“His expression was grim, his voice cracked at just the right times, and he appeared in genuine pain — all while describing his wife.
As Bob McDonnell testified in his public corruption trial Thursday, it was easy to see why he was once regarded as one of the most talented Republican politicians in the country. He didn’t simply throw his wife, Maureen, under a bus to keep himself out of prison. He laid her down gently on the road, with a pillow and blanket.”
“This wasn’t about a disintegrating marriage and an emotional, needy wife. This was a family of people who presented themselves as a shining example of all that is moral and righteous. And once Virginians trusted that they were good people and put McDonnell in office, the entire family allegedly sold off what the people of Virginia had given them — the public trust.
“All the lovesick melodrama that the first lady had a crush on [Jonnie] Williams and all the gifts and cash were about the attention has likely been manufactured by the defense lawyers. Maybe they have some evidence to back up this storyline. But when this scandal began, Bob and Maureen McDonnell showed up in court holding hands, presenting themselves as a solid, Christian couple.
“Now they are changing that narrative, walking in and out of court in separate entourages, riding different elevators, brushing past each other without even making eye contact. The staging in court borders on ridiculous. They are doing nothing more than selling Virginians another tale.”
Petula Dvorak, “Here’s Jonnie: Cue the rapt gaze from former Va. first lady Maureen McDonnell,” WaPo
The defense is total BS, but very clever. Whatever the McDonnells are paying their lawyers, they deserve more!
During testimony at the corruption trial of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen today, it came out that Mitt Romney and John McCain also took free rides on snake oil salesman Jonnie Williams’ private plane.
Former VA Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen are on trial for corruption in connection with over $165,000 in gifts and loans they got from Jonnie Williams, the head of snake oil company Star Scientific. The guy was selling “health supplements” made from tobacco!
Now Maureen’s lawyer is claiming that Maureen had romantic feelings for Williams and that her marriage had “broken down” to the point that she and the Governor were “barely on speaking terms.”
Sounds as if Governor Ultrasound wasn’t sharing his wand with his wife anymore, and she was looking elsewhere.
Esquire reports* that some of Chris Christie’s people will be indicted as soon as next month for Bridgegate — his Port Authority appointees, David Samson, Bill Baroni, and David Wildstein as well as his former chief counsel, Charlie McKenna.
Key quotes:
“Don’t underestimate what Wildstein has on Christie. And Wildstein and Baroni have both turned on Samson. If Samson doesn’t give Fishman Christie, Samson is toast.
“They’ve got him cold. He got sloppy, arrogant, and greedy. Samson will want a deal. This way, he’d get one or two years. He’d have a future on the other side. He won’t want to die in jail. [Samson is 74.]
“But Fishman is really focused on Christie. Ultimately, he believes he’ll get to the governor.”
* “Exclusive: Prosecutor Is Closing In on Gov. Christie,” Scott Raab and Lisa Brennan
Jebbie is smiling.
Mitt Romney has donated $10,000 to the legal defense fund of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who faces corruption charges.
Not that Mitt will miss the $10,000, but he could have spent it on a much worthier cause.
New Jersey’s king of conflicts of interest, David Samson, has resigned his job as Chris Christie’s corrupt Chairman of the Port Authority.
Bridgegate has brought to light numerous instances where clients of Samson’s law firm got huge contracts from the Port Authority, and Mr. Samson in turn got huge legal fees. As rocks started getting turned over, sleazy Sampson tried to recuse himself from a vote favoring one of his clients two years after the fact.
I’m glad he’s finally gone, but he needs not just to leave the Port Authority, he needs to go to jail.
“And yet, even post-Bridgegate, the prevailing interpretations of Christie fundamentally miss the mark. He has been so singularly successful at constructing his own mythology—as a reformer, a crusader, a bipartisan problem-solver—that people have never really seen him clearly. Over the past three months, I talked to more than 50 people who have crossed paths with Christie throughout his career—legislators, officials, Democrats, Republicans, lawyers, longtime New Jersey politicos. (Christie himself didn’t respond to a detailed request for comment.) The problem with Christie isn’t merely that he is a bully. It’s that his political career is built on a rotten foundation. Christie owes his rise to some of the most toxic forces in his state—powerful bosses who ensure that his vow to clean up New Jersey will never come to pass. He has allowed them to escape scrutiny, rewarded them for their support, and punished their enemies. All along, even as it looked like Christie was attacking the machine, he was really just mastering it.”
