Elliot Spitzer Loses Again...

One thing is becoming abundantly clear to anyone looking at Elliot Spitzer's continued attempts at 'legal' extortions (what he refers to as "combating corruption" but is really his laying groundwork for his New York Gubernatorial run) is that if the target stands up to Spitzer's bullying tactics they stand a good chance of winning. Spitzer's method is to intimidate with the threat of a criminal indictment at the same time he slanders and libels the target in the press, and then drop everything when the target complies with his demand either by resigning or 'donating' money in a manner in which Spitzer approves of.

Spitzer's latest slap-down came via U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in New York. Spitzer had alleged discriminatory and predatory lending practices by federally chartered banks. This was to court minority voters - he could be seen as a 'savior' by those voters who would then help elect him to the office of Governor of the State of New York. There were two problems with this. First, he had no evidence of any crime having been committed. Second, he had no jurisdiction whatsoever in such federal matters. In the first case he did what he always does - demand all available documentation from Federally chartered banks doing business in New York. Nothing specific - he wanted as much paperwork as he could get in order to find something suspicious. Mind you he wouldn't have to actually find anything suggesting a crime. His modus operandi is as soon as his office gets paperwork, any paperwork, to go to the media and claim that he now had "evidence" showing that crimes have been committed. Then Spitzer would make his demands to the target - and if his demands are met, drop the case. In the second case, Spitzer just ignored his lacking jurisdiction and tried to go ahead anyway. So the Federal Reserve and the US Comptroller, the entities who really have jurisdiction in this case, were forced to take him to court to stop him.

As reported this morning in the Wall Street Journal, Judge Stein "instructed the New York Attorney General in the basics of federalism". The Judge permanently barred Spitzer from going after federally chartered banks in his 'investigation':

"What makes the ruling particularly satisfying is that, in addition to upholding good law, it puts an end to one of the uglier campaigns Mr. Spitzer has waged in pursuit of political gain. The New York AG this year declared he was probing whether national banks had engaged in discriminatory lending practices to "vulnerable groups" of New Yorkers. This is code for racial minorities, whose votes Mr. Spitzer is trying to woo in his current gubernatorial bid.

But bank lending data can be dangerous in the hands of the politically motivated because they can easily be twisted to allege all sorts of discriminatory lending behavior. That's one reason the Federal Reserve and Comptroller have for decades closely guarded their exclusive right to examine national banks. The courts have upheld this federal exclusivity since 1864, so it says something about how eager Mr. Spitzer was to exploit the lending issue that he was willing to provoke the federal government into a legal row."

Now Spitzer might be self-centered and bordering on evil, but he isn't an idiot. He knew he had no legal leg to stand on here. But he still was willing to waste NY taxpayers' money in an attempt to pad his electoral resume. Spitzer hoped either that his targets would cave into his demands to avoid the negative publicity or that he would get a liberal judge to disregard established law, rewrite federal law, and rule in his favor. He got neither. This is a huge abuse of power story, but Spitzer is a Democrat and you won't see this story in any mainstream media telecast or publication anytime soon.

Elliot Spitzer is a bully. The only way to truly beat a bully is to stand up to him. You might get bruised a bit at first, but eventually the truth will get out, the world will see the bully for who he is, and he'll slink away. The fact that this particular bully has the power of a State Prosecutor's office behind him is intimidating to be sure. But the results will be the same in the end.