{"id":30085,"date":"2011-06-20T08:50:54","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T14:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=30085"},"modified":"2011-06-21T10:24:55","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T16:24:55","slug":"paper-ag-playing-politics-should-consider-resigning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/06\/paper-ag-playing-politics-should-consider-resigning\/","title":{"rendered":"Paper: AG playing politics, should consider resigning"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

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

Attorney General Gary King<\/a> has lately been \u201cdragging his public trust to political depths previously unplumbed\u201d and should consider \u201crecusing himself from office,\u201d The Santa Fe New Mexican wrote in an editorial<\/a> published Saturday.<\/p>\n

The newspaper says nobody is \u201cso naive as to think the position of New Mexico attorney general is above politics,\u201d but King\u2019s recent actions go beyond what\u2019s reasonable and are \u201ccertainly beneath his once-praiseworthy self.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why? For starters, his office \u201cso completely fumbled the prosecution of ex-Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Gir\u00f3n, accused of misusing public money, that the courts threw him off the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that case, the judge didn\u2019t say there was an actual conflict, but said perceptions of a potential conflict<\/a> were enough to ruin King\u2019s ability to prosecute. King turned the case over to the 2nd Judicial District attorney, who is looking for a special prosecutor<\/a> to take the case.<\/p>\n

\u2018Running interference\u2019 for Democrats?<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s more. The New Mexican is offended by King\u2019s actions in the case brought by whistleblower Frank Foy alleging corruption in the Richardson administration. Foy initially took his allegations to King\u2019s office, as required under state law, and only hired an attorney to pursue the case on his own after King\u2019s office declined to act.<\/p>\n

King is, meanwhile, supposedly investigating<\/a> potential corruption in state investment agencies (his office rarely comments on such cases, so the status is unknown), and The New Mexican characterizes that as \u201cKing taking his sweet time acting against corrupt manipulation of the State Investment Council and the Educational Retirement Board.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Foy and his attorney, Victor Marshall, have pursued the separate whistleblower case. Marshall has \u201clately has found King belatedly butting in on the act,\u201d the newspaper wrote. King\u2019s office is now trying to take over efforts to recover money<\/a> lost in state investment deals tainted by politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he trying to foul up the case against a bunch of power-abusing Democrats who might include former Gov. Bill Richardson?\u201d the newspaper asks about King.<\/p>\n

One of the defendants, former ERB Chairman Bruce Malott, was treasurer for King\u2019s 2004 congressional campaign. And, as the Albuquerque Journal reported<\/a> this weekend, Malott\u2019s signature appears on King\u2019s finance reports as recently as last year. (King kept filing reports because he had to pay off a $122,000 loan.)<\/p>\n

The Journal\u2019s Thomas J. Cole called that a possible violation of federal election law, because Malott\u2019s signature continued to appear on finance reports even after his work for the committee ended, and because King was required to report Malott\u2019s departure from the committee to the FEC, but he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The New Mexican calls King\u2019s relationship with Malott \u201cclearly a conflict of interest\u201d with the whistleblower case in which King is trying to intervene.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis involvement in the investment-council case comes off as running interference for several Democrats who abused their power \u2014 and that might yet include former Gov. Bill Richardson, whom Malott also served as campaign treasurer,\u201d The New Mexican writes. \u201cThere\u2019s at least the appearance of the Democratic AG as a convenient accessory for fellow Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018This is crazy\u2019<\/h3>\n

Last, there\u2019s King\u2019s relationship with the state auditor, Hector Balderas:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has turned a deaf ear to Balderas\u2019 call for further and faster action on what the auditor says is contract fraud in the Corrections Department and at the state\u2019s housing authority. Instead, King\u2019s operatives are persecuting Balderas \u2014 on the basis of what appear to be groundless and\/or petty accusations of misbehavior.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As NMPolitics.net recently reported, King\u2019s office declined to investigate<\/a> bribery allegations against a former Corrections Department employee who is now facing federal felony charges. Balderas recently released a damning audit<\/a> related to the situation.<\/p>\n

And King has long faced allegations that he didn\u2019t dig deep enough or act quickly enough in the case of corruption in the state housing authority system<\/a>, even though he did indict four people in a case that\u2019s pending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cpersecution\u201d of Balderas, the paper is referring to an ongoing AG investigation<\/a> into allegations based on complaints received through a hotline set up by Balderas\u2019 office. Those include that Balderas \u201cused workers in his office as baby-sitters and (gasp!) put in a time-clock system to keep employees from goofing off,\u201d the newspaper wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cBalderas has offered over and over to meet with King or his deputies about the complaints, so far to no avail,\u201d the editorial states. \u201cThe Balderas case is being treated as a hot one \u2014 while readily provable corruption, uncovered by Balderas, goes ignored? This is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a difference a few months can make<\/h3>\n

The newspaper\u2019s conclusion? While Marshall says King should recuse himself from the Foy case, \u201cWe\u2019d go a step further, suggesting that he consider recusing himself from office, where he\u2019s been less than intensively attentive to his duties between trips abroad \u2014 but that\u2019s another story…\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a story NMPolitics.net has written<\/a>. As of October 2010, King had traveled overseas on personal business at least nine times since taking office in January 2007. Most of those trips were to accompany his wife, who was serving on a NATO panel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are dealing with an era of corruption,\u201d King\u2019s opponent in last year\u2019s election, Republican Matt Chandler, told NMPolitics.net. \u201cWe need an attorney general that\u2019s on the job and in tune with what\u2019s happening in New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voters re-elected King. In fact, The New Mexican endorsed him<\/a> in that race, writing that, \u201cWhen it comes to competence and honesty, few of our state\u2019s public servants can match Attorney General Gary King.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a difference a few months can make.<\/p>\n

The AG\u2019s communications director recently set up a blog<\/a> designed to \u201cexpand upon, clarify, and provide correct information about the NM Attorney General\u2019s Office (AGO) that may also appear in media sources such as television, radio, newspaper, blogs, etc.\u201d It will be interesting to see whether the blog addresses The New Mexican\u2019s editorial.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net has also asked for comment. If the AG\u2019s office does comment, you\u2019ll read it here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorney General Gary King has lately been \u201cdragging his public trust to political depths previously unplumbed\u201d and should consider \u201crecusing himself from office,\u201d The Santa Fe New Mexican says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[142,152,123,114,107,155],"class_list":["post-30085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-housing-authority-scandal","tag-investment-scandal","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse","tag-secretary-of-state-scandal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30085","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=30085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}