{"id":4605,"date":"2009-05-28T00:35:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/why-wont-richardson-answer-question-about-correra\/"},"modified":"2009-05-28T00:35:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T06:35:00","slug":"why-wont-richardson-answer-question-about-correra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/why-wont-richardson-answer-question-about-correra\/","title":{"rendered":"Why won’t Richardson answer question about Correra?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

As I wrote on Tuesday<\/a>, Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> and his administration have taken strong action in response to the investment scandal that started in New York and has spread to New Mexico and other states.<\/p>\n

But those steps to address the situation came only after it became a national scandal that threatens to further bog down a governor who has watched his career sink in recent months because of a federal grand jury probe into allegations of pay to play<\/a> in his administration.<\/p>\n

What was Richardson doing before all the eyebrow-raising dealing became known publicly?<\/p>\n

State officials say Richardson was, until the scandal broke, unaware of payments<\/a> made to third-party marketers — those hired by investment firms to help them win state contracts — that are at the center of the controversy. So why does Richardson keep refusing to answer a related question being asked by Trip Jennings, a colleague of mine at the New Mexico Independent?<\/p>\n

Jennings writes in an article published on Wednesday<\/a> that he asked Richardson at a news conference \u201cwhether he had met to discuss an investment with the son of a friend prior to the state\u2019s decision to sink $90 million into the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s referring to Marc Correra, the man hired to sell to the investments with Vanderbilt Financial to the state. Those investments, which the state lost completely, are the subject of the pay-to-play lawsuit<\/a> brought by Frank Foy on behalf of the state.<\/p>\n

Correra has also been in the news because he shared in as much as $16 million in finders\u2019 fees for winning investment companies — including Vanderbilt — big contracts in New Mexico. While a Richardson spokesman has said the governor wasn\u2019t aware of any of the fees paid to Correra, the governor and his staff are refusing to say whether Richardson met with Correra about the Vanderbilt deal.<\/p>\n

When asked by Jennings on Wednesday, Richardson didn\u2019t answer the question, instead saying this:<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, yesterday in the State Investment Council I led the effort<\/a> to fire Aldus, to ban third-party marketers, to have an audit jointly done by the Legislature and the Finance Authority. There is a federal investigation, a national investigation, going on. I am not privy to any of those details.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut did you meet with Correra prior to the investment, he was asked again,\u201d Jennings\u2019 article states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say,\u201d the governor responded, according to Jennings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the third time Richardson and his office have refused to answer the question.<\/p>\n

So my question: Why, if the governor didn\u2019t meet with Correra about the Vanderbilt deal, doesn\u2019t he just say that?<\/p>\n

Perhaps therein lies the answer to Jennings\u2019 question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I wrote on Tuesday, Gov. Bill Richardson and his administration have taken strong action in response to the investment scandal that started in New York and has spread to New Mexico and other states. But those steps to address the situation came only after it became a national scandal that threatens to further bog […]<\/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-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","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=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}