I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, but I have covered enough federal and local court cases to know that the mere hint of impropriety by a federal prosecutor is extremely problematic. A good example is the Barry Bonds perjury case. The federal prosecutor in that case broke the law and leaked secret grand jury testimony to the members of the press, who wrote about Mr. Bonds' answers at length and even wrote a book about it. The person who leaked the information was prosecuted and convicted. This is what makes it so difficult for the federal government to make its case against Mr. Bonds, even if he did lie. What isn't being talked about in the fall of the now-resigned governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, is that he was the former attorney general of the state of New York and a former Manhattan district attorney. Now, the cases he worked as a district attorney are probably safe. But his most recent cases when he was attorney general may not be, depending on how far back his alleged money-laundering scheme to pay for his encounters with prostitutes goes. The federal indictment says that the investigation started a year ago based on IRS inquiries into irregularities. It may be a long shot, but anyone prosecuted by Eliot Spitzer has to be thinking that they have a good chance at an appeal, because criminals cannot prosecute criminals, and the first in line would be any of those Wall Street millionaires whom he took down in the last three or four years. New York could soon be drowning in appeals and court expenses. Mr. Spitzer's resignation could be only the beginning of the state's troubles. — Brian DeBose, national political reporter, The Washington Times\

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