{"id":4806,"date":"2009-08-12T17:25:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/did-the-fbi-probe-madrid-pay-to-play-controversy\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T15:24:11","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T21:24:11","slug":"did-the-fbi-probe-madrid-pay-to-play-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/did-the-fbi-probe-madrid-pay-to-play-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Did the FBI probe Madrid pay-to-play controversy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Wilson, Iglesias disagree about whether FBI inquiry happened<\/span><\/p>\n

Former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson<\/a> says there was an FBI inquiry into ties between her 2006 opponent, Patricia Madrid<\/a>, and a political action committee as the two duked it out in one of the hottest congressional races in the nation.<\/p>\n

David Iglesias<\/a>, who was U.S. attorney at the time, says no such probe existed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear who\u2019s right, but the answer to that question could help shed light on whether e-mails released Tuesday indicate that Iglesias was fired for improper political reasons, as he claims.<\/p>\n

The alleged FBI inquiry into then-Attorney General Madrid\u2019s ties to the political action committee would have come at a time when Madrid was caught up in a pay-to-play controversy surrounding financial contributions to that PAC.<\/p>\n

The controversy hinged on a proposed off-reservation Indian casino in southern New Mexico. Not wanting competition for his own racino, Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino owner Stan Fulton had been working in 2004 and 2005 to kill a proposal by Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters and the Jemez Pueblo to build a casino in nearby Anthony.<\/p>\n

Six weeks after Madrid\u2019s office officially objected to the Jemez proposal in June 2005, Fulton gave the Madrid PAC, Justice for America, $100,000.<\/p>\n

Fulton had also given $25,000 to the PAC, which Madrid formed to aid female and minority candidates for political offices in New Mexico, several months before Madrid\u2019s office took a position on the Jemez proposal.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s involvement in alleged inquiry<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson was familiar with the relationship between Madrid and the PAC because she, former Sen. Pete Domenici<\/a> and former Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a> had filed a complaint<\/a> with the Federal Election Commission on June 12, 2006, alleging that Madrid had maintained some level of control over the PAC even after she became a candidate for Wilson\u2019s House seat in 2006. Federal candidates are prohibited by law from operating PACs that accept large, unregulated financial contributions.<\/p>\n

The FEC dismissed the complaint<\/a> as baseless on March 23, 2007.<\/p>\n

An FBI spokesman has not returned a call today seeking confirmation that there was an inquiry into the situation. All public knowledge about the alleged inquiry has come from Wilson, who says an investigator with the FBI\u2019s public corruption unit in Albuquerque contacted her staff for information about the relationship between Madrid and the PAC in June 2006.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Wilson said her office faxed all \u201cresearch files\u201d it had on the Madrid PAC to the FBI on June 19, 2006. She said she doesn\u2019t know what became of the inquiry after that.<\/p>\n

Madrid, who is thinking about running for land commissioner<\/a> next year, and others tied to the PAC were never charged with any crimes related to its activities.<\/p>\n

Iglesias says there was no inquiry<\/span><\/p>\n

Iglesias, who was U.S. attorney at the time of the alleged inquiry, said he does not believe such a probe ever existed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have remembered something of that magnitude,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Iglesias alleges that Domenici and Wilson pressured him to speed indictments against former state Senate President Manny Aragon<\/a> and others involved in the metro court scandal in an attempt to help Wilson win the 2006 race, a charge both deny. Days after the election, Iglesias was fired.<\/p>\n

Whether the FBI inquiry existed is important in the investigation into whether Iglesias was fired for improper political reasons. E-mails released Tuesday<\/a> by the House Judiciary Committee could be interpreted as indicating that a White House aide had the race between Wilson and Madrid in mind when discussing Iglesias\u2019 job performance in the weeks before he was fired, rather than the alleged Madrid inquiry.<\/p>\n

But if Wilson is to be believed, White House staffer Scott Jennings\u2019 Oct. 15, 2006 e-mail about Iglesias being \u201cshy about doing his job on Madrid\u201d had to do with the inquiry into Madrid\u2019s relationship with the PAC, not the 2006 election contest. The e-mail was part of a chain that had been started earlier in the day by Wilson.<\/p>\n

Iglesias said the fact that Wilson never brought up the alleged inquiry during her race with Madrid is evidence that it didn\u2019t exist. Wilson was behind in the polls in the final weeks of the race, and Iglesias said she \u201cwould have used that in a heartbeat against Patsy (Madrid) since she was so desperate at the very end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson, who is considering running for governor<\/a> in 2010, acknowledged that making the inquiry public during the 2006 election \u201cwould almost certainly have benefited me politically,\u201d but she said it \u201ccould have interfered with the work of the FBI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose to remain silent unless asked,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

Wilson was never asked about the FBI inquiry during the campaign. She didn\u2019t publicly speak about it until last year, when a Department of Justice investigator asked her about the Oct. 15, 2006 e-mail chain.<\/p>\n

Madrid says FBI \u2018was threatening me\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Madrid could not be reached for comment today about the existence of any inquiry, but said in an interview on Tuesday that she heard in 2006 from \u201ca number of sources\u2026 that the FBI was threatening me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was an investigation of me, I\u2019m sure that they were put up to it by Karl Rove, Domenici and Heather Wilson. They instigated all of that,\u201d Madrid said, adding that any allegations made against her were baseless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee you, if the FBI and Iglesias and Karl Rove had had anything on me, they would have used it. They didn\u2019t. They had nothing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The history of the pay-to-play controversy<\/span><\/p>\n

Fulton admitted in 2004 to trying to buy opposition<\/a> to the proposed Jemez casino by giving $1 million to the Gadsden school district and announcing that he would give New Mexico State University half ownership of his racetrack and casino when he died — an estimated $10 million annually — but only if there were no other casinos built in an area that included the Jemez proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe play to win,\u201d Fulton said at the time. \u201cThis is a battle, and we\u2019re going to look at it like a battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The relationship between Madrid and Fulton was a hot topic in the 2006 congressional race, which Wilson won by fewer than 1,000 votes out of more than 211,000 cast. Madrid was asked about the contributions from Fulton during a debate<\/a> with Wilson less than two weeks before Election Day, and she appeared to admit that contributions buy access.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think you have to be careful about taking large sums of money from lobbyists,\u201d Madrid said at the debate. \u201cBut even if you do, it is only to give them access to let you know about what their concerns are. Certainly it\u2019s not to have you vote or rule in any certain way or obligate you in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson responded by expressing shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m amazed at what I just heard,\u201d she said. \u201cNo one buys access in my office. Any New Mexican that wants to speak to me, it\u2019s not conditional on paying at the door.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilson, Iglesias disagree about whether FBI inquiry happened Former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson says there was an FBI inquiry into ties between her 2006 opponent, Patricia Madrid, and a political action committee as the two duked it out in one of the hottest congressional races in the nation. David Iglesias, who was U.S. attorney at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4806","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=4806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}