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A troubling revelation from the Municipal Bond Bid-Rigging trial in New York, from Matt Taibbi’s coverage:
Even more startling was the way that a notorious incident involving former New Mexico governor and presidential candidate Bill Richardson resurfaced during the trial. Barack Obama, you may recall, had nominated Richardson to be commerce secretary – only to have the move blow up in his face when tales of Richardson accepting bribes began to make the rounds. Federal prosecutors never brought a case against Richardson: In 2009, an inside source told the AP that the investigation had been “killed in Washington.” Obama himself, after Richardson bowed out, praised the former governor as an “outstanding public servant.”
Now, in the Carollo trial, defense counsel got Doug Goldberg, the CDR broker, to admit that his boss, Stewart Wolmark, had handed him an envelope containing a check for $25,000. The check was payable to none other than Moving America Forward – Bill Richardson’s political action committee. Goldberg then went to a Richardson fundraiser and handed the politician the envelope. Richardson, pleased, told Goldberg, “Tell the big guy I’m going to hire you guys.”
Goldberg admitted on the stand that he understood “the big guy” to mean Wolmark. After that came this amazing testimony:
Q: Soon after that, New Mexico hired CDR as its swap and GIC adviser on a $400 million deal, right?
A: Yes.
Q: You learned later that that check in that envelope was a check for $25,000, right?
A: Yes. I learned it later.
Q: You also learned later that CDR gave another $75,000 to Gov. Richardson, right?
A: Yes.
Q: CDR ended up making about a million dollars on this deal for those two checks?
A: Yes.
Q: In fact, New Mexico not only hired CDR, they hired another firm to do the actual work that they needed done?
A: For the fixed-income stuff, yes.What we get from this is that CDR paid Bill Richardson $100,000 in contributions and got $1.5 million in public money in return. And not just $1.5 million, but $1.5 million for work they didn’t even do – the state still had to hire another firm to do the actual job. Nice non-work, if you can get it.
Before he was a Presidential candidate and withdrawn Commerce Secretary nominee, Bill Richardson was; a Congressman, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Energy Secretary, and the Governor of New Mexico. In other words some one who should have known better – but wait, could it be that this is not abnormal but the status quo. That Wall Street buys and sells politicians as frequently as stocks and bonds…
The answer is clear, Occupy.
7 Comments
As Yves Smith would say, “Quelle surprise!”
Let’s make it easier on everyone, conserve typing time, etc., by just shortening Democrats to just plain Rats.
Of course he did.
The real question is if the *way* he accepted a bribe from Wall Street was against the rules. My guess is probably not – that’s how pretty much *everyone* in both parties behave these days.
Turns out when the people in charge of making laws want to accept bribes … they just pass a law that makes doing so legal. I’d be surprised if you could count all such statutes on American law books.
“United States Ambassador to the United Nations”
That should always be a sign of membership of the inner mafia.
This corruption keeps surfacing but they manage to keep throwing new bricks onto the body. What’s new is the envelope full of cash,
It’s just a nudge further because the DOJ already admitted that the procurement process was corrupted by the cockroach Richardson.
Apparently it’s standard procedure for the DOJ to drop investigations against politicians for public corruption, so Richardson’s declaration that he was exonerated is false and it’s not applied equally. See Don Seigelman or Philly Mayor Corey Kemp went to jail for 10 years for accepting box tickets from David Rubin, but Rubin was not a target of this investigation.
David Rubin was the sole shareholder of CDR Financial and these are conveniently treated as two separate people, except Rubin is the voice of CDR.
He served as City of LA housing commissioner from 2003 to 2005, pleaded guilty to auction bid rigging in municipal bonds, took kickbacks from BoA,
also pleaded guilty for CDR as sole shareholder for the company after a 5 yr investigation.
Remember when Birmingham was bankrupted, and the California retirements accounts were screwed over?
Approximately 20 different cities, counties and school districts are suing/sued Rubin’s firm, alleging it steered them to banks that paid CDR kickbacks..Fresno, San Mateo, Contra Costa, Alameda and San Diego, among others.
Must read for background:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=auHFr7xQK9lg
Note the involvement of Elizabeth Warren.
On October 2007,the SEC settled one case against CDR and AIG SunAmerica Life Assurance Co., ordering them to stop certain financial arrangements but imposing no fines. The agency had accused AIG and CDR of failing to disclose a fee arrangement they had with each other when setting up a deal to sell $650 million in tax-exempt bonds in Florida in 1999 and 2000, according to the evening sun
David Rubin donated $31,800 to Barack Obama, and $133,000 to the DNC or DCCC,
$4,000 Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), when he first ran for the Senate in 2004.
He has donated heavily to Israeli and Jewish charitable causes (tax exempt)
David Rubin made six contributions totaling $40,000 to Ed Rendell’s campaign committees between 2001 and 2005.
The answer is to put this in the hands of the right-wingers and Teabaggers who listen to their base.
er.. I mean put it in the hands of teabaggers and right wingers who will put pressure on the Repubs in congress.
well-known in NM that there was corruption in Richardson’s administration. Sad. Thinking of himself more than the constituents.
No different now with Susana Martinez, a Republican with Texas oil and gas deep pockets. Oh, and she is an anchor grandbaby as grandparents came up from Mexico without documents. She’s paying back her oil and gas donors quite well..