{"id":5964,"date":"2009-09-09T22:15:51","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T04:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=5964"},"modified":"2009-09-11T08:13:37","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T14:13:37","slug":"nmfa-finally-releases-gripgate-subpoenas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/09\/nmfa-finally-releases-gripgate-subpoenas\/","title":{"rendered":"NMFA finally releases GRIPgate subpoenas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo courtesy lotyloty\/flickr.com<\/p><\/div>\n

You may recall that my business, Haussamen Publications, filed a lawsuit<\/a> in April seeking the release of subpoenas received by the New Mexico Finance Authority (NMFA) during the investigation into allegations of pay to play<\/a> in the Richardson administration involving CDR Financial Products.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit came after the NMFA refused to release copies<\/a> of the subpoenas in February in response to a records request.<\/p>\n

Well, after the probe ended last month without charges being filed<\/a>, I decided to re-request copies of the subpoenas to see if the agency\u2019s position on whether they were public records had changed.<\/p>\n

It had. On Friday, the NMFA provided me with copies of two subpoenas it had received. You can read them by clicking here<\/a> and here<\/a>. You can also click here<\/a> to read the letter that accompanied the subpoenas.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing all that earth-shattering in the subpoenas, especially now that the probe has ended. Most of the names are familiar. Among the records the grand jury sought: anything related to the selection of CDR for the lucrative state bond contract, documents related to a finance council set up by the governor and correspondence with a reporter at Bloomberg who first wrote about the CDR deal in late 2006<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed by my business had contended that any subpoenas NMFA received in the federal probe should be public — regardless of whether there was an ongoing investigation — and noted that the governor\u2019s office released such a document<\/a> in response to an identical request while the probe was ongoing.<\/p>\n

In denying my original request, Reynold Romero, the NMFA\u2019s general counsel, had written that \u201crelease of the requested documents could compromise or impede an ongoing federal investigation.\u201d In an interview before the lawsuit was filed, Romero told me his denial wasn\u2019t based on any of the specific exemptions to the state\u2019s Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a>. He instead cited the provision that allows exemptions \u201cas otherwise provided by law.\u201d<\/p>\n

I still contend that NMFA should have released the subpoenas months ago. But at least the public can see them now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that the federal pay-to-play probe is over, the New Mexico Finance Authority has released copies of two subpoenas it received during the investigation.<\/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":[122,114,107],"class_list":["post-5964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-gripgate","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964","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=5964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}