Bill Richardson Withdraws as Commerce Secretary Designate

Posted on January 5, 2009

Well, that has to be some kind of a record for the speed of resignation over a scandal: New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has resigned the post of Commerce Secretary. And he hasn't even been confirmed yet. The governor is facing allegations in a pay for play scandal.

With an almost audible sigh of relief barely two weeks before his inauguration Obama, in a printed statement that won't provide archival video footage, said he accepted the resignation-before-actually-taking-office "with deep regret."
And 16 days before becoming president, Obama sought to turn the PR smudge and federal probe of Richardson, his first Latino Cabinet pick, and his government into a patriotic plus: "It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the Cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time."
It may also be a measure of the inadequacy of the new Obama administration's vetting process that it somehow missed or ignored the ongoing and widely-reported grand jury testimony over alleged incidents in 2004 in New Mexico, part of a broad federal investigation of selling state services. It would seem to be an obvious something for the experienced Richardson to include when completing the 63-page questionaire given to potential Obama appointees.
While everyone was enjoying their holidays and watching Obama's Hawaiian vacation, word continued to leak that Richardson and his gubernatorial aides are under investigation by a federal grand jury probing the possibility that they steered state bond business to a Beverly Hills firm in return for $100,000 in donations to two Richardson PACs back in 2004.

They're calling the scandal "Billygate" which has to be one of the funniest gates, ever.

Obama dumped Richardson as fast as he could, but it seems quite odd that the vetting team didn't know about the scandal. After all, it was in every major newspaper. Apparently Richardson didn't think it was worth mentioning to the vetting team.