Legal News

Is an Indictment in the Offing for Bill Richardson?

By Dan Slater

President-elect Barack Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at a news conference in Chicago. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

It’s been a somewhat disappointing 12 months for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. First, an early departure from the presidential race. Then, in August, it became public that the feds were investigating Richardson’s relationship with CDR Financial Products, a California concern that received a contract with the New Mexico Finance Authority a few months before CDR and its president contributed more than $100,000 to two Richardson political committees.

Yesterday, Richardson said the ongoing grand jury investigation necessitated his withdrawal from consideration as Commerce Secretary in the Obama administration. The governor has said he is not guilty of any wrongdoing. (Here are reports from the WSJ, the L.A. Times and the NYT. For local flavor, here’s a dispatch from the Albuquerque Journal.)

Will an indictment be next for Richardson? So far, nothing in the current investigation into CDR suggests that Richardson will be indicted, a source told the WSJ. Members of the governor’s administration have been called to testify before the grand jury, but he has not.

“There is no indication that the grand jury has anything or is going anywhere with this,” the source said. However, a new grand jury is expected to be empaneled soon, and “we don’t know what to expect from them,” he added.

A spokesman for CDR told the WSJ that the firm “has never engaged in pay-for-play practices on any playing field, on any level, and in any jurisdiction or municipality or location where it works.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).