It must have been a heck of a Christmas party, because it could lead to serious consequences if it’s proven that this state governor overstepped her legal bounds.
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is accused of ordering police dispatchers during a phone recording to cancel any police response to her rowdy party. She also demanded to know who lodged the criminal complaint but was repeatedly rebuffed.
Now, a recording from a police sergeant’s belt recorder suggests New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez was inebriated the night officers responded to a noise complaint at a downtown hotel where she was hosting a holiday party.
Santa Fe police released the recording Tuesday, shedding more light on the Dec. 13 incident that has resulted in a flood of social media posts criticizing the Republican governor for her response to the situation.
A clerk at the Eldorado Hotel and Spa initially called police to report noise and rowdy behavior.
In the latest recording, the governor tells a hotel employee and the police sergeant that complaints about bottles being thrown from a balcony had been resolved.
Martinez’s speech is halting and lilting as she describes the situation in an upstairs hotel room after the ballroom gala.
“Five hours ago there was somebody that said, ‘Get out of the room, do not be doing what you are doing,'” Martinez can be heard saying. “There were bottles being thrown over. And we said get the hell out and stop.
“But now the complaint is bottles are being thrown over the balcony and I am in there. There are no bottles being thrown over.”
Political opponents have accused the governor of bullying dispatchers and police while displaying an above-the-law attitude.
The incident also threatens to freeze Martinez’s rising influence within her party as chair of the Republican Governors Association, a fundraising arm of the GOP. She was appointed to the post last month.
The latest audio was captured by a recorder that Santa Fe officers wear on their belts. They do not wear video cameras.
After listening to Martinez, the police sergeant and a hotel security guard apparently step aside and discuss what to do next.
“I really don’t know what to do with the situation because I can tell she is a little … ,” the security guard says before pausing.
“Inebriated,” said Sgt. Anthony Tapia, finishing the sentence.
“Yes,” the guard said.
Political observers say the recordings reflect poorly on Martinez and her allies because of recent indications of corruption within local party ranks.
As the dispatch tapes first began to circulate last week, former Secretary of State Dianna Duran was being booked into a county jail to serve a month-long sentence for embezzling campaign funds to fuel a gambling addiction.
“That creates sort of a double-punch for the electorate,” said Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico. “It looks really bad, the arrogance and the cronyism that’s going on there.”
Federal investigators have been looking into whether the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department may have conducted audits in retaliation against officials who ran afoul of the Martinez administration. There have been no charges or formal allegations of wrongdoing.
Martinez also confirmed in November a federal investigation into fundraising activities by campaign consultant Jay McCleskey, who oversaw the governor’s campaigns. And a grand jury has subpoenaed documents from Martinez’s previous tenure as Dona Ana County district attorney.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Charge the governor and put her in jail. She is no different than anyone else.
All Politicians are corrupt.
We need to get rid of all of them.
Without a doubt !! Start at the top and work your way down to the lowest of the low. Lock this lawbreaker up and any of her “henchmen”….Do the same with the “clown” — my apologies to “real” clowns — in the White House and all his minions And then over to the Congress and Senate…..I so tire of these phonies talking out of both sides of their mouths…..while lining their pockets from special interests.
Gov. Martinez isn’t above the law. Her apparent lack of wisdom may harm her rise in the Republican Party. That’s how it should be. I’m tired of politicians who think they are above the law or who feel entitled to a different standard than the regular citizens.
It’s Mexico, new or not.
Sounds just like all the other crooks in our goverment
So…Do we Republicans now have our own “Slick Britches” Hlilery who believes she can break a law and believes/knows there are no consequences???
Sounds no different than many police parties I have attended. When there aren’t police to police the police or political officials, it is utter chaos!
The one thing that caught my eye was the fact that she was identified as a “Republican” and not as a Mexican or a member of the or Girl Scouts of America. Was she doing something as a Republican or something that no Democrat has ever done? What does a persons party affiliation has to do with a drunk governor? Are they trying to say that all Republicans are drunks? There is just too much finger pointing going on. It would appear that honest and integrity is not in our government nor the people elected. It seems as if they want to take all they can get and then take our part also. It’s a damn good think that I will never be president because I would pass a law that if any politician lies, embezzled, or contrives to disrupt our country, that they would be arrested and would serve some serious jail time, and I don’t mean in one of our “cupcake” prisons.
It is how the media reports things. Kind of like Hollywood and the TV networks Always portraying the conservatives as the corrupt party/politicians when in reality corruption runs about 10/1 in favor of Democrats.
If she were a Democrap we would never have heard about it, when I first started to read the article I knew it had to be a Democrap, guess I was wrong, she needs to be arrested, we all make mistakes, but in obuma’s world you get a free get out of jail card and get rewarded.