Pataki’s Patsy
Posted on Saturday, 24 of October , 2009 at 2:21 pm
COMMENTARY
© By June Maxam
The First Amendment guarantees all of us the right to free speech.
So why is former New York Gov. George Pataki muzzling Daniel Wiese, the former head of his security detail and supposedly, one of his closest friends?
What’s more important to Pataki, his image and political aspirations or friendship?
Perhaps the bigger question is why is Wiese cowtowing to Pataki?
Dan Wiese has found out firsthand that loyalty and friendship mean nothing to Pataki who has been busy running as fast as he can away from Wiese, trying to distance himself from any friendship or prior association with the man lest it taint his possible 2010 run for the U.S. Senate against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
May God help the nation if Pataki has delusions about seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for President in 2012. He’s headed to Iowa next month to speak at a fundraiser for Iowa Republicans on Nov. 10 and he doesn’t want any questions dogging him about any scandal such as Troopergate.
He’s trying to hush up the Troopergate scandal as fast as he can at the expense of Wiese and others.
At the time of President Obama’s visit to the Hudson Valley Community College in Rensselaer County in late September, Pataki sidestepped questions about Wiese and Cuomo’s report, continuing his attempts to disassociate himself from the controversy although he’s actually the nucleus of it, not Wiese.
So far, no one has been held accountable for the victimization of Daniel Wiese whose only foible appears to have been extreme loyalty to his employer and his duties. Wiese’s job as head of Pataki’s security detail was to protect the Governor and that he did, perhaps too well. It appears that he’s the scapegoat and fall guy for Pataki.
Pataki has walked away for the moment, somewhat unscathed. It’s hard to trust anyone who talks out of the side of his mouth, especially a politician and a Republican at that. After all, remember his famous pledge that he would seek no more than two terms as Governor? That was just one of his many lies.
Wiese was and is at the center of allegations that there was a “rogue unit” operating within the State Police involved in political interference and which kept dossiers on various public officials. Wiese and others including Pataki have vigorously denied the allegations.
Wiese has long been friends with both Pataki and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, having worked in the Manhattan district attorney’s office with Spitzer during the 1980’s. Wiese was an investigator with the State Police at the time of Pataki’s election as Governor and quickly was named to head of Pataki’s security detail when Pataki first took office for the first of his three terms in 1995 and he headed the ESD until 2003.
Throughout the 18-month-long investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of the New York State Police dubbed “Troopergate”, initiated by Gov. David Paterson in March 2008, Wiese had little to say publicly in defense of the allegations against him.
As a result of the fallout from the “Dirty Tricks” scandal involving Spitzer’s office and the alleged improper use state aircraft by former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Wiese was suspended as Inspector General and head of security at the New York Power Authority on April 1, 2008 after Albany County District Attorney David Soares released a report naming Wiese as heading the alleged “rogue unit” in the State Police. Soares claimed Wiese had played a role in “Troopergate” last year when Spitzer and his staff used the State Police to gather damaging information about Bruno. Soares claimed that on direction of Spitzer, Wiese had leaked information about Bruno to the New York Times.
On May 20, 2007, Wiese sent a letter to NYPA officials, demanding his job back, saying he had done nothing wrong. He volunteered to submit to submit to a polygraph, or “any number of polygraph examinations, by examiners not of my choosing, on any of the issues…or on any other issues which the (NYPA) board may deem relevant or appropriate”.
But apparently no one was interested in the truth, certainly not Cuomo in his political witchhunt reminiscent of the Joe McCarthy era as no one conducted any polygraph exam. Three days later, Wiese was fired from his NYPA post.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/06/17/wiese_court/
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/05/21/dicker_fairy_tale/
Last month, Cuomo released his report on his Troopergate investigation, saying that Wiese wielded inappropriate influence in the state and abused his power by having Pataki’s security force run “secret squirrel missions,” assigned by their commander.
Cuomo said he found no significant evidence of wrongdoing by rank-and-file state troopers but that members of the State Police hierarchy had taken actions that benefited political figures.
The report said that when Wiese assumed command of the Governor’s detail after the November 1994 election of Governor Pataki, he revamped its procedures, procured updated cars and equipment, and changed its name from “Protective Services Unit” to “Executive Services Detail.” http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/09/13/reality_game/
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/09/06/political_folklore/
“Wiese at times gave ESD members assignments unrelated to ESD’s protective and security-related functions”, Cuomo charged. “ESD members generally did not question these assignments. The State Police is a “paramilitary organization” and, as an Investigator explained, if a “[c]ommanding officer tells you what to do, you do it or you quit.”
Cuomo claimed that Daniel Wiese had refused to answer any questions having to do with his involvement in an investigation into Pataki’s campaign staff back in the 90s yet there was no mention in the report of Wiese’s offer to take a polygraph. http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/sep/pdfs/OAG%20State%20Police%20Report.pdf
Following the release of Cuomo’s report on Sept. 7, Wiese decided it was time to break his long silence about the matter, time to set the record straight. He wanted to respond publicly to the report and some of Cuomo’s conclusions.
Throughout the long 18 months when he was being repeatedly attacked and held up to public disdain and humiliation, he had repeatedly refused interview offers from national networks and media.
The North Country Gazette learned that by Sept. 14, Wiese had prepared a five and half page response to Cuomo, in essence a paragraph by paragraph rebuttal.
At about the same time, a political blogger opined that Pataki would never be a U.S. Senator because of Troopergate and Wiese which apparently sent Pataki into a dither. Pataki reportedly demanded that Wiese submit his prepared response to Pataki and his political advisors for his review before it was released.
The days rolled by and there was one excuse after another why Wiese’s rebuttal wasn’t being released such as Pataki’s public relations man wasn’t available and that Pataki had to personally review Wiese’s response but he was out of town.
More than a month has now passed and Wiese’s response has obviously been deep-sixed, canned, disallowed by Pataki and his team, lest it might damage whatever political future he thinks he has.
With friends like Pataki, Wiese didn’t need enemies. He was victimized more by his friends than his foes.
In a 2004 article, The Village Voice wrote that “No one outside George Pataki’s family is closer to the three-term governor than Dan Wiese. On election night in 1994, Pataki was unsure he’d beaten Mario Cuomo until Wiese and a coterie of state troopers arrived at his Hilton Hotel suite to begin guarding him. A Pataki neighbor and Peekskill trooper when Pataki was the town’s mayor and assemblyman in the 80’s, Wiese was promoted to major and put in charge of Pataki’s detail even before the new governor took office, eventually assuming an unparalleled role in the management of the first family’s life”.
In 2004, The Village Voice attributed Wiese’s position to the “rewards of loyalty in the Pataki universe” and said that Pataki’s administration was a spawning ground for scandal. http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-01-20/news/a-dirty-cop-at-the-top/
Wiese is not the individual who should have been at the center of anyone’s investigation and considering that Cuomo likely still bears a strong animosity for both Wiese and Pataki due to Pataki’s 1994 defeat of his father, Mario Cuomo for the office of Governor, Cuomo’s office was and is ethically challenged to produce a fair and impartial investigation of the matter.
The most that Dan Wiese was and is guilty of is just being a good solider, a loyal employee and acting at the behest and orders of his commander, George Pataki. It’s George Pataki who should be investigated, and quickly, before he even has the chance to announce his candidacy for any new position as he seems poised to do.
The most serious thing for which Daniel Wiese bears guilt is being Pataki’s patsy. 10-24-09
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