"If I had been the head of the bureau overseeing the mutual fund industry for the past year, I would resign," Spitzer told the New York Post.
"This is an outrage that should distress every mutual fund investor," Spitzer went on, in another interview with The Wall Street Journal. "What has emerged is one of the most scurrilous tales Ive seen yet an outrageous betrayal of the public trust by that agency.
"The regulators who were supposed to have been watching this industry were asleep at the switch. And Im going to pull that switch."
For his part, SEC Chairman William Donaldson told a Congressional hearing: "The spectacle of one regulatory agency criticizing another is not healthy," adding, that the attorney generals "comments are both wrong and pernicious."
