The Albany Latest

Percolating around Albany is a new theory to explain the strange twist in the investigation by state ethics officials into the Spitzer's administration's alleged effort to use the state police to discredit the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno. As our Jacob Gershman reports on Page 4 this morning, some are wondering whether the Commission on Public Integrity, which enforces the state ethics laws, may have sought to protect Governor Spitzer by turning over testimony by his former communications director, Darren Dopp, to the district attorney's office in Albany.

According to the speculation, behind the commission's decision to ask the district attorney, David Soares, to investigate possible perjury charges against Mr. Dopp may be an attempt to bury potentially damaging information about the governor in the departed aide's testimony. It's certainly cynical and is only a theory. But when the subject is Albany politics, viewing motive and behavior with a jaundiced eye is only prudent.

The same tactic, after all, is often employed by defense attorneys who seek to protect their embattled clients by encouraging prosecutors to subpoena damaging documents as a way to remove them from the public eye. One would hope that the commission would stand above such maneuvering, but so far a credible motive for explaining the commission's actions against Mr. Dopp has yet to emerge. What has emerged is a sense that the governor is going to be dogged by this case until a transparent procedure is set up to get to the bottom of what happened and whether of officials told the truth.

Certainly the secrecy draped over this four-month-long controversy could have easily been removed by Mr. Spitzer had he from the outset told the whole story — to the public and to investigators under oath — of what happened between his administration and the state police. For now, the commission remains under a shadow of doubt, and so does the governor.