Obama's cabinet choice meets first casualty

President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet selection met its first casualty when his choice of commerce secretary, New Mexico's governor Bill Richardson, withdrew from being considered for the post, as a federal investigation is underway regarding one of his political donors landing up with profitable contracts during his tenure.

The high profile New Mexico governor was the first Hispanic to be nominated by Obama in his cabinet although he had run for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, dropping out in favour of Obama and was the energy secretary and UN ambassador during Bill Clinton's Presidency.

Both Obama and Richardson issued a statement saying that the nominated commerce secretary would withdraw and continue with his job as governor of New Mexico as the investigation would not be over when Obama takes office this month on 20 January.

"Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the president-elect and his administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done," Richardson said in a statement.
 
A federal grand jury is investigating as to how Beverly Hills-based financial services company CDR Financial Products, which had donated $100,000 to two of Richardson's political action committees in 2005 and contributed $10,000 for his election campaign, was awarded two consulting state contracts worth approx $1.4 million.
 
Obama's transition team knew of the FBI investigation on the donor company which had started August last year but was not aware that Richardson himself was also under investigation until after Obama announced his nomination for commerce secretary on 3 December.
 
According to media reports citing a source identified with the investigation said that FBI agents who were making background check on Richardson for the job of commerce secretary had told the Obama's transition team that the New Mexico Governor was under the scanner by the FBI for a financial scandal in his home state of New Mexico and was currently being probed by a grand jury in Albuquerque.

Richardson said that he had not done anything wrong and he and his administration had acted properly in all matters and that this investigation would prove him right but it would not be right on his part to delay the confirmation process as the inquiry may take weeks or months.

Richardson's withdrawal is not the first that Obama has faced as he nears the date to take over as the first non-white US President. He had also faced embarrassment when Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, under investigation by the FBI for trying to sell the president-elect's Senate seat.

Obama had promised to include a large number of Latinos in his administration as nearly 67 per cent of them had voted for him in the residential election that won the Democrats won in key states of New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and even Florida where for the first time a Democrat got a huge chunk of the Latino vote.