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Weld on D'Amato: There's bad blood

Hopeful for GOP nod for governor divulges a 10-year-old conflict since trial of former senator's brother

BY JAMES T. MADORE | Newsday Staff Writer

March 24, 2006

William Weld poses for a photo after speaking to members of the Rochester Rotary Club in Rochester, N.Y. (AP Photo / February 7, 2006)

William Weld, the leading Republican candidate for governor, acknowledged yesterday that "bad blood" exists between him and former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, who remains a GOP power broker.

In his most detailed comments on the subject so far, Weld recounted an alleged, expletive-laced conversation 10 years ago in which D'Amato accused Weld of backing the federal prosecutor who investigated D'Amato's brother, Armand.

Armand D'Amato, a prominent lawyer, was convicted in 1993 of mail fraud in connection with money that he received for lobbying the senator on behalf of a military contractor. An appeals court a year later overturned the conviction. The prosecutor was a Weld protege, Robert Mueller, now director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Weld said yesterday that he left the Justice Department's criminal division in 1988, years before Armand D'Amato's prosecution. But Alfonse D'Amato threatened in 1996 to take back $750,000 from the Senate GOP fund given to Weld's failed bid to replace Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), if Mueller was involved in the campaign, according to Weld.

"There is bad blood there," he said at a business breakfast in Manhattan.

Alfonse D'Amato denied the conversation ever took place. "This entire story is fictitious and preposterous. I never gave Bill Weld a check for that amount," D'Amato said, adding that campaign finance rules at the time barred check sums in excess of $17,500 per candidate.

D'Amato has repeatedly criticized Weld's political aspirations in New York State and praised the Democratic front-runner for governor, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Weld, in turn, likened Spitzer to former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, also a Democrat. Both men believe more government and higher taxes will fuel economic growth, Weld said. "New York doesn't need more spending; it needs to control spending," said the man who succeeded Dukakis in 1991 and remained the Bay State's leader until mid-1997.

"Clearly, the[former] governor of Massachusetts has a lot of homework to do on the problems facing our state," Spitzer campaign spokeswoman Christine Anderson responded. "When he finally gets around to it, he'll see that the problems we face require real solutions rather than stale political rhetoric."

Weld ended his speech by borrowing slogans from two Democrats, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi and former New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith.

"To coin a phrase, which I think you heard two weeks ago, I know I can do it because I did it," Weld said, modifying a line from Suozzi's stump speech for governor. Suozzi spoke to the group on March 8.

Weld said, "And I would very much like the opportunity to be the happy warrior" - a stock phrase from Smith's successful campaigns in the early 20th century.

Despite efforts to portray the gubernatorial contest as between himself and Spitzer, Weld faced questions about his lack of money and popularity, even within Republican ranks. He refused to discuss the Conservative Party's embrace of rival John Faso, a lobbyist; no GOP candidate has won statewide office recently without receiving the Conservatives' endorsement.

Weld also revealed he is reluctant to campaign with President George W. Bush. "I think that might cause a distraction between the state and national issues," Weld said.