URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/20953395607opinionguestcolumns02-20-09.htm
Friday, February 20, 2009
Politics Are Driving Richardson/CDR Investigation
By Brian S. Colón
Chairman, Democratic Party of New Mexico
Innocent citizens, the community and justice suffer irreparable harm when politics is the driving force behind a prosecution. Despite this danger, many are concerned that we are facing such harm from two high-profile cases being splashed across the media — the CDR investigation and the Frank Foy case.
Based on the October 2008 report by the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice on the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, we now know that the Republican Party in New Mexico attempted to use the prosecutorial power of the U.S. Attorney's Office to affect the 2006 elections and stay in power.
When Iglesias refused to wrongfully prosecute cases where there was no evidence of “voter fraud,” high-ranking members of the state Republican Party asked Karl Rove to remove him from office. Iglesias said he felt that then-Rep. Heather Wilson had pressured him to rush the Courthouse Construction Kickback case in an October 2006 phone conversation. Iglesias lost his job in December.
Based on these and other allegations of attempted misuse of the U.S. Attorney's Office, the report found that the firing of Iglesias was politically motivated. New Mexico lost a fine prosecutor based on his principled stand to keep politics out of prosecution.
This brings us to the work of the current U.S. attorney and his investigation that has received high-profile coverage in the press. Seven months ago, the U.S. Attorney's Office convened a grand jury investigation into CDR, a financial company which did business with the state.
The FBI interviewed a number of witnesses. Two of the witnesses who subsequently appeared before the grand jury told me they testified that the awarding of the work to CDR was done by the book in compliance with all the rules and there was no pre-bid deal made with CDR.
On Oct. 1, the Governor's Office produced all the documents requested by the government's extensive subpoena and there was no smoking gun. There was no document, tape, e-mail or other evidence supporting a “pay for play” deal.
Suddenly, on Nov. 1, the assistant U.S. attorney who had been handling the case for months was replaced by a new prosecutor. On Nov. 21, President Obama nominated Gov. Bill Richardson for secretary of commerce.
The new prosecutor had several choices at that point. She could finish up the case and present it to the grand jury in December to determine whether any crimes had been committed. If she was unable to finish in December, she could ask a federal judge to extend the one-year term of this grand jury, which had already heard witnesses and evidence, possibly finishing deliberations before U.S. Senate confirmation hearings were held.
The new prosecutor did not choose either of those options.
Starting over with a new grand jury would allow the prosecutor to put on a witness to summarize all the previous testimony and leave out any information that might damage chances of an indictment. Further, the new prosecutor would not have to re-call witnesses who said there was nothing wrong when CDR was hired by the state. Worst of all, a new grand jury meant the investigation would go on for months instead of being completed before confirmation hearings.
This deliberate prosecutorial decision forced Richardson to decide whether he would ask the new president to indefinitely hold up his nomination while the grand jury investigation started anew or withdraw. To his credit, the governor considered the nation's financial crisis and the need for an immediate commerce appointment and chose to withdraw his nomination.
Rather than rail against the prosecutorial decisions and the press leaks that cost him a position in the Obama administration, our governor stated he would put his trust in the grand jury system, which will eventually get to the truth that no crime was committed when CDR was awarded a state contract.
Given the politically motivated decisions made by the current U.S. Attorney's Office and past experience with the same office, let's hope that confidence is justified.