{"id":22678,"date":"2010-10-21T07:25:11","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T13:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22678"},"modified":"2010-10-21T16:00:36","modified_gmt":"2010-10-21T22:00:36","slug":"chandler-questions-king%e2%80%99s-overseas-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/10\/chandler-questions-king%e2%80%99s-overseas-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"Chandler questions King\u2019s overseas travel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Attorney General Gary King (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Attorney General Gary King<\/a> has traveled overseas on personal business at least nine times since taking office in January 2007. His opponent in the Nov. 2 election says that\u2019s too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the cat\u2019s away, the mice will play,\u201d Republican Matt Chandler<\/a> said during an AG candidate debate in Las Cruces on Sunday \u2013 a reference to the government corruption he contends King hasn\u2019t pursued aggressively enough as attorney general.<\/p>\n

King, a Democrat, countered at the debate that the state didn\u2019t pay for any of his overseas trips except one \u2013 a trip to Geneva, Switzerland in May 2008. He said he traveled to Geneva at the request of federal officials to talk about New Mexico\u2019s partnership with the state of Chihuahua, Mexico on combating human trafficking.<\/p>\n

King was in Geneva on May 21 and 22 of that year, records obtained by NMPolitics.net show. The state paid almost $1,800 for lodging and airfare for that overnight trip.<\/p>\n

King didn\u2019t fly from New Mexico to Geneva. He flew from Bucharest, Romania, where he was with his wife, who was attending a meeting of a NATO panel she chaired. When King was finished with his business in Geneva, he flew back to Bucharest on the state\u2019s dime.<\/p>\n

Traveling with his wife, Yolanda Jones King, was the reason for the overseas trips, King said in a recent interview. His wife, who has a doctorate in physical chemistry, served until recently as the chair of NATO\u2019s Research and Technology Organization\u2019s<\/a> Sensors and Electronic Technology Panel. She\u2019s no longer on the panel.<\/p>\n

When she did serve on the board, Yolanda Jones King had to travel twice a year to meetings. She said, during the recent interview with her husband, that there was a social aspect to the meetings and it was good to have her husband accompany her for reasons of protocol.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The countries King has visited<\/h3>\n

Because the state didn\u2019t pay for most of Gary King\u2019s overseas trips, the AG\u2019s office doesn\u2019t have records related to the costs of the trips. However, King\u2019s government cell phone records reveal dates that he has been in a number of countries. He used his cell phone to check his voice mail, use the Internet or call numbers in Santa Fe and Albuquerque:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • From Poland and the Czech Republican between July 10 and 13, 2007.<\/li>\n
  • From the Netherlands on March 12, 2008.<\/li>\n
  • From Romania on May 22 and 23, 2008.<\/li>\n
  • From France on June 25, 2008.<\/li>\n
  • From France again between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1, 2008.<\/li>\n
  • From Slovenia between May 5 and 14, 2009.<\/li>\n
  • From Italy between June 22 and 24, 2009.<\/li>\n
  • From Taiwan between Oct. 9 and 11, 2009.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    In addition, King submitted reimbursement to the AG\u2019s office for use of an internationally capable Blackberry he rented while he was in Spain from April 30 to May 18, 2007. The cost to the state of that Blackberry rental was $343.47.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe use of an international blackberry was necessary so that I could check e-mail related to important pending business matters for the Attorney General\u2019s Office while out of the country,\u201d King wrote in a June 13, 2007 letter to the state\u2019s Department of Finance and Administration justifying the expense.<\/p>\n

    King didn\u2019t use his government cell phone much during his other overseas trips. The cost of the international calls amounted to less than $300.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    Matt Chandler<\/p><\/div>\n

    In touch with what\u2019s happening in NM?<\/h3>\n

    In an interview, Chandler said he\u2019s not questioning the legality of King leaving the country so often during his tenure. He said everyone is entitled to a vacation, but he believes it\u2019s inappropriate for King to be a \u201cglobetrotter\u201d \u2013 spending so much time in other countries on personal business \u2013 when there\u2019s important work to be done in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe are dealing with an era of corruption,\u201d Chandler said. \u201cWe need an attorney general that\u2019s on the job and in tune with what\u2019s happening in New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe have to have someone that leads by example, and the lack of leadership in the Attorney General\u2019s Office is indicated in the lack of results,\u201d said Chandler, who has accused King of not being aggressive enough on corruption.<\/p>\n

    King said he has a Blackberry \u201cthat works all over the world,\u201d and he has been able to stay in touch with his office from the places he\u2019s visited. In fact, he said his Blackberry doesn\u2019t work as well in Truth or Consequences as it has in many of the countries he has visited, so he\u2019s sometimes more out of touch in parts of New Mexico than he was overseas.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe way the world works now, you\u2019re no more out of touch in Bucharest than you are in Washington, D.C.,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

    The AG said he likes traveling with his wife, and he noted that she often travels with him when he\u2019s on the job as well. He said each pays their own way when they travel together while one is on business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Attorney General Gary King has traveled overseas on personal business at least nine times since taking office in January 2007. His opponent in the Nov. 2 election says that\u2019s too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-22678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}