There's certainly no love lost between Wall Street and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, but it appears the would-be governor can add former General Electric CEO Jack Welch to the "do-not-call" list for campaign contributions.
Welch told The Wall Street Journal that Spitzer "sure as hell took some swings at a lot of people," including Welch's former GE colleague Ken Langone, who is currently the target of an increasingly vicious Spitzer investigation over compensation packages he okayed while serving as a board member of the New York Stock Exchange.
While Welch conceded that Spitzer has "probably done some good" by busting securities industry malfeasance and exposing deeply rooted conflicts of interest, he also recalled a chance meeting at Fox News studios where Spitzer launched into a "message" for Langone.
"He met me in the hallway and we started chatting. And then he just started rolling," Welch said. Asked whether he thought the A.G. seemed like a man possessed, Welch replied with a laugh: "I'd say he felt very strongly."
Welch also said that Spitzer, who since breaking the mutual fund scandal open in 2003 has returned approximately $3.5 billion to investors, should try, rather than settle, at least some of his cases. "He's gone to trial against a couple people that stood up to him, and he lost," Welch said, perhaps referring to former Bank of America broker Ted Sihpol.
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