Spitzer targeted for takedown by Feds? House Financial Services Committee wants to know.

Congressional Panel Seeks Inquiry on Roots of Spitzer Scandal - NYTimes.com

November 26, 2008

Panel Asks How Inquiry Began on Spitzer Banking

By DANNY HAKIM

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

No evidence has surfaced to support such an assertion, and the prosecutor in the case has said that politics played no role in the pursuit of Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat. 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 is pursuing 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.

“It raises questions in my mind that he may have been targeted for political purposes,” he said, adding that he had no evidence that suggested as much. ....

One of Mr. Spitzer’s last appearances in Washington was before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee — a hearing on bond insurance.

It was on that trip that Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where he had the encounter that would lead to his resignation a month later.

   Of course they "assassinated" him. It was obvious at the time.