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Mar
11
CBS 2 has obtained a copy of the wiretap transcript which allegedly has Spitzer asking a man named “Lewis” about a prostitute.
The transcript reads:
Lewis said that “Kristen” would go directly to room 871.
Client 9 asked Lewis to remind him what “Kristen” looked like and Lewis said that she was American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds.
Client 9 said that she should go straight to 871, and if for any reason it did not work out, she should call Lewis.
Doesn’t anyone else care about Clients #1 through 8, their families and the people they’ve betrayed?
Because at the heart of this very pedestrian pursuit by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is a behavior pursued by people many perceived steps above and below him. If the Emperor Club is so exclusive, do you really not expect that others who matter used it too?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:50 pm March 11th, 2008 in Politics, Scandal, Social Issues
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11 Responses to “Eliot Spitzer incident: Who were Clients Number 1 through Number 8?”
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Could it have been a “honey-trap” situation in order to blackmail him? It’s a dirty secret technique of the CIA types.
Well – even if that was the case, the fact is, he still has to answer for the pursuit of the pleasure. There’s just no getting around that, the way I see it. No matter frequent the behavior is, it was a decision he made. He has to explain it.
Yes, he has to answer for it to his wife and family as do clients 1-8 if they are married. But as long as their “pursuit of pleasure” involved consenting adults, I couldn’t care less.
Perhaps clients 1-8 hadn’t built a considerable part of their reputation busting prostitution rings which then translated into successive runs for higher and higher public offices. Just a thought
Joe – supposedly the authorities saw “large” money transactions and then they started looking into things.
If “large” is the threshold for investigating, and in Spitzer’s case “large” turned out to be $1000-$5000, then don’t you hope that our FBI et al are investigating every single American who transfers cash sums of over $1000 – that’s what it sounds like Spitzer was doing.
Them’s a lot of folks but hey – if we can catch people violating the Mann Act (of all the ironic names), sounds like it’s more worth pursuing than…oh, well, I’ll think of something.
I wrote about the Mann act today, a very scary law.
By the way I do think he should resign because of hipocrisy and stupidity. In addition if there is evidence of misuse of taxpayer funds or proof these “pleasures” being financed in return for favors from Governor, throw the book at him.
As you no doubt know now, he did resign. Throw the book – but not selectively. I think that’s going to be a big part of the issue as time goes on.
Clients 1-8 were not pursuing the following agends when they were entrapped: updating NY State abortion laws, arranging for the state to actually spend money for underfunded public schools in NYC (something Corporation Bloomberg never did), restricting real estate moguls’ steamrolling of working class, functioning neighborhoods to set up condo-office complexes. Spitzer had many enemies b/c of his prosecution of corpsuits as A.G. He tried to get at the Silver-Bruno Albany gang b/c he knew they would scotch his reforms. In the politicized Bushworld “justice dept.,” his victimless crime was pounced upon like vultures on fresh kill by the same people who have eviscerated the 1st and 4th Amendments for the sake of the so-called war on terror, a cover for Big Oil.
Prof. Gertzman, I agree with 99% of what you’ve written. Thank you very much for reading and commenting. From what I can tell, you’ve done some unique work and I would think you have a lot to say on Spitzer’s pursuits.
But I do disagree with one thing: calling some part of his behavior a “victimless crime.”
To which crime are you referring?
Jill: thanks for writing. I was referring to the call girl business. I do think prostitution is a crime if it exploits people in any way. But at the level of call girls who choose to do what they do, make an agreed-upon amount of money, and are in control of the behavior of the Johns, I think it is a legitimate way of improving the woman’s financial status in an impersonal, prurient-minded, and predatory capitalist society. I have read about females in the adult entertainment and call girl business who feel this way: that they used these kinds of employment to gain control of their finances. I also recall the treatment of the subject by James Ellroy in LA Confidential. The women who had facial surgery to look like movie stars made a lot of money, and retired at thirty to lucrative and creative life styles. They praised their pimp. BUT I may have read this in the wrong way, b/c Ellroy may have been saying the opposite as what I implied, and that pimp turned out to have far more sinister connections in another area.
Prof., I don’t disagree that some women do feel as you describe re: being in control or working to get control of their finances.
And I’m award that you know or have at least studied this topic far longer than I have. But I believe that women wouldn’t be in a position to feel that they must use their bodies in this way, as a commodity, in order to get control of their finances if our society didn’t have serious lapses in how it treats women in so many other areas.
I’d love to see someone with your research acumen go toward advancing us away from a society that places women in positions where they see this choice as the best or otherwise desirable (bet you knew I’d say something like that? but I really mean it).