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BACKSTORY July 2007 news organs report financial records held by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his 82-year-old mega-millionaire father, Bernard Spitzer, dealing with a controversial $5 million loan that helped Spitzer get elected attorney general in 1998 are being subpoenaed.

In the letter, a copy of which is in the possession of the The New York Post, Winner said the article "outlined what may have been a willful effort by Eliot Spitzer and his father to circumvent campaign-contribution limits in New York state law and then conceal their actions. "Accordingly, I believe the Senate Committee on Elections should investigate this matter immediately, and urge the chairman utilize the subpoena power of the committee to ensure that all of the facts relevant to this matter are known so that we might prepare better reform legislation," Winner wrote.

Winner, a lawyer, says subpoenas should be used to: (1) find out what were the guarantees for the loan, (2) what were the provisions for the notes, and, (3) were the noted executed with original guarantees from Spitzer’s father?.

Clearly, the Spitzer family bank files and recorded transactions for such loans would contain the required information, and confirm any wrongdoing being in the possession of the governor, his father, and the Spitzer family Foundation.

Then-AG Spitzer falsely claimed during the 1988 campaign that he secured the $5 million loan by mortgaging eight apartments his developer-father had given him.

Incumbent AG Dennis Vacco (a top pro-life Repub) indicated that Spitzer's father was actually paying off the loans and, therefore, financing his campaign - a possible election-law violation. Spizter kept denying the charge then near the end when he was winning, he admitted Vacco was right.

Winner, whose Investigations Committee may soon issue its own subpoenas for e-mails and other documents involving Spitzer's alleged use of the State Police to spy on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer)

The elder Spitzer, 82, and his immediate family have pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into his son's campaigns since the first losing bid for attorney general in 1994. The Spirzer family tax-exempt charity has donated at least $140,000 to groups led by his political allies - a practice that some have questioned. Bernard Spitzer also lent his son $5 million to pay for early campaigns when Eliot was largely unknown.

Through Spitzer has little trouble raising money now, his relatives have continued to do their part. He reported $19 million in his campaign coffers in January, with his parents and brother Daniel, a neurosurgeon, donating $326,000, records show.

The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust - on which Eliot, Daniel and their parents are board members - gave a total of $66,000 in 2004 to NARAL Pro-Choice New York, an abortion rights group; the Drum Major Institute, a think tank; and the Progressive America Fund, a voter mobilization effort. The groups, whose leaders back Spitzer for governor, received $75,000 from his charity between 2000 and 2003. Donations to his allies were a fraction of the $2.6 million the foundation awarded in 2004.