RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen, have used taxpayer money for a range of small personal items they should have paid for themselves under state policy, according to spending records.
The McDonnells have billed the state for body wash, sunscreen, dog vitamins and a digestive system “detox cleanse,” the records show. They also have used state employees to run personal errands for their adult children. In the middle of a workday, for example, a staffer retrieved Rachel McDonnell’s newly hemmed pants at a tailoring shop nine miles from the governor’s mansion. Another time, a state worker was dispatched to a dry cleaner 20 miles away to pick up a storage box for Cailin McDonnell’s wedding dress.
About six months into the governor’s term, the official who oversees mansion spending told the McDonnells that they should not have charged taxpayers for a number of expenses, including deodorant, shoe repairs and dry-cleaning their children’s clothing. The official asked the McDonnells to pay the state back more than $300, which they did, and also gave them a refresher on what the state will and won’t provide for occupants of the governor’s mansion.
But since that time, state records show that the McDonnells have continued to let taxpayers pick up the tab for numerous personal items, including vitamins, nasal spray and sleep-inducing elixirs.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, The Washington Post sought records of personal expenses covered by the state over the couple’s 31/2 years in the mansion. The full cost of those items is unknown because the state released only 16 sales receipts, most of them from 2011. State records show that there were many more personal shopping trips — nine others in January 2011 alone, including two to Bed Bath & Beyond to pick up “college stuff” for the McDonnells’ children.
How many of the McDonnell children have been under 18 when these charges were made? They need to be very careful about these charges. It isn’t like a governor is a president. Presidents have all sorts of high secret service security issues. McDonnell needs to replay what he owes, even if this is small and petty.
If Republicans are going to represent themselves as the fiscal conservatives, it needs to start in the Governors Mansion. with the Governor.
I don’t mind Buying the governor’s tooth paste. His adult kids can buy their own!
Having staffers run personal errands is a very very big deal. We, the tax payer, should not be paying a staffer to run around and pick up items for the Gov’s children.
Having staffers run personal errands indicates a state of mind that I don’t like in an elected official.
I understand doing things for the governor and perhaps for his wife. Grown children? no.
Its a thin line, for sure.
Our governor is nothing but a thief! He and his wife stole food from the mansion’s kitchen, now he is charging us for his and his kids’ personal expenses. This is an outrage of monumental proportions!
And where is our esteemed Attorney General Cuccinelli in all this? How come he’s not doing his job? He needs to quit if he can’t do his job!
T
If $600 of misappropriated taxpayer cash is “monumental” to you, then I can just imagine you must have been in tremors when you heard how the IRS also abused the public trust!
Does that lone “T” at the end mean that Starry collapsed suddenly in a paroxism of rage over dog vitamins and a midnight gubernatorial sandwich? Boy, wait until he sees the bills for the upcoming Presidential African journey!
I am all for everyone trying to pull a fast one with the politics and the ‘good works” getting busted. I don’t care what their political persuassion is.
There is way too much wrong with tax free status.
All presidential enterages are expensive and have been for the past century, relatively speaking.
You know, just as a hint, its pretty hard to get someone’s goat if no one knows where their goat is tied.
Starry still manages to find the goats.
Starry is a goat herder?
Clippety clop, clippety clop. “Who’s that crossing over my bridge?”
Well, we all know how that story ended.
It’s not the amount that brings people’s down, it’s the act. Good grief.
If a state employee did the things the governor did, that would be okay, Wolverine? A little pilferage is no big deal, I guess.
Let’s cut “Governor Ultra Sound” a little slack. His political career will be ending at the end of the year. He just wants a few momentoes of his time in the spotlight to remember in his formative years.
Oh, Starry, Starry. We were just jerking your chain because of your over-the-top hyperbole, but it looks like we got your goat instead!@Starryflights
@Ivan
He just wants to take the little soap and shampoo bottle as a souvenir.
Bingo. A two-fer.
@Wolverine
You and two other posters can be guaranteed to be sucked in by anything Starry or I write. Makes me chuckle as I sit in my office with all its fishing paraphernalia.
Aw, Censored. I am truly disappointed. Here I was thinking you were a neo-Bolshevik, and all you turned out to be is a common troll. Darn.
Actually, many of us have joined the Starry-Isn’t-Even-Real Club. It’s just fun to play along sometimes.
Maybe he isn’t real. Maybe he is magic.
I’m a little disappointed in Bob. He’s so straight-laced all he can skim is a wedding reception and some toiletries. What he should have done is thrown bi-weekly BBQs for the Koch Brothers and Liberty University alumni with some $100/lb Waygu and imported never-frozen Chilean Sea Bass.
Hopefully Cooch will take a lesson here and be a little more competent about giving the finger to the other side while engaging in graft. Go hire some OFA operatives out of Chicago, they’ll show you how to work it.