Richardson Money Questions Persist

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | August 29, 2009 | Thomas J. Cole

[CedarDave]

This much is still certain:

Hundreds of political donors to Bill Richardson have received government jobs, contracts and other favorable treatment during his 6 1/2 years as governor.

Some of those campaign contributors have been enriched by millions of dollars.

Those facts are unchanged by the Justice Department's decision not to pursue criminal charges against Richardson or his aides in the case of one government contractor that made political donations.

Acting U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt said that pressure from the Governor's Office "resulted in the corruption of the procurement process" and that nonprosecution "should not be interpreted as exoneration of any party's conduct."

In other words, it appears the administration steered work to the political donor, but prosecutors couldn't prove there was a deal that the contractor would get the work in exchange for campaign cash.

Fouratt's comments were far from a vindication for Richardson. A spokesman for the governor called the remarks "sour grapes."

Of course, it's common for politicians to reward political donors and to seek campaign contributions from those who have benefited from their actions, but the practice under Richardson has attracted a lot of attention in part because he has raised so much money from so many.

His campaigns for governor and president took in more than $45 million, and Richardson raised millions more for the Democratic Governors Association while he was chairman of the group. Several donors gave more than $100,000 each.

[CedarDave]

Excellent article. But Richardson did nothing more than Obama's doing now. All of these Rats are parasites sucking off the public tits rewarding friends, relatives, cronies with jobs/contracts/positions in return for political donations. Actually, Obama's worse -- Richardson did it because he's an old time Democratic politician, i.e. a crook. Obama's a Marxist ideologue who espouses and is working to turn our country into a socialist hell.

[CedarDave]

NM list PING!

[pointsal]

Ever notice how much the North Korean buddy of Richardson looks like the visitors at Roswell... right down to the jump-suits.

[OneWingedShark]

That’s because nobody will answer them [to my satisfaction].
I mean, honestly, give a good [& honest] answer and the questions go away.