| | |  Americas & Beyond | August 2009 
New Mexico’s Richardson Says His Administration is Vindicated
 Martin Z. Braun - Bloomberg
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August 28, 2009
| | New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson | |
A spokesman for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said the Democrat was vindicated after it was reported that the Justice Department wouldn’t file charges in a yearlong pay-to-play probe.
“Governor Richardson has known all along that neither he nor any staff members committed any transgressions during their successful fundraising back in 2004,” said deputy chief of staff Gilbert Gallegos in a statement. “The U.S. Attorney’s through and lengthy investigation has apparently determined the same thing.”
The probe, which prompted Richardson to withdraw from consideration to be President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary in January, examined how CDR Financial Products of Los Angeles won $1.5 million of work from the New Mexico Finance Authority. CDR was hired in 2004 to provide guidance regarding interest- rate swaps and escrow funds for $1.6 billion of debt as part of Richardson’s transportation project, known as Governor Richardson’s Investment Partnership.
CDR and its president David Rubin donated $110,000 to Richardson political committees from 2003 and 2005, including a $75,000 contribution to ¡Si Se Puede! Boston 2004 Inc., formed to help pay expenses at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, where Richardson was chairman.
Top Justice Department officials decided to drop the probe, the Associated Press reported, citing an anonymous source. The U.S. Attorney’s office hasn’t notified Richardson that the investigation is over, Gallegos said. Richardson’s former chief of staff David Contarino and aide David Harris also won’t face charges, the AP said citing the source.
In recent weeks, Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations, has taken an active role in talks with two of the United States’s principal adversaries. He met last week with two North Korean diplomats in Santa Fe and said after the meeting that North Korea wanted direct talks with the U.S. regarding its nuclear program.
The governor is in Cuba on a trade mission and said he plans to report to President Obama on U.S.-Cuban relations.
Norm Cairns, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt in Albuquerque, declined to comment.
To contact the reporters on this story: Martin Z. Braun in New York at mbraun6(at)bloomberg.net |
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