WASHINGTON, April 28 — The question was about tax loopholes and whether the 10 securities firms that agreed to pay $1.4 billion to resolve charges of wrongdoing by their research analysts would be able to squirm out of their plight by writing off their fines. It put the men behind the lectern at the Securities and Exchange Commission's headquarters on the spot.

But not Eliot Spitzer. "Maybe I can be a little less discreet," Mr. Spitzer, the attorney general from New York, chimed in. "I always try to be."

With that, he shifted the focus to Congress, urging lawmakers to act to close the loopholes, and insisting his office and the S.E.C. had done their jobs.

"Spoken like a man whose Hill is in Albany and not in Washington," said William H. Donaldson, the chairman of the S.E.C., to laughter.

Mr. Spitzer's hill, some say, is just about anywhere he wants it to be these days, having been indiscreet enough to take on the biggest names on Wall Street during a relentless investigation of securities fraud. For more than a year, he has plunged forward, making cases and headlines along the way, and some say paving his future with stepping stones bearing the names of Henry Blodget, Jack B. Grubman and the like.

At the news conference here today announcing the settlement of the case against the 10 firms, Mr. Spitzer was just one player of many. Nonetheless, it was a defining moment for Mr. Spitzer, who just five years ago took a gamble and used his family's vast wealth to oust Dennis C. Vacco, the Republican attorney general at the time.

As attorney general, Mr. Spitzer revived the long-dormant Martin Act, a 1921 state law giving the attorney general of New York jurisdiction over securities trading.

Mr. Spitzer uncovered, among other things, damaging e-mail messages among stock analysts at Merrill Lynch & Company, the nation's biggest brokerage firm and a mainstay of New York's financial community. He accused the analysts of urging customers to buy stocks that the analysts believed were losing bets just so that Merrill could curry favor with companies it wanted as clients.

In doing the job, Mr. Spitzer, 43, has followed in the tradition of activist and consumer-oriented attorneys general, like Louis J. Lefkowitz, who set the standard, and Robert Abrams.

But in his prepared remarks, he likened the pursuit of Wall Street evildoers to another crusader, Theodore Roosevelt, the populist Republican president who dubbed himself a Trust Buster and crusaded against unchecked corporate wealth and power.

"We are at a rare moment," he said. "It is akin to the moment we were at 100 years ago."

Before he was president, Mr. Roosevelt was New York's governor, and many say that is the real goal of Mr. Spitzer.

Indeed, many of those who make their living from Wall Street are seething over Mr. Spitzer, blaming him for pursuing scandal at the expense of their livelihoods and New York's economy. Many complain, quietly, of course, that Mr. Spitzer has relentlessly undermined the public's trust in the stock market while boosting his own political fortunes.

Many of Mr. Spitzer's fellow Democrats, however, feel otherwise.

"New York Democrats need someone who can galvanize them," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant in New York who was one of Mr. Spitzer's campaign advisers in 1988. "Eliot Spitzer appears to be that person right now."
" This is not without its perils," Mr. Sheinkopf added. "The danger is that he has angered a large portion of New York's traditional fund-raising base, Wall Street."

Mr. Spitzer, in an interview after the news conference, acknowledged the potential difficulties. "This case has left me without some friends I had before," he said.

But, he said, it might have made him friends elsewhere. "I've got a job to do and I'm going to do it," he said. "I hate to sound overly moralistic, but it's the only way to do this job."

Mr. Spitzer also said it was premature for him to talk about a possible campaign for governor, though people in both parties say he is the man to beat should he choose to run for governor in 2006. "All I can tell you is that I have made no decision about that," he said.