First, Bill Richardson was recently forced to withdraw his name from consideration for Commerce Secretary. There is a grand jury investigating charges that Richardson was involved in a pay to play scheme as New Mexico Governor involving the California company, CFR, and a contract they received from the New Mexico Finance Authority. The company was a big contributor to Richardson's campaign and thus we have the pay to play allegation. Now, I am actually surprised at myself that I didn't predict then that Richardson would be removed. Richardson is not high profile. Besides being Hispanic, he adds little to Obama's team. The Commerce Secretary is largely ceremonial anyway. As soon as news of Blago selling Obama's seat broker, pay to play took on a new meaning. Now, the only lasting ramification will be lingering questions about Obama's vetting abilities. That this wasn't discovered, or dismissed, doesn't speak very highly of Obama's vetting process. The liberal magazine, Mother Jones, has the most stinging rebuke.
The wreck of Bill Richardson, who withdrew earlier today as President-elect Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, surely should have been anticipated by the Obama vetters. As previously reported by Mother Jones, the New Mexico governor has, over the last decade, left behind a wide trail of questionable business dealings, many of them involving the energy industry.
Obama's transition team apparently chose to ignore these past whiffs of scandal. They also seem to have been unfazed by the current federal investigation into a possible pay-to-play scandal, which was already well underway when Richardson’s nomination was announced on December 3. Within two weeks of the nomination, the media was widely reportingthat Richardson was the subject of a grand jury probe in a “highly active stage.”
By removing Richardson, it should remove most of the stench as well. Yet, just as Obama closes the chapter on one episode of pay to play, it appears that Hilllary Clinton, his choice for Secretary of State, maybe embroiled in her own pay to play scandal.
A developer in New York state donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton’s foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman’s mall project.
Hillary Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse.
She also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction.
The bill with the tax-free bonds provision became law in October 2004, weeks before the donation, and the highway bill with the set-aside became law in August 2005, about nine months after the donation.
Now, I don't know what the deal is with this particular scandal, however anyone that has followed Hillary Clinton's career closely shouldn't be surprised to find her embroiled in the corrupt practice of pay to play. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, most of the donor list to Bill Clinton's library is a potential pay to play scheme now that Hillary is going to be Secretary of State.
Of course, Obama's biggest exposure to the stink of pay to play continues to be Blagojevich himself. I don't know anything Obama has done wrong regarding his own Senate seat, and I would be shocked if he did anything wrong. That said, pay to play is standard operating procedure in Chicago, Cook County, and Springfield. If he was never involved in the scheme himself, you can bet many of his allies and friends were. The closest I know of Obama being involved in pay to play is this report from the Boston Globe.
Now, I have said over and over that the selling of the Senate seat is not the only piece of Illinois corruption that will come out before this scandal is over. Blagojevich will not simply roll over. If he is removed, he will take a scorched earth policy with him. He knows about most of the corruption and he can point the finger at all sorts of Illinois politicians. Obama has gotten into bed with the likes of Richard Daley, Emil Jones, and Todd Stroger. As more and more Illinois politicians are implicated in corruption including pay to play, more and more will be friends and allies of the President. Once the dirty laundry really airs, then these episodes with both Richardson and Clinton will take on new meaning.
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