{"id":4745,"date":"2009-07-17T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/07\/rattner-leaves-auto-job-as-ny-ag-seeks-settlement\/"},"modified":"2009-07-17T12:37:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-17T18:37:00","slug":"rattner-leaves-auto-job-as-ny-ag-seeks-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/07\/rattner-leaves-auto-job-as-ny-ag-seeks-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"Rattner leaves auto job as NY AG seeks settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

NY attorney general is pushing for a legal settlement with Rattner, who also has ties to the scandal in New Mexico<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember Steven Rattner<\/a>? He\u2019s the man who was heading President Barack Obama\u2019s auto-bailout program and who had been linked to a New York pension scandal that has spread to New Mexico and beyond.<\/p>\n

Well, he resigned from the Obama administration job earlier this week. Then The Associated Press<\/a> reported that the New York attorney general is pushing for a legal settlement that would allow Rattner to avoid civil charges for his role in the scandal.<\/p>\n

From the AP:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\u201cRattner announced Monday that he was resigning his position on the White House\u2019s auto industry task force, which led the restructure of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. It remained unclear Tuesday whether that departure had anything to do with the ongoing public corruption probe that has nibbled at his heels in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 A person familiar with the investigation said (AG Andrew) Cuomo\u2019s office hasn\u2019t been interested in pressing a criminal case against Rattner or Quadrangle<\/a> (the company involved in the scandal, which Rattner used to work for) but recently began pressing both for legal settlements that would allow them to avoid civil charges. The person wasn\u2019t authorized to publicly discuss the pending investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral other companies have cut similar settlement deals recently.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Rattner\u2019s New Mexico connection<\/span><\/p>\n

Rattner, as I\u2019ve previously written<\/a>, gave $5,000 to Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> 2002 gubernatorial campaign and $15,000 to Richardson\u2019s 2006 re-election bid, according to the money-in-politics Web site followthemoney.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richardson heads the State Investment Council<\/a> (SIC), which manages the state\u2019s investments. In October 2005, the SIC voted to invest $20 million with Quadrangle. At the time of the 2002 and 2006 campaign contributions, Rattner was a managing principle in the company, which he left in February of this year to take the auto-bailout job.<\/p>\n

A federal grand jury in New Mexico is also investigating<\/a> the investment scandal, though Rattner and Quadrangle have not been named — at least publicly — as being targets of that probe.<\/p>\n

The New York corruption probe<\/span><\/p>\n

Though he hasn\u2019t been charged with any wrongdoing, Rattner has been identified by national media outlets<\/a> as the unnamed person in federal documents who allegedly arranged in late 2004 for Quadrangle to pay $1.1 million in exchange for business with the state of New York. Hank Morris is under indictment in the New York case, accused of using his position in that state\u2019s comptroller\u2019s office to shake down companies wanting to do business with the state\u2019s pension fund, including Quadrangle.<\/p>\n

Morris is accused of taking 95 percent of the money from Quadrangle as a kickback. He denies the allegations.<\/p>\n

Morris, according to a document released by the SIC<\/a>, was the third-party marketer who helped secure the New Mexico investment contract for Quadrangle in 2005. The amount he was paid by Quadrangle for his work in New Mexico has not been disclosed.<\/p>\n

Spokesmen for Quadrangle, Rattner and Cuomo\u2019s office declined to comment to the AP earlier this week.<\/p>\n

While the AP said it was unclear whether Rattner\u2019s resignation had anything to do with the corruption probe in New York, Talking Points Memo<\/a> is among a handful of media outlets reporting that the two probably are related.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NY attorney general is pushing for a legal settlement with Rattner, who also has ties to the scandal in New Mexico Remember Steven Rattner? He\u2019s the man who was heading President Barack Obama\u2019s auto-bailout program and who had been linked to a New York pension scandal that has spread to New Mexico and beyond. Well, […]<\/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-4745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745","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=4745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}