Alec MacGillis, “Chris Christie’s Entire Career Reeks,” The New Republic
The article is today’s must read.
I think Mitt’s people figured this out when they were vetting him for Veep and ran screaming.
From “Introducing the Christie Countdown Clock,” Scott Raab, Esquire:
“Follow the money. Chris Christie has practiced that principle, always. He’s not so much a career politician – he served twenty years ago as a county commissioner in horsey Morris County, New Jersey — as he is a lobbyist and fundraiser. Christie’s reward for serving as state counsel — and helping to corral a half-million dollars — for the Bush campaign in 2000 was his appointment by W. to the U.S. Attorney’s post that Christie held until 2008. It didn’t hurt that Christie’s rabbi, Bill Palatucci, another lawyer-lobbyist, ran Bush’s daddy’s New Jersey campaign in ’88, nor that Palatucci got to know W. back then, nor that he made it his business to forward Christie’s resume to Karl Rove when it was W.’s turn to name a U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Palatucci in large part created Christie and remains his consigliere — and the ultimate payoff was meant to be the White House.
“There have been countless payoffs along the way. While serving as Christie’s senior adviser when he won the governorship in 2009, Palatucci also continued to serve as a senior vice president at Community Education Centers, which runs most of New Jersey’s “halfway houses” — essentially, privatized prisons. After the inauguration, which Palatucci chaired, CEC was also the winning bidder on a 450-bed “detention center” in Essex County, a deal worth around $10 million a year. CEC was also somehow the only bidder. Palatucci stayed at CEC until late 2012, as Christie’s 2016 hopes soared toward the sun.
“This morning’s follow-the-money tip comes courtesy of The Record, a very good newspaper in North Jersey currently committing exemplary journalism on the Christie saga. It seems that back in 2011, Christie’s brother Todd started flipping real-estate in Harrison, New Jersey — within walking distance of a commuter-rail station whose $256 million renovation was approved late last summer by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
“And not for nothing: Since his election in 2010, Governor Christie has turned the Port Authority, which runs every major bridge, tunnel, seaport, and airport connecting the planet to New York City, plus the World Trade Center — not to mention the commuter railroad with the station in Harrison — from a patronage pit into something else entirely. In theory, Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo share power over the PA, but Christie’s crew owns that street corner so completely that his lieutenants had the world’s busiest bridge shut down for days — during the week that schools opened in Fort Lee and the city marked the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — before the Port’s executive director, Cuomo’s top PA dog, even caught wind of it.
“With Chris Christie, it’s always not for nothing: Right where the bridge lands in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a brand-new billion-dollar real-estate project was then in the funding stage. In Hoboken, likewise, there’s a stalled plan to develop a 40-story office-tower right across the Hudson River from New York City; Hoboken’s mayor says Christie’s capos told her that delivery of dollars for Hurricane Sandy relief depended on the mayor unstalling that little project.
“None of this is coincidence. This is where Chris Christie’s lust for power has come to die. When — and crucially, if — the New Jersey legislature and the U.S. Attorney untangle the webs that connect the governor, the Port Authority, and the billions of dollars generated by New York City real-estate development, Chris Christie’s political life is finished. One false step. One e-mail. One witness. He has lawyered up and hunkered down, but he knows it’s merely a matter of time now. That’s a dead man at the microphone.” Emphasis added.
Former GOP Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, under federal indictment along with his wife on 14 counts of corruption, rejected a plea deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to a single count for bank fraud. His wife would not have faced any charges.
The single count would have been for failing to disclose the loans from Star Scientific’s Jonny Williams on a mortgage re-fi application.
Dumb move, Bob.
Embattled Farmers 