Manhattan Assistant DA Peter Pope Who Worked to Indict Trump Was Previously Mixed Up In New York Troopergate Scandal

Shortly after Trump was arraigned this week in New York City on still undefined criminal action, the Manhattan DA’s Office released a press release highlighting the charges against President Trump.

At the end of the press release, it featured all the prosecutors and investigators behind the indictment against Trump.

One of the names listed may be very familiar to anyone who had their eyes on New York politics around 2007 and that name is Peter Pope.

Before working at the Manhattan DA Office as an Executive Assistant DA, Pope was mixed up in the Troopergate scandal.

For some background information, the New York Troopergate scandal (not to be confused with Clinton’s Troopergate scandal), was a controversy in 2007 that involved New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who “allegedly ordered the state police to create special records of Republican senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno’s whereabouts when he traveled with police escorts in New York City.”

During the time of the scandal, Pope served as Governor Spitzer’s policy director.

A New York Post article in 2007 claimed Spitzer’s staff which included Pope went into “shutdown mode” after it was discovered Spitzer’s office was being investigated by Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General at the time.

Per The New York Post:

FAR from cooperating in the Troopergate probe, Gov. Spitzer’s aides “moved to shut everyone down” after learning one of their own had unexpectedly confessed his role in the scandal to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigators, The Post has learned.

Spitzer administration sources – including one in the governor’s office – said orders were given to block further cooperation with Cuomo’s probers after it was learned a few days into the investigation that homeland-security expert William Howard had testified under oath on July 9 or July 10 about his central role in the scandal.

Spitzer Chief Counsel David Nocenti and First Deputy Secretary Sean Patrick Maloney handled the initial information “shutdown,” and Spitzer’s policy director, Peter Pope, later joined in the effort, two sources said.

Maloney and Pope, lawyers serving in nonlegal positions, were later designated by Nocenti as “special counsels,” preventing Cuomo’s probers from questioning them because they could invoke lawyer-client privilege.

In a separate report months later the New York Daily News published an article titled, “Spitzer aide Peter Pope hires criminal defense attorney in Troopergate probe.”

The article questioned Pope’s decision to obtain a criminal lawyer after the Troopergate probe was reopened by Albany District Attorney David Soares.

Per New York Daily News:

Peter Pope, Gov. Spitzer’s $165,000-a-year policy director, has hired a Manhattan criminal defense lawyer to represent him in Albany District Attorney David Soares’ reopened Troopergate probe, the Daily News learned Tuesday…

Sources familiar with the Soares’ probe said Albany prosecutors are looking into discrepancies between statements former Spitzer communications director Darren Dopp and Pope gave to the state Public Integrity Commission.

The investigations into Troopergate eventually fizzled out after Governor Spitzer resigned from office in March of 2008 after The New York Times reported he was a client at a pricey prostitution house.

Pope was never charged of any crime but three other aides in Spitzer’s office were reprimanded.

Despite his questionable past, DA Alvin Bragg believes Pope is the best fit to be put on the Trump case.

Just look at Pope’s now deleted biography on the New York DA’s office site:

Notice the bio touts how Pope was New York State’s Director of Policy but abstains from mentioning he was the Policy Director for disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Pope is the type of person Trump is up against and the Manhattan DA office is crawling with many others just like him.

The post Manhattan Assistant DA Peter Pope Who Worked to Indict Trump Was Previously Mixed Up In New York Troopergate Scandal appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.