Gov. Susana Martinez says she’s “confident” her top political adviser, Jay McCleskey, has done nothing wrong.
Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net
Gov. Susana Martinez
And the governor says she believes federal investigators asking questions about her campaign fundraising and McCleskey will “reject” any allegations of wrongdoing, which she called “political cheap shots.”
Martinez’s strongly worded statement was released Monday by the Governor’s Office. It comes in response to a Santa Fe New Mexican article and another journalist’s tweets reporting that the FBI has interviewed some New Mexico Republicans about McCleskey and Martinez’s fundraising in recent months.
As NMPolitics.net reported Saturday, other details are few. Specific allegations aren’t included in The New Mexican’s article and no charges have been filed. The source quoted in The New Mexican’s article was called a “prominent New Mexico Republican” who wasn’t named but “confirmed being interviewed (by investigators) in recent months.”
Martinez’s statement appeared to be the first on-the-record confirmation of an investigation. It was also a complete rejection of any allegation of wrongdoing against McCleskey or anyone else tied to the governor.
“Political opponents trying to take cheap shots against me is nothing new,” Martinez said. “We are aware of complaints being raised, and they are obviously coming from the same people with axes to grind. They failed against me, and now it appears they’ve moved on to people who work for me.”
“They’ll fail there too, and I am confident that neither Jay nor anyone else has done anything wrong,” Martinez said. “They can’t beat him, so they try to smear him.”
Martinez, who used to be the district attorney in Doña Ana County, said as a former prosecutor, “I trust the system to look into and then reject these types of political cheap shots.”
Update: After Martinez released this statement to NMPolitics.net, she spoke to reporters about the situation. Here’s video, courtesy of The Santa Fe New Mexican: