Richardson Steps Down Because of a Scandal - What Else is New?

In the second scandal in recent weeks — where palms were allegedly greased to gain political favor — New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has announced he is withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's Commerce Secretary because of a grand jury investigation into how one of his political donors won a lucrative state contract.

The first scandal in recent weeks was, of course, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly attempting to sell President-elect Obama's recently vacated Senate seat.

The federal grand jury is investigating how a California company, which contributed to Richardson's campaign, won a $1 million transportation contract.

Governor Richardson — who like Governor Blagojevich is not stepping down from his position as governor — has stated he is confident the investigation will reveal he acted properly in the matter. His rationale, as stated in this Washington Post article, is that the investigation could take a long time and he doesn't want to get in the way of important work that needs to be done.

President-elect Obama accepted the resignation with deep regret and cited Richardson's long history of service to the country, both at the state and the federal level.

The federal grand jury investigation in question was announced in mid-December and revolves around whether or not CDR Products was awarded a 1.4 million contract after making contributions to Richardson's political action committees. The contributions of $100,000 were made in 2004 by CDR (based in 90210, Beverly Hills, CA) shortly before they obtained the contract.

Reports indicate that this case is part of a larger one involving the FBI's investigation into "pay to play" practices involving governent bonds. In another part of this investigation, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, Larry Lanford, has been indicted for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and loans that led his city into bad investments and ultimately, bankruptcy.

Al.com just reported that corruption has dominated the news in Alabama in recent history. In a telling statement, the article noted that corruption deserved top billing in 2006 and 2007, also. Alabama Governor Don Siegelman continues to try to overturn his 2006 conviction on bribery charges, and their Chancellor, Roy Johnson, plead guilty in a federal investigation of corruption in the state's two-year college system.

The sad thing is that politicians being charged and convicted of fraud are becoming too common. From a congressman allegedly getting caught with $100,000 in his freezer, to a senator allegedly accepting $250,000 in gifts from an oil company executive — I sometimes wonder if I am living in a foreign land, where we would expect this to be the status quo. Please note, there are many more examples of public figures getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar in recent history. Please note also that the incidents of alleged corruption involve leaders of different political affiliations.

As we are only days now from President-elect Obama's administration taking office, we face the worst financial crisis since the depression. Not only are we experiencing a financial crisis, but many believe our nation is severely divided; and to top it off, we are at war.

President-elect Obama has spoken out many times on the evils of special interests and lobbyists, who seem to be able to control our government's destiny. Even after Wall Street laughed all the way to the bank (for years) when the mortgage crisis was created — it seems we are being held hostage to bail them out or face even more severe financial consequences.

Change is what is needed and hopefully that is what is about to occur. On his transition website, President-elect Obama is encouraging open government and soliciting us all to write in with our own ideas. I think this a good thing and we all should do it. Our nation was founded in part because of taxation without representation and if you think about it, an argument might be made that this what we've been seeing in recent history.

During the election, I struggled a lot with how to cast my vote; my uncle (who is a huge Obama advocate) sent me a YouTube video about Obama set to John Lennon's song, Imagine. For those of us who still remember his music, Lennon had another song called Gimme Some Truth. What we need now is to imagine our leaders are there for us and to stop finding reasons to lose faith in them.

Will the Stevens raid cause voters to trust politicians even less?

I'm predicting the upcoming elections will be pretty interesting. Confidence in our political leaders seems to be at an all time low.

One particularly bothersome phenomenon are stories of elected officials being investigated for lining their own pockets. They seem to be surfacing with alarming frequency.

It's no wonder that both the executive branch and house seem to have one thing in common - ever decreasing public support.

The most recent event in this seemingly never-ending chain of disappointing stories is the raid on Senator Ted Stevens' Alaska retreat.

Dan Joling of the AP is reporting:

Federal agents with cameras searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens amid questions about an oil company official's involvement in a 2000 renovation project that doubled the home's size, law enforcement officials said.

Stevens, 83, is under a federal investigation for his connections to Bill Allen, founder of VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

Allen was convicted earlier this year of bribing state lawmakers. He also oversaw the renovation of Stevens' home in the ski resort community of Girdwood, contractors involved in the work say.

This seems to be part of a larger investigation:

The Justice Department's probe into Allen's relationships has led to charges against state lawmakers and contractors. Last year, FBI raids on the offices of several Alaska lawmakers included Stevens' son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens.

Neither the U.S. senator nor his son has been charged.

The AP Story also states that Alaska's only U.S. representative, Don Young, is also under investigation. This cannot be confirmed because the source was anonymous.

The AFP version of the story (courtesy of Yahoo News)cited unnamed sources as saying:

The investigations have prompted calls for ethics reform in Congress and damaged President George W. Bush's Republican party. Some party members blamed the corruption cases for helping hand their Democratic rivals control of Congress in legislative elections last year.

I found this an interesting statement because Republicans don't seem to be the only ones getting accused of lining their own pockets by using their political influence.

Let's not forget Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. has been indicted on federal charges of racketeering, money-laundering and soliciting. The investigation against Jefferson suggested ties to a foreign political figure, Abubakar Atiku (former Vice President of Nigeria).

Atiku was still in office, when the scandal made headlines. Interestingly enough, the connection between him and Jefferson seemed to be ignored by the Western press, however it was covered extensively in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

Wikipedia has an interesting article tracking charges of corruption involving political figures. If you look at their document and note the amount of incidents since 1990, the problem seems to be growing.

Wikipedia article, here.

Of course, there was political corruption around before 1990, also. Maybe, the trend started earlier with the Abscam investigation in 1980?

Here is a FBI video of Jack Murtha dealing with a undercover FBI agent in the infamous Abscam investigation.

It's a sad commentary that so many of our leaders seem to be getting caught, or accused of being corrupt. Maybe this is one of the reasons that politicians seem to be losing the popular support of the people, they are supposed to be serving.

Whether this is all dirty politics, outright corruption, or a mixture of both -- it does little to bolster public confidence in our leaders.

After all, these are people, we (and our children) are supposed to look up to.

AP Story, here.

More and More - The Jefferson Scandal Does Appear to be a Nigerian Fraud

In late May, I did a post about the Jefferson scandal - where money was discovered in a freezer - that was allegedly "earmarked" for the Vice President of Nigeria, Abubakar Atiku.

At the time, Vice President Atiku stated "that Jefferson was name dropping and obviously committing a 419 (Nigerian Penal Code for Advance Fee) scam."

For anyone that is unfamiliar with advance fee (419):

"Nigeria is one of main sources for all sorts of Advance fee fraud (419) fraud scams. The Advance Fee scam is where a ruse is used to get a victim to part with their money (nowadays normally via wire-transfer) in anticipation of riches (or sometimes love) to come. The best known is the "Nigerian Letter," but the activity has mutated into romance, lottery, auction, check cashing, work at home and reshipping scams."

I also wondered in the post, whether or not, the EFCC (Economic Financial Crimes Commission) would investigate further. Apparently, they did with assistance from the FBI.

Brian Ross of ABC news is reporting:

Acting on information provided by the FBI, Nigerian fraud investigators have now indicted Vice President Atiku Abubakar on 14 counts of corruption, involving tens of millions of dollars allegedly diverted from government accounts.

According to Nuhu Ribadu, head of a new anti-corruption squad created by Nigeria's president, $23 million of the diverted money is still missing. Ribadu said $6.7 million of the missing funds has been traced to a U.S. company tied to Congressman Jefferson's family.

Link to Brian Ross story, here.

Meanwhile both Congressman Jefferson and Vice-President Atiku still deny everything and Mr. Jefferson -- who is running for re-election -- has yet to be charged.

In the original AP story, two of Jefferson's associates have been found guilty of bribery and admitted giving Jefferson other money to bribe African officials. The story also reports some pretty "damning" statements Jefferson made while being taped without his knowledge.

I wonder if and when he (Jefferson) will be charged - $90,000.00 in a freezer is a little hard to explain - even if it is a drop in the bucket when compared to the 6.7 million alleged by the Nigerian investigation.

The EFCC site has a lot of coverage (from a Nigerian perspective) on Mr. Atiku's woes.

Sadly enough - Congressman Jefferson is leading in the polls:

Congressman Jefferson Race Gets National Eyes And New Orleans Ayes

Of note - Jefferson has lost the support of the Louisiana Democratic Party, which seems a wise move on their part.

Nigerian fraud is legendary on the Internet - and the EFCC has had a lot of success in "taking a bite" out of it. Here is a picture of Nuhu Ribadhu, who is in charge of the EFCC and managed the Nigerian part of this investigation:

Since most fraud today has a global reach, some might argue the EFCC is stopping people from being victimized, worldwide.

You can view Mr. Ribadhu's biography, here.