investigative powers, all the better," Mr. Spitzer said.

Mr. Spitzer, whose schedule recently has been filled with retail politics, tried aggressively to change the subject to his economic policies, touting childcare tax credits and expansion of the state's food stamp program among other policies for lower income families in a speech at a job training facility in Harlem.

He then drove to an industrial park in East New York, Brooklyn, where in the hot summer heat he toured on foot a fluorescent lighting factory, an architectural molding manufacturer, and an auto parts exporter.

Dressed in a sweaty, white dress shirt, pinstripe pants, and cap-toe oxfords, the governor peppered the owners of each business with questions about their factory: inquiring about how long they've been operating, the square-footage, and the number of employees.

Mr. Spitzer advised each owner to get in contact with the president of the Empire State Development Corporation, Avi Schick, who accompanied the governor on the walking tour with business cards in hand.

The manager of Adriatic Wood Products, John Grbic, told Mr. Spitzer that his business could supply the state with free sawdust for flowerbeds, or to absorb oil spills and other leaks.

"Our drainage system is perfect," Mr. Spitzer said in a sarcastic reference to last week's flooding of the subway system.