{"id":87796,"date":"2015-09-28T16:05:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-28T22:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=87796"},"modified":"2015-09-29T13:03:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T19:03:38","slug":"lawmakers-begin-work-on-possible-duran-impeachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/09\/lawmakers-begin-work-on-possible-duran-impeachment\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers begin work on possible Duran impeachment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers investigating criminal allegations against Secretary of State Dianna Duran met Monday to begin\u00a0the process of deciding\u00a0whether to impeach her.<\/p>\n

\"Dianna<\/a>

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Dianna Duran<\/p><\/div>\n

The House Special Investigatory Committee “discussed hiring of special legal counsel, rules for the investigation and a hearing schedule,” according to the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That process is expected to take several months. Meanwhile, as the news services reported, Duran’s attorney has asked to delay a preliminary hearing<\/a> in the attorney general’s criminal case against Duran<\/a> that’s scheduled for late October.<\/p>\n

Duran remains on the job<\/a>\u00a0while fighting\u00a0fraud, embezzlement, money laundering and other charges related to alleged abuse of the state’s campaign finance system.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0some in the media are still looking into Duran’s campaign finance reports. Lawmakers may “find more to investigate about Duran than the attorney general has touched on,” The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Milan Simonich wrote Monday<\/a>. From his column:<\/p>\n

In a 2010 campaign finance report, Duran listed Don Kidd as her campaign treasurer. Duran stated in the report that Kidd\u2019s phone number and mailing address were the same as her own, so his identity is blurred.<\/p>\n

The most prominent Don Kidd in New Mexico is a banker and a friend of Duran\u2019s. Kidd and Duran served together in the state Senate. But Kidd said in an interview that he was not Duran\u2019s campaign treasurer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she listed me, she did it on her own,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sign any checks or pay any bills for her, and that\u2019s what a campaign treasurer does.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The charges against Duran include one of identity theft. She deposited a $600 check into her personal account that her campaign issued to Sean Davis of Tularosa for \u201cequipment & work on campaign,\u201d the attorney general claims. Duran allegedly forged Davis\u2019 signature. Investigators say Davis didn\u2019t work for Duran, endorse the check, or receive the money.<\/p>\n

So it’s important to know\u00a0who, if anyone, was watching Duran’s campaign finances as treasurer. According to The New Mexican, a Duran spokesman didn’t respond to questions about Kidd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meanwhile, The Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting that Duran listed Don Kidd as her 2010 campaign treasurer, but a former state senator by that name, who is Duran’s friend, says he didn’t take on that task. That raises questions about whether anyone was keeping an eye on Duran’s campaign finances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[142,1191,705,107,706],"class_list":["post-87796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-dianna-duran","tag-money-in-politics","tag-roundhouse","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87796","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=87796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}