With him refusing to disclose any information about his business transactions he seems to be hiding something. It would be a different story if he was open about things. Secrecy is a cover up in my eyes. I didn’t have a whole deal of trust in him before this. Time to go Joe.

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Bill Hammond: Oust him now
As corruption cloud grows bigger & darker,
Bruno cannot be trusted to lead the Senate

It’s a good thing Joe Bruno has a second career as a business consultant to fall back on, because his days as state Senate majority leader look to be numbered.

If the latest reports about his private dealings are true - that a businessman he showered with money from a state funds was also paying him hundreds of thousands in consulting fees - Bruno must either resign the leadership job or face ouster by his Republican colleagues.

There’s no need to wait for final results of the FBI investigation into his affairs. The Senate majority leader - one of the three most powerful elected officials in New York - cannot violate the public trust this flagrantly and get away with it. A vote to keep him as majority leader on Jan. 3 is a vote to tolerate Albany sleaze.

State legislators are allowed to have second jobs. Insanely, they’re even allowed to keep the nature of their outside work secret. But state law says they may not engage in private business that conflicts with public duties. If that means anything, it means no way, no how should Bruno grant tax dollars to a paying business customer.

According to the Albany Times Union, however, sources familiar with the federal investigation say Bruno collected sizable paychecks from Jared Abbruzzese, a businessman who also reaped millions in state aid for a high-tech firm he helped start in Bruno’s upstate district. The taxpayer-funded windfall included $500,000 awarded at Bruno’s personal discretion.

Even before Abbruzzese was ID’d as a Bruno client, the two men looked too cozy for comfort. The Lobbying Commission is investigating whether Abbruzzese improperly flew Bruno around on his company jet while seeking a franchise to run the state’s thoroughbred racetracks. Abbruzzese also encouraged Bruno to invest $10,000 in a Texas brokerage firm he was about to take over. And Abbruzzese’s wife once bought a $90,000 piece of land that Bruno partly owned.

Given all those entanglements, the $500,000 Bruno slipped to his pal’s company looks more and more like a straight-up gift of tax dollars - an apparent violation of the state Constitution that incoming Attorney General Andrew Cuomo should investigate as soon as he takes office.

More seriously still, the transactions between Bruno and Abbruzzese smack of the worst sort of quid pro quo. Maybe Bruno can explain why it’s okay for him to secretly take money from a recipient of state largess. But he’d better start explaining - soon.

At least one of Bruno’s fellow Republicans in the Senate has the guts to call for his removal. “Our conference must be able to stand on something stronger than, ‘He wasn’t indicted,’” Ulster County Sen. John Bonacic wrote to his colleagues.

Bruno says he has nothing to hide. But he won’t say what consulting services he provided to Abbruzzese, or what he charged. He won’t even confirm that Abbruzzese was a client.

Nor will he release a list of his business associates, which would let the public hunt for other conflicts of interest. Bruno is withholding those names, a spokesman says, because the clients “have an expectation of privacy and confidentiality.”

But the people of New York have expectations, too, Mr. Bruno. We expect elected officials to put the public’s business first and their own profits second. When questions arise, we expect them to give us answers instead of excuses.

In the absence of those answers, Bruno can no longer be trusted with the power that goes with his leadership post. As someone who lives in his district, I know he did some good things in his 12-year run. But the Senate needs a leader who works for the people, not himself.