{"id":4266,"date":"2009-02-20T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T20:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/colons-column-raises-new-questions\/"},"modified":"2009-02-20T14:36:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T20:36:00","slug":"colons-column-raises-new-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/colons-column-raises-new-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Col\u00f3n’s column raises new questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Brian Col\u00f3n<\/a> says in a column published today in the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> that a federal investigation into allegations of pay to play in the Richardson administration is politically motivated. That\u2019s not surprising, given his ties to the governor, but there\u2019s one point in the column that I found quite noteworthy.<\/p>\n

In the column, Col\u00f3n writes about the governor\u2019s office producing documents last fall in response to a subpoena<\/a> that was issued by the grand jury investigating the allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Oct. 1, the Governor\u2019s Office produced all the documents requested by the government\u2019s extensive subpoena and there was no smoking gun,\u201d Col\u00f3n wrote. \u201cThere was no document, tape, e-mail or other evidence supporting a \u2018pay for play\u2019 deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Col\u00f3n, it would seem, has been allowed to review the documents produced in response to the subpoena. How else would he know there was no smoking gun?<\/p>\n

The documents Col\u00f3n has apparently reviewed are the same documents the governor\u2019s office says the media and public don\u2019t have a right to see<\/a>. The records, the office has said in response to media requests, are exempt from the public records act because of federal rules governing grand juries and \u201ccountervailing public policy considerations\u201d including \u201cthis office\u2019s effort to cooperate and not unduly interfere with a federal grand jury investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Col\u00f3n, though he is an attorney, isn\u2019t Richardson\u2019s attorney. He\u2019s the chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico<\/a>. Why does he get access to such records when the public does not?<\/p>\n

A couple of other facts about Col\u00f3n should be noted. He\u2019s a close friend of the governor and served as treasurer for Richardson\u2019s Moving America Forward Foundation. <\/a>Whether the foundation is part of the federal investigation isn\u2019t known publicly.<\/p>\n

In addition, I\u2019d point out that Col\u00f3n raises one question in his column that I find intriguing. At the end of 2008, he writes, the prosecutor on the case had a choice between presenting the case to the grand jury, extending the term of the grand jury, or convening a new grand jury. The prosecutor chose the last.<\/p>\n

Which essentially meant starting over again. Why? Col\u00f3n has his own ideas about that, which you can read in the column by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. attorney doesn\u2019t have to answer that or any other question about the probe and has chosen not to do so. So we don\u2019t really know why the case is now in the hands of a new grand jury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Col\u00f3n says in a column published today in the Albuquerque Journal that a federal investigation into allegations of pay to play in the Richardson administration is politically motivated. That\u2019s not surprising, given his ties to the governor, but there\u2019s one point in the column that I found quite noteworthy. In the column, Col\u00f3n writes […]<\/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-4266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266","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=4266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}