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"\n\n The tragedy of Eliot Spitzer is almost Greek: Ascendant son of wealth and privilege dedicates his life to social justice, warns of the corruption lurking among us, and falls victim to his inner demons at the very moment of vindication. For more than a decade, Spitzer warned of the financial corruption endemic to US banking and securities. As New York's dogged attorney general in the late 1990s, he prosecuted some of the most legendary icons on Wall Street, delving into the murky ledgers of JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs, and winning victories against them all. With a halo of uncorruptible purity, he ran for the governor's office at the age of 46, and won in the largest landslide in state history, taking the mantle of reform to one of the most incestuous and shady state capitals in America. He seemed poised for a future on the national stage\u2014the first Jewish president, some said.\n\n And then, in 2008, like the financial markets he spent his life exposing, Eliot Spitzer crashed. In the space of two days, he went from historic high to squalid low, embroiled in a seedy prostitution scandal that called into question the most elemental aspects of his public persona\u2014the moral authority and Ness-like purity that earned him the nickname \"The Sheriff of Wall Street.\" He resigned in shame. He disappeared into an apartment on Manhattan's upper east side. He was spotted periodically walking his dog and apologizing to random strangers on the street. And as the financial markets that he spent his life investigating spiraled into the dystopian ruin that he always predicted, Spitzer found himself utterly cut off, the one man in politics who understood what was happening, relegated to the role of laughingstock instead\u2014a replacement for Bill Clinton as the go-to punchline for Democratic debauchery.\n\n Lately, though, Spitzer is on the mend. This fall he accepted a seat on CNN's lineup, opposite conservative co-host Kathleen Parker, and on November 5, he opens up for the first time about the scandal that brought him down, speaking with director Alex Gibney in the documentary Client 9, a reference to the FBI's code name for Spitzer. We met up with the fallen governor in late October to discuss the movie, the sordid backstory of his disgrace, the agony he made his family endure, the torture of being cut off from public life, the legalization of prostitution, and the long path back from the political wilderness.\n\n \u00B7\u00B7\u00B7\n\n First of all, did you like the documentary?\n\n I saw an early version, and it was reasonably fair. Which is about all I could ask for. If I could rewrite the ending, I would.\n\n Why did you participate in it?\n\n The simple notion that it's better to get an accurate statement of what happened than to leave it to those who would write fiction. Alex [Gibney] has done serious stuff in the past that seems to be fact-based, so I said okay.\n\n Is it still hard to talk about this stuff?\n\n Yeah, it's very painful. It causes enormous agony\u2014not just for me, but for my wife. But I've made the decision that it's better to try to get the story out there as it should be told. It's my stuff and I've got to deal with it.\n\n Do you also feel like you have to discuss these things if you want to be heard on other subjects, like the financial collapse?\n\n Right. I can't talk about what I really want to talk about without also being open about my personal stuff. This is the price I have to pay. I have a binary choice: I can either disappear and go off and hibernate, which is an appealing option at some level. Or I can dive back in, knowing that nobody will permit me to be heard on other subjects without confronting this first. So that was the up and the down. That's the calculus.\n\n Does your wife have any reservations about the movie?\n\n This is obviously not easy for Silda or the kids. That's why I'm trying desperately to do what I need to: To answer this issue and then move beyond it. To protect them. Because they've gone through something that nobody should have to go through.\n\n One of the things the movie suggests is that the same bankers you investigated as attorney general, who went on to destroy the US economy, also tried to destroy you.\n\n I destroyed myself.\n\n But the point in the film is that these guys were trying to help. They were furious with you, they sent private detectives after you, and when they found dirt, they tipped off the FBI.\n\n Which may be true. But I wasn't accused of something I didn't do.\n\n Did you realize at the time that you were being followed?\n\n I mean, when I was attorney general, AIG paid $25,000 to supposedly neutral academics to go on TV and trash me. So I knew there was unbelievable pushback.\n\n The movie also suggests that even though the feds never filed charges against you, they made sure your name was exposed by including excessive detail about \"Client 9\" in court documents.\n\n If what you're saying is that the part dedicated to me was longer and more specific than anybody else, yes, that caught my attention. But they also leaked my name. The Southern District leaked my name!\n\n Did you consider saying, \"I'm not stepping down for this.\"\n\n At a certain point, you make a very simple choice about what matters more to you. Am I willing to put my family through the unbelievable torture that will result if I push back? I said, \"I just can't do that.\" There's only one thing that mattered. I took the path that I thought was right for my family at that moment.\n\n Do you ever wonder if you could have kept your job?\n\n I try extraordinarily hard not to think about that. Which means, I do think about it. But there's absolutely nothing useful to come out of that.\n\n Do you think a politician should have to step down for what you did?\n\n I'm probably the worst person to pass judgment on that. The only thing I can tell you is that I know a surprising number of Europeans who say, \"Move to Europe\u2014nobody cares.\"\n\n What do you say?\n\n I say, \"I'm not in Europe. These are the rules here, and you play by them.\"\n\n Should every politician who breaks the law have to step down?\n\n It's a good question. And I guess the answer is no, in the sense that we have some zone of, if somebody gets a speeding ticket, if somebody has an extra drink, if somebody\u2014I don't know. On the other hand, I had made it very clear when I was attorney general that people should be held accountable. And that notion of accountability is something that I believe in. And it just wouldn't have been credible for to say that I believe in accountability, but here's a footnote that gives me a pass.\n\n Do you think prostitution should be considered a moral issue rather than a crime?\n\n Yeah, but right now it's both.\n\n But do you think that what you did should be against the law?\n\n That's a separate conversation. Society at different times figures out the dividing line between what is legal, what's a civil violation, what's a criminal violation, and how morality intersects those boundaries. It's something that emerges over many years. We're having that conversation now about marijuana.\n\n There may be an argument that it's the woman's body and her choice.\n\n Yeah, but I don't want to go there.\n\n Now that you've stepped down, what do you want to do?\n\n My job at CNN is fun\u2014it's different, they pay me to speak, which I used to do for free. I also love teaching. I have a class at CCNY once a week. And look, I love business. I know it sounds kind of odd...\n\n Don't tell me you want to be a banker.\n\n Yeah, I want to be an investment banker! I want to do LBOs. I want to run the credit default swap desk at AIG...\n\n Would you consider a political appointment?\n\n I don't know. The FBI doesn't need to do any background checks on me.\n\n Did you love politics until the end?\n\n Oh yeah. There is nothing better.\n\n Any relief to get out?\n\n No. It's frustrating and agonizing. Hugely frustrating and agonizing. Because I want to do stuff.\n\n Do you think you'll have the chance to enter politics again?\n\n I have no idea.\n\n People thought you were going to be president.\n\n Let me tell you the truth. When people say that, I take it as a compliment, but it also causes me great pain, because it tells me what I threw away. I did have things to say. But I never thought I was going to be president because my views didn't take me where that was possible.\n\n Why not?\n\n I was the only governor in the nation who said same-sex marriage should be legal. President Obama still doesn't say that. I was the only governor in the nation at the time. That shows you, in New York we still don't quite understand where people are coming from in other parts of the country.\n\n Is there anything important you learned from this?\n\n Well, on a personal level, the lesson was that hubris is terminal, but you mean at a higher level. I guess it's the ossification of our system. It is extraordinarily difficult for people to push back against the elites. And I don't say that in a conspiratorial sense. We're like the Ancien Regime with a leadership class of investment bankers and lawyers and accountants, all of whom have done extraordinarily well, and changing that is very hard. Silda kept telling me, \"Read Don Quixote. Tilting at windmills ultimately doesn't work.\" And, you know. I tilted."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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