WashDCMan questioned why the FBI became involved in investigating a prostitution rings. Here are three compelling reasons.

1) The FBI is responsible for Security Clearance investigations. Anyone who has hired prostitutes in secret is a security risk because they can be bribed or extorted over the information. Sex doesn't just make headlines, it put out of office one British minister in headlines and undoubtedly many others. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_affair

2) Eliot Spitzer did violate federal laws requiring reportign of bank transactions of $10,000 or more by trying to break up his payments for prostitution into three separate payments. His bank followed the law and reported suspicious behavior.

3) Because of the way payments were concealed and corporations registered with false addresses, it is likely that the prositution ring failed to comply with income tax laws.

All of the above are completely within the duties of the FBI, however, it isn't beyond possibility that some investigators may have seen promotion prospects improve by picking this investigation and derailing a prominent Democrat. Yet, the primary duty of the FBI unit that investigated this case was investigating criminal conduct by politicians regardless of party, from what I have read. In bringing forward Spitzer's conduct, they did Democrats a favor. Image in Eliot Spitzer had run for President and this scandal started after his nomination. It has also been reported he was a better prosecutor than governor because of his personal style.

No matter Eliot Spitzer's moral failings, all investors owe him a debt of gratitude for what he did as a prosecuting attorney on behalf of the public to make investor money treated as a trust and not pocket money for CEO abuse.

I am not surprised by his moral crime however. I am always suspicious of any holier than thou public figure, be it minister or politician. Even saints had their failings--that is human nature at work.

It does always amazes me when politicians put their careers on the line over sex though. The risk of discovery is so conspicuous as to be ridiculous. If it hadn't been the FBI that caught him, it would have been someone else.

If he's a Spitzer, is she a Swallower?

The NY governor was not the subject of a criminal investigation, but rather a fishing expedition enabled by laws that make banks your parole officer. Without the new masses of data collected by the new spy databases, a case probably would not have been made.

As many others have pointed out, many Republicans have broken such laws. Scotty the White House press secretary seems to have cleared a male hooker to sit in on press conferences, and the call man seems to have appeared in the Secret Service logs on nighttime visits dozens of times -- before the logs disappeared. No charges.

This fishing expedition probably has netted hundreds of powerful men, and I'd guess from past busts that they are mostly Republicans. As hookers say, business booms when the Republicans hold a convention; Democrats are not such good customers.

Yet somehow only one name is leaked from a heavily politicized FBI. The Republican-hated, powerful Democratic governor of New York. And it's a perfect pick, as he has shown himself to be a hypocrite and therefore will garner no liberal protection. The Mafia is happy as well.

And the only real "federal" crime is that apparently a call girl crossed state lines. And for this, millions of dollars will be spent by the taxpayers for a salacious trial that will imprint, to a degree, the meme that Democrats are hypocrites and whoremongers.

No Republican of note will be charged, I suspect.

Republicans are planning for eight years from now, or even four. The idea is to chip away at the Democrat's image. Not to mention pick up the powerful governorship of New York, and to remove a skillful prosecutor from power forever, one who actually hurt people who count.

I'm listening to people around me, and all they care about is the Sex. Nothing about the crime of leaking the investigation to reporters. WHO made the phone call or sent the email to a reporter? Is Total Information Awareness to be used to find out that leak? Crickets...

The guy is a hypocrite, but is this what we are giving up our freedoms and privacy for? Did we really need to drag his wife through it?

I suppose so. Look at what we have had to drag Iraq through.

You will learn that it is an excerpt from a book authored by Charles Gasparino, a CNBC Correspondent.

spit-lizard aggressively pursued Dick Grasso. Included in that pursuit were investigations into his private sex life. Just like Ken Starr.

It doesn't get any simpler than that.

You should take your own advice, and be more careful with your research.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11062007/gossip/pagesix/pagesix_u.htm

L.W.M. - Here's a Link for You

Although this link is not directly related to Zzigurrat's assertions, it does demonstrate the ruthlessnes that Zzigurrat pointed out.

I remember when Ken Starr investigate bill clintons "private sex life". Starr was widely criticized by the left. I don't recall any liberal suggesting that Starr's behavior is something you want from a lawyer.

Spit-lizard did the same thing to Dick Grasso.

Good riddance spitty.

If you read the Post you are watching Fox News in print. You are by definition an ill-informed and misinformed idiot, like Zzigurrat.

I guess you will love to see what the Feds do to Elliot then. The idea that they are trying to build this into a major crime is absurd.

-- Zzigurrat

Nothing. He'll step down. That's all they wanted. You people going on about the Mann act are laughable.

The United States White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910 prohibited white slavery. It also banned the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes.” Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking. The act is better known as the Mann Act, after James Robert Mann, an American lawmaker.

According to historian Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "racially skewed enforcement of the Mann Act was just one chapter in the history of Jim Crow"[1], the system of primarily state laws in the U.S. that enforced discrimination against African-Americans...

Read all about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act

Don't any of you lazy people do any research?

Some of the clowns here are Bush kissers. The rest of you liberals had better wake up or you'll be right back where you were in 2001 and 2004.