Paterson aide Sean Patrick Maloney, a holdover from Eliot Spitzer’s administration, announced today he’s leaving at the end of the year to join Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm that hired the U.S. Attorney who brought down Spitzer.
Maloney, who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2006, didn’t come to Albany with a history of relationships with lawmakers or expertise in particular policies. But as a corporate lawyer who worked in the second Clinton White House, he knew something about politics.
Before a prostitution scandal brought down Spitzer, Maloney had been charged with cleaning up what, at the time, had been the biggest scandal to rock the administration: Troopergate. Maloney’s role as one of the people advising the former director of communications, Darren Dopp, not to cooperate with the attorney general's investigation, drew some criticism.
After Spitzer’s departure, Maloney helped transition Paterson from the lieutenant governor’s office to the governor’s office.
Also leaving Paterson’s office is Carl Andrews, who had been a longtime friend of Spitzer and handled intergovernmental affairs. Andrews, who was at Paterson’s press conference in Manhattan yesterday, said he will be opening up his own consulting firm.
These vacancies (and others?)will open up room on the second floor that Paterson could fill with people he's more familiar with, rather than the people who were already there.
