A Los Angeles Jewish day school official is at the center of an investigation that forced Bill Richardson to withdraw from consideration for a Cabinet post.

David Rubin, board chairman of the Orthodox Yavneh Hebrew Academy, is also the CEO of CDR Holdings, which is under federal grand jury investigation for an alleged “pay-to-play” deal to acquire a New Mexico government contract worth $1.48 million.

Rubin and his company reportedly donated at least $110,000 to three political committees formed by Richardson, most of it around the time that CDR received the contract in 2004. President-elect Barack Obama picked Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, to be his secretary of commerce, but Richardson withdrew from consideration on Sunday.

Media reports have noted that Rubin has donated millions of dollars to liberal and Jewish causes over the years. Among his other political contributions over the past decade were two $5,000 donations to the Women’s Pro-Israel National PAC in 1998 and 1999.

DAY SCHOOL EXECUTIVE PART OF RICHARDSON PROBE, JTA, 1/8/09, http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/06/1002011/day-school-president-part-of-richardson-investigation

 

PROFILE: BILL RICHARDSON 

To longtime observers of Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor’s withdrawal as nominee as commerce secretary in President-Elect Barack Obama’s cabinet came as no surprise.

A grand jury investigation into how the California firm CDR that contributed to Mr Richardson’s political activities won a lucrative state government contract may have for a time ended his hopes of a return to Washington. But his long and impressive career has been punctuated by flirtations with controversy.

A colourful, vivacious character, he has in the words of one critic “always been only a step or two ahead of trouble”.

He was forced to admit that he had for decades exaggerated his prowess as a student baseball player. During his failed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, he was discovered to have embellished a story about a conversation with a soldier killed in Iraq.

A gun-owning Democrat, he was endorsed by the conservative National Rifle Association and was scorned by liberal Democrats for sitting on the board of several major oil companies after he left Bill Clinton’s administration, and for joining the lobbying firm run by Henry Kissinger.

His behaviour towards women has often raised eyebrows. His deputy governor, Diane Denish, was quoted in the Albuquerque Journal claiming that she avoided standing or sitting near the governor because of his “annoying” physical manner. The governor, she said last year, “pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg.”

His engaging personality has however opened doors throughout his career.

As a Congressman, a special envoy for Mr Clinton, UN ambassador and energy secretary, he has always impressed, without rising to the top tier of government officials. Where most had failed before him, in the 1990s he succeeded in doing business with the paranoid North Korean regime.

Aged 61, he combines a competitiveness and political savvy with a down-to-earth style that often disarms adversaries, associates say.

He also has a sharp eye for the main chance. After dropping out of the nomination race, he endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

His apparent act of betrayal left the Clinton camp fuming. James Carville, a leading Clintonite, dubbed Mr Richardson “Judas Iscariot”.

If Bill Richardon is formally charged in the “pay to play” scandal in New Mexico, such insults will prove to the least of his problems.

PROFILE: BILL RICHARDSON, Telegraph.Co.Uk, 01/06/09, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4142824/Profile-Bill-Richardson.html

Considering PEBO has already thrown the misogynist, sexist turncoat under the bus, wouldn’t it be ironic if Rod Blagojevich walked away unscathed and Richardson got the boot?