News from New York Republican State Committee

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Mondello: Spitzer Team’s Use of IRS to Intimidate Political Opponents Threatens Democracy in New York

Calls for Immediate Firings, Public Integrity Probe

ALBANY, NY (10/11/2007; 1455)(readMedia)-- Statement of Chairman Joseph N. Mondello

Today’s startling revelation that Governor Spitzer’s special brand of heavy-handed partisan politics has spread from the Governor’s office to Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith and some members of his Democratic conference should shock and appall the public.

The attempted use of any government agency to threaten, intimidate or personally injure a political opponent should be abhorrent to every American. When it is the Internal Revenue Service – an agency with sweeping powers that, if improperly used, can wrongly ruin an individual’s life – that is employed as a partisan instrument to bludgeon opponents into submission, all lovers of freedom should be outraged.

Senator Smith and Governor Spitzer should immediately fire any employee who utilized taxpayer dollars and resources in this outrageous attempt to enlist the IRS in the cabal to personally destroy Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

Further, I am calling on the Public Integrity Commission to immediately begin an investigation into whether government employees and resources were used for the Democrats partisan political gain, as was reported by Frederic Dicker in today’s New York Post.

It is clear that the arrogance of the Spitzer administration, and a few sycophants in the state senate minority, continues unabated. Rather than learning their lesson from their thuggish attempt to use the state police to do their political dirty work, they’ve descended to an all time low with this latest attempt to use the IRS to destroy Joe Bruno simply because he continues to, by offering legitimate and appropriate political dissent, stand in the way of Governor Spitzer’s complete and total hegemony over New York State government.

The people of this state have spoken loudly and clearly that they are fed up with the dirty political tricks from Governor Spitzer. Sadly, as we have seen all too frequently in the past, Governor Spitzer and some of his Democratic allies in the Senate are not listening to input from the public, the media or elected officials.

The ultimate goal of Governor Spitzer, his staff members, and the Democrat elected officials that do his bidding -– no matter how disgusting or unseemly it might be -- continues to be a state marching in lockstep to the orders of Governor Spitzer with no room for public discussion and where legitimate differences of opinion are insulted, shouted down, or answered with abuses of power unrivaled in the history of the Empire State.

Like many New Yorkers, I have been riveted in recent weeks to a sterling PBS documentary detailing the sacrifices and suffering of that great American generation that saved the world from dictatorship during the Second World War.

In light of the real threats to our state’s democratic institutions that we are facing from a Governor who continues in the unbridled pursuit of the politics of personal destruction, I can only feel deep sadness for those brave heroes of World War II – and in fact for all of our nation’s veterans – because the freedom, liberty and right to dissent that they shed their blood for is so gravely threatened in our once great Empire State.

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