Posted on 12/27/2010 9:38:37 AM PST by CedarDave
Gov. Bill Richardson took the oath of office in 2003 under the shadow of two federal investigations — one involving national security and the other dealing with stock price manipulation.
He leaves office this week with another probe lingering, this one into how the son of a good friend and political adviser made millions of dollars from state investments.
In between, there was the investigation into allegations of state contracts for campaign cash that derailed his nomination to President Barack Obama's Cabinet.
Richardson's appointments of political advisers, supporters and contributors went deep into state agencies, boards and commissions, eliminating the usual buffers that protected governors in the past from policies gone wrong.
He demanded letters of resignation from his appointees to boards, commissions and university regents so he could fire them at any time if they failed to do his bidding. He placed highly paid political associates at the University of New Mexico, and some of his cronies got rich off of deals with the state.
Within six months after Richardson took office, seven of his appointees resigned or were removed for legal or ethical problems.
Those were the first warning flags.
Richardson raised more than $8 million in cash and in-kind contributions in his 2002 campaign for governor and more than $13 million for the 2006 election.
Over the past eight years, Richardson has insisted time and again that there was no connection between political donations and state business.
But the list of contributors doing business with the state is lengthy and includes companies running private prisons, companies feeding state prison inmates, health plans contracted to served state Medicaid patients, state highway contractors, law firms with state contracts, and many others.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
NM list PING! Five days until we are rid of him and his corruption!
(The NM list is available on my FR homepage for anyone to use. Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list. For ABQ Journal articles requiring a subscription, scroll down to the bottom of the page to view the article for free after watching a short video commercial.)
If there were justice being served in America during the obamanation’s term, richardson’s next term would be a long one in prison. the man is a criminal...
I bet his new Piece Institute will be a nice extortion racket, too.....
(Yes, I know I mis-spelled it.....)
Who remembers that Richardson is the same a%%hole who spirited Monica Lewinsky away from Washington DC after the incident of the Blue Dress & got that whore a job at the UN???
IIRC, this is the same Bill Richardson.
He is very experienced in doing back room deals.
Just saw a post on GatePundit that Hillary is resigning as Sec State and Richardson will take over. If true, his trip overseas recently makes more sense. Anyone know if this is true?
My memory is normally pretty good and as I remember it Gov Richardson forced the resignation of every Gary Johnson appointed board members, commissioners, and university regents back in 2003 when he was first sworn in as Gov. His rational at the time was that he wanted his team on board and wanted a very ETHICAL and TRANSPARENT government.
CORRECTION - post about Hillary resigning is on BritebartTV.com.
The rumor's been out there a couple of days, but it is unlikely given his considerable baggage. However, I see him as an "unofficial" envoy called upon when needed. He is setting up a "peace" institute in Santa Fe:
Gov. Plans To Focus on Peace (NM-Richardson [Hurl alert])
Gov. Bill Richardson says he will establish a Santa Fe-based international peacemaking institute after leaving office at year's end. Richardson, who returned to New Mexico late Tuesday after an unofficial mission to North Korea, told the Journal in a Wednesday interview that the institute will focus on brokering peace accords and rescuing hostages. The two-term Democratic governor has secured an office in Santa Fe's downtown area and plans to call the institute the Richardson Center for Peace and Dialogue.
His mother, María Luisa López-Collada Márquez is the Mexican daughter of a Spanish father from Villaviciosa, Asturias, Spain and a Mexican mother, and was his father's secretary.
Just before Richardson was born, his father sent his mother to California to give birth because, as Richardson explained, "My father had a complex about not having been born in the United States."
Richardson, a U.S. citizen by birthright, was raised during his childhood in Mexico City. He was raised Roman Catholic. At age 13, Richardson's parents sent him to Massachusetts to attend a preparatory school, Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he played baseball as a pitcher. He entered Tufts University in 1966 where he continued to play baseball.
Richardson's original biographies stated that he had been drafted by the Kansas City Athletics and the Chicago Cubs to play professional baseball, but a 2005 Albuquerque Journal investigation revealed that he never was on any official draft.
Richardson acknowledged the error which he claimed was unintentional, saying that he had been scouted by several teams and told that he "would or could" be drafted, but was mistaken in saying that he was actually drafted.
“Richardson is the same a%%hole who spirited Monica Lewinsky away from Washington DC”
There’s a long tradition of such actions in DC. I met Fanne Foxe on the Island of Kaua’i in late ‘74. Wilbur Mills first got her sent to a mental hospital, then to Hawaii.
Amen—look up “pay to play” in the dictionary and this sleezeball’s picture is there. Calling him corrupt would be an insult to corrupt politicians. Yet the press won’t want to derail an Obama appointee so they won’t make that big of an issue of it.
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