Dopp’s Lawyer: GOP Started Troopergate

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The New York Sun

The lawyer representing Governor Spitzer’s embattled communications director, Darren Dopp, is lashing out at Senate Republicans, accusing their former political strategist, Roger Stone, of concocting the entire state police scandal.

The lawyer, Terrence Kindlon, said Mr. Dopp and the governor were victims of an orchestrated smear campaign comparable to the damaging “Swift Boat” attacks on the military record of Senator Kerry during the 2004 presidential race.

He said the scandal was the brainchild of Mr. Stone, a prominent political and corporate consultant hired by Senate Republicans in June to advise the conference on how to repel Mr. Spitzer’s effort to oust them from majority power.

Mr. Stone yesterday adamantly denied the charge, calling it “absurd.”

During a telephone interview, Mr. Kindlon also said Mr. Dopp is now cooperating with ethics investigators who issued his client a subpoena this week, demanding that he turn over thousands of private e-mail messages dating back to January 1.

Mr. Kindlon said he initially supported a motion to “quash” the subpoena but was later directed not to do so by Mr. Dopp, whom he said wants to demonstrate that he has “nothing to hide.” Mr. Dopp, he said, would be submitting e-mails to the state ethics commission very shortly.

The Senate Republican majority leader, Joseph Bruno, terminated Mr. Stone’s $20,000-a-month contract last month after lawyers representing the governor’s 83-year-old father, Bernard, accused Mr. Stone of leaving a menacing and profanity-laced message on the elder Mr. Spitzer’s answering machine.

“I think this guy Roger Stone … cooked this up,” Mr. Kindlon said.

“It’s like when they attacked John Kerry for being a coward, because John Kerry got all these big medals in Vietnam and was wounded in Vietnam,” he said. “So what do they do: They say he’s not brave, he’s a phony and that makes it newsworthy. That’s what they do; they attack your strength. If they can come up with some little construct to justify that, then there you go. It’s brilliant spin. It’s bulls—.”

Mr. Dopp was one of two senior aides to Mr. Spitzer who were faulted in a July 23 report by Attorney General Cuomo’s office that found that the administration improperly directed the state police to track and re-create the history of Mr. Bruno’s use of security escorts to catch the Senate leader misusing state resources. The report found that Mr. Bruno’s use of police vehicles did not violate any state policies.

After the report’s release, the state ethics commission and the district attorney of Albany County, David Soares, launched their own probes to determine if the governor’s aides, including Mr. Dopp, committed any criminal or ethical violations. Mr. Spitzer suspended Mr. Dopp without pay for more than 30 days but then restored his $175,000 salary without determining if he will return to his old job.

Reached by telephone, Mr. Stone, who denies having made the phone call to Bernard Spitzer, said Mr. Kindlon’s allegation was “laughable and absurd.”

“I’m good, but I’m not that good,” Mr. Stone said. “The allegation is that the state police conducted this operation on the basis of Roger Stone’s orders? That’s ridiculous. And as far as Mr. Kindlon’s knowledge of the law, has he really passed the bar? Because he doesn’t seem to have any knowledge of the law.

“Misuse of state funds, misuse of the state police is a crime. The violation of Senator Bruno’s civil rights is a crime, and Mr. Dopp could clear this up by releasing all of his e-mails and testifying in public, under oath without reservation. When will Mr. Kindlon let him do so?”

Mr. Kindlon also likened his client’s plight to another well-known controversy. “Look at the stunt they pulled on Dan Rather, where they counterfeited records of George Bush’s abandonment of his National Guard obligations, leaked them to Dan Rather and then proved they were forgeries to embarrassment, humiliate, and destroy Dan Rather quite successfully,” he said.

He said Mr. Dopp did not order that police spy on Mr. Bruno but simply provided the press with “public records” detailing the Senate leader’s use of police escorts.

The Cuomo report said Mr. Dopp directed the administration’s liaison to the state police, William Howard, to collect Mr. Bruno’s private schedules from the acting police superintendent, Preston Felton.

It also accused Mr. Dopp of leaking the records to the Times Union of Albany in the hope of generating a negative story about Mr. Bruno’s use of state aircraft and police escorts.

Investigators said Mr. Dopp made misleading statements to the press after the article was published in early July by insisting that the administration had simply responded to a Freedom of Information Law request from the Albany newspaper.

In truth, the report said, Mr. Dopp had requested Mr. Bruno’s travel records weeks before the newspaper submitted a FOIL request.


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