Albuquerque Ethics Brings Down State and Federal Officials

Those who have been closely following the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration may know that one of them involves a U.S. Attorney who did not move fast enough with an investigation into possible kickbacks relating to the building of a county courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Yesterday, according to an article in the Albuquerque Tribune, a former Albuquerque mayor, and two others, pleaded guilty in connection with this investigation, and the new U.S. Attorney indicted the former state senate president, Manny Aragon (a Democrat), considered the most powerful politician in the state in the 1990s. Also indicted were a contractor and the court administrator and his wife.

Municipal ethics has its way of pulling in people at all levels of government, doesn't it.