Can we get something clear here? If Eliot Spitzer decides to resign as governor of New York, it won’t be because he was a high-paying john.

There are tons of public figures who’ve let their libidos get them into trouble. The biblical King David. King Edward VIII. The actor Hugh Grant. Quite a number of Kennedys. And of course Mr. Bill, i.e. the presumptive First Husband.

No, if Eliot Spitzer resigns, it will be over money. According to ABC News, it was money that twigged the FBI onto Spitzer in the first place:

The suspicious financial activity was initially reported by a bank to the IRS which, under direction from the Justice Department, brought in the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad.

“We had no interest at all in the prostitution ring until the thing with Spitzer led us to learn about it,” said one Justice Department official.

Spitzer, who made his name by bringing high-profile cases against many of New York’s financial giants, is likely to be prosecuted under a relatively obscure statute called “structuring,” according to a Justice Department official.

Structuring involves creating a series of financial movements designed to obscure the true purpose of the payments.

This sort of answers Terence Cocoran’s question on why the FBI was investigating the prostitution ring in the first place. It wasn’t because they thought Spitzer was paying for sex, it was because they thought he was trying to hide bribery money. And with the amounts that Spitzer was allegedly paying out, that’s not an unreasonable assumption.

Politicians don’t get in trouble after affairs because of the illicit sex (unless, of course, they’ve self-identified with the overly moral). It’s because of what they do afterwards. Legally speaking, Spitzer will be in more trouble with the “structuring” allegations than he would over the actual tryst itself, because “structuring” has more of an impact on his performance as governor.

(And, if you don’t mind a partisan dig, this incident kinda shows by contrast just how miniscule in importance the Chuck Cadman allegations are. Cadman, after all, moved no money over his budget vote.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 09:08 and is filed under Yankees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.