From Vanity Fair:

Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of health-care reform—after, of course, the 32 million people who will now have medical coverage—is David Paterson, actual human Shakespearean tragedy. About a month ago, Paterson was implicated in a domestic-abuse cover-up scandal, in which he allegedly dispatched state troopers to the home of Sherr-una Booker, the ex-girlfriend of his aide, David W. Johnson. Booker was, at the time, on the verge of obtaining an order of protection from Johnson. Fortunately for Paterson, just as the media began speculating about his resignation, the story shifted off A1.

Today, The New York Times has more details about the exchange between Paterson and Booker. We now know that as Paterson became aware of an imminent Times piece profiling Johnson, he ordered his press secretary to coach Booker on what to include in her quote to the newspaper.

Reports The Times:

“The language that was drafted, according to [three sources], was sent in an e-mail message to Mr. Johnson’s former companion, Sherr-una Booker, through an intermediary, a woman who was a friend of both Mr. Paterson and Ms. Booker.

Ms. Booker refused to go along, telling the mutual friend at one point in the process that she would not participate in ‘a lie,’ according to two people briefed on the exchange.”

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