{"id":4111,"date":"2009-01-07T07:42:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-07T13:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/01\/feds-looking-at-guvs-most-senior-and-trusted-aide\/"},"modified":"2009-01-07T07:42:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-07T13:42:00","slug":"feds-looking-at-guvs-most-senior-and-trusted-aide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/01\/feds-looking-at-guvs-most-senior-and-trusted-aide\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds looking at guv’s ‘most senior and trusted aide’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

David Contarino says he is confident that investigation will prove he acted appropriately<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Federal prosecutors are asking whether David Contarino, a man Bill Richardson<\/a> once described as the \u201cstrategic mind\u201d of his administration and \u201cmy most senior and trusted aide,\u201d was involved in the alleged pay-to-play scheme that derailed the governor\u2019s nomination to be commerce secretary days ago, Bloomberg.com<\/a> is reporting.<\/p>\n

One unnamed witness who testified before the federal grand jury investigating the allegations was quoted by the news organization as saying he was asked if Contarino, Richardson\u2019s former chief of staff, ordered officials with the New Mexico Finance Authority<\/a> to hire CDR Financial Products<\/a> for a lucrative state contract. And \u201canother personal familiar with the investigation\u201d was quoted as saying that Contarino \u201cis a subject of the inquiry and that prosecutors are looking at whether he solicited contributions from firms that worked on finance authority bond deals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bloomberg.com report threatens to increase the level of scandal surrounding Richardson, who has leaned heavily on Contarino to develop policy and manage his political and governmental staffs. In addition to leading Richardson\u2019s state government office for three years, Contarino ran both of Richardson\u2019s campaigns for governor and his unsuccessful run for president last year.<\/p>\n

It was when Contarino left the chief of staff job in 2006 to work on Richardson\u2019s re-election campaign that Richardson called him his most trusted aide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was already known publicly that the ongoing federal investigation centers around whether any staffers in Richardson\u2019s office engaged in pay-to-play politics on the CDR deal, but none had been publicly named before the Bloomberg.com article was published shortly after 10 p.m. New Mexico time on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Spokesmen for Richardson did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment. Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos refused to comment to Bloomberg.com, but Contarino provided this statement via e-mail to the news organization:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs chief of staff and co-chairman of the Governor\u2019s Finance Council, it was my job to be involved in GRIP and many of the administration\u2019s economic and financial initiatives,\u201d he said. \u201cIn all of my actions, I acted appropriately and I am confident that the investigation will bear out that fact.\u201d <\/p>\n

GRIP, or Governor Richardson\u2019s Investment Partnership<\/a>, is the state contract at the center of the probe. CDR was paid almost $1.5 million in 2004 advising the finance authority on interest-rate swaps and restructuring escrow funds for $1.6 billion in GRIP bonds. Meanwhile, in 2003 and 2004, CDR Financial gave $75,000 to Richardson\u2019s political action committee Si Se Puede!, and the company\u2019s head, David Rubin, gave $25,000 to Moving America Forward, another Richardson PAC.<\/p>\n

\u2018He never ordered me to do anything with CDR\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Ed Romero, a former ambassador to Spain who was finance chairman for Richardson\u2019s presidential campaign, was quoted by Bloomberg.com as calling Contarino a \u201cvery effective political professional\u201d and said he would be surprised if Contarino did anything improper.<\/p>\n

Bill Sisneros, who has headed the finance authority since about three months after CDR was hired and was not involved in that decision, told Bloomberg.com that Contarino never told him to choose CDR for other work.<\/p>\n

\u201cDave and I, we\u2019ve talked about CDR but he never ordered me to do anything with CDR,\u201d the article quoted Sisneros as saying. \u201cI\u2019ve never spoken to Bill Richardson about CDR.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contarino has remained involved in Richardson\u2019s political activities since the governor\u2019s presidential campaign ended. In August, a fundraiser Richardson hosted to help Hillary Clinton<\/a> retire her presidential campaign\u2019s debt was held at Contarino\u2019s Santa Fe office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scrutiny increases<\/span><\/p>\n

The news about Contarino came in one of several Tuesday reports that indicated an increased level of scrutiny on Richardson and President-elect Barack Obama<\/a> following the national embarrassment caused when Richardson withdrew his nomination to be commerce secretary over the weekend because of the ongoing probe.<\/p>\n

ABC News<\/a> was the first to report on Tuesday that David Rubin, head of CDR, had also contributed more than $30,000 to the Obama campaign and a joint Obama-Democratic National Committee fund formed to help elect Obama. Using the investigation of the Richardson administration as a springboard, the Pittsburg Tribune-Review<\/a> published an article about that state\u2019s governor, Ed Rendell<\/a>, receiving $35,000 in contributions from Rubin, whose company has made nearly $600,000 from a contract with that state.<\/p>\n

And Bloomberg.com reported in a separate article published earlier Tuesday<\/a> that one of Richardson\u2019s senior political advisers, Denver political strategist Michael Stratton<\/a>, lobbied the state of New Mexico on behalf of J.P. Morgan<\/a>, which won a contract related to the bond deals that are the subject of the federal investigation into CDR. Stratton was paid $269,000 by J.P. Morgan for its work on behalf of that company. <\/p>\n

J.P. Morgan officials have already testified before the grand jury in the CDR case.<\/p>\n

The later Bloomberg.com article about Contarino quoted Sisneros as saying that Stratton also lobbied the finance authority on behalf of CDR. Stratton, a senior adviser and bundler for Richardson\u2019s presidential campaign, declined to comment to Bloomberg.com.<\/p>\n

Stratton has also remained active in Richardson\u2019s political activities since the governor\u2019s presidential campaign ended. In December, he co-hosted a fundraiser<\/a> in Washington to help Richardson retire his campaign\u2019s debt.<\/p>\n

\u2018Putting this matter to rest\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Richardson has scheduled several public events for today and Thursday in Albuquerque and Santa Fe unrelated to the federal investigation as he attempts to move past the scandal. And, as reported by the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, Richardson \u201cappears to have embarked on a national damage-control campaign via e-mails to supporters of his own yearlong presidential bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for your past and continued support. I look forward to putting this matter to rest and in the meantime I am preparing for the upcoming New Mexico legislative session,\u201d states a Monday e-mail from Richardson to supporters. The e-mail also states that it was paid for by Richardson\u2019s now-defunct presidential campaign, which has still not retired all of its debt.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that the Clinton fundraiser was held at Contarino’s home.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Contarino says he is confident that investigation will prove he acted appropriately Federal prosecutors are asking whether David Contarino, a man Bill Richardson once described as the \u201cstrategic mind\u201d of his administration and \u201cmy most senior and trusted aide,\u201d was involved in the alleged pay-to-play scheme that derailed the governor\u2019s nomination to be commerce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111","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=4111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}