Panel Asks How Inquiry Began on Spitzer Banking

By DANNY HAKIM
NYT

ALBANY — Eight months after a federal investigation into a prostitution ring brought about the downfall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the question still persists in some circles: Was the federal government out to get Mr. Spitzer?

No evidence has surfaced to support such an assertion, and investigators have said that politics played no role in their pursuit of Mr. Spitzer. But that has not put to rest suspicions, expressed on left wing blogs, that Mr. Spitzer, a zealous pursuer of Wall Street wrongdoing who some thought could one day be president, had been singled out.

Now, a congressional committee has called for what would be the first public examination of the events that prompted the initial inquiry into his bank transactions, which showed he was sending money to a front company for Emperor’s Club V.I.P.

The House Financial Services Committee intends to take up the matter early next year and tentatively plans to hold hearings that could include testimony from the United States Treasury’s law enforcement unit, along with Mr. Spitzer’s bank, North Fork, and HSBC, a bank used by a company connected to the prostitution service.

“The question was: Why were they looking for this? Is this political retribution?” said Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat and a member of the committee who has been critical of the increased scrutiny of banking transactions, which increased greatly under the passage of the Patriot Act.

(More here.)