Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Eric the Reticent

In today's NY Daily News the paper editorializes about AG Schneiderman's prosecutorial zeal and advises him to, "take a deep breath." Now what the News is talking about is the AG's utilization of his investigation of the banks as a fundraising tool but here at WPU we're more concerned that the zeal he is showing-and posturing about-is tuckering him out with an investigation that he inherited from his predecessor, Mr. Ethics himself, the new governor.

What the former AG Cuomo did or didn't do about the illegal lobbying of EDC, the mayor and the former BP of Queens Claire Shulman should be of paramount concern to law enforcement. In effect the mayor set loose an illegal lobbying scheme to deprive all of us of our property rights-and no, Mr. Mayor, it isn't something done all the time-a preposterous allegation that Bloomberg told a local paper.

The mayor, as the recent flap over his failure to disclose the reason for Deputy Mayor Goldsmith's resignation highlights, lives by his own rules and he doesn't feel obligated - just like Leona Helmsley - to live up to the legal requirements of all the "little people." This entire fiasco at Willets Point deserves a full and fair investigation - and if the AG can't do it then he should no longer posture as a champion of the people against the special interests.

Someone at the AG's office in late 2010 decided that it wasn't in the interest of the attorney general to do any further exploration of the illegal lobbying scheme. Inquiring minds want to know who made that decision-was it the current governor?