An Albuquerque Journal article published today had an interesting take on Monday’s news that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has convened a federal grand jury to investigate the awarding of a lucrative state contract to a California company that made big contributions to political action committees formed by Gov. Bill Richardson.
The Journal article, which you can read by clicking here, called Monday’s report from Bloomberg.com — the first to publicly reveal the grand jury investigation — “old news,” at least “for the most part.”
Why is that? Well, the Journal article goes on to recount the fact that the newspaper had already reported in August and again in October on the federal investigation into the fact that CDR Financial was paid more than $1.4 million on a contract it won in 2004 to advise the New Mexico Finance Authority on interest-rate swaps and other work related to a $1.6 billion transportation project.
Meanwhile, in 2003 and 2004, CDR Financial gave $75,000 to Richardson’s political action committee Si Se Puede!, and the company’s head, David Rubin, gave $25,000 to Moving America Forward, another Richardson PAC.
But there were two key facts revealed for the first time on Monday in the Bloomberg.com article and a second article published by the Washington Post, facts that had not previously been reported by the Journal.
The first is what’s stated in the first sentence of this posting: The U.S. Attorney’s Office has convened a federal grand jury to look into the situation. That’s a big deal.
The second is that both articles quote sources as saying the probe is focused on whether the governor’s office influenced the decision to hire CDR in exchange for the campaign contributions. That’s a closer link to the governor than explicitly stated in the prior Journal articles.
Until Monday, the Journal had taken the lead on this story. But today’s article pretends, erroneously, that news the Journal wasn’t the first to break in fact wasn’t news. What gives?