McScoundrel du jour

Wednesday…the gift that keeps on giving.  Bobby McScoundrel has his daily announcement:

Washingtonpost.com:

RICHMOND — Gov. Robert F. McDonnell said Wednesday that his daughter had reimbursed a Virginia businessman for the $15,000 catering tab he picked up for her June 2011 wedding.

McDonnell (R) disclosed the repayment while speaking briefly with reporters after an unrelated event at the state Capitol.

His comment came one day after he said that he intended to return all gifts that Star Scientific chief executive Jonnie R. Williams Sr. had provided to him and his family. It was not initially clear if the gifts he referred to on Tuesday included the payment for wedding catering since at times, McDonnell had talked about returning “tangible gifts.”

The McDonnell family has been under scrutiny since late March, when The Washington Post reported that the governor and first lady Maureen McDonnell had promoted Star’s nutritional supplement about the time Williams paid for catering at Cailin McDonnell’s wedding. The catering tab had become symbolic of the larger gift scandal that has been hanging over McDonnell’s last months in office.

Federal and state prosecutors are probing the McDonnells’ relationship to Williams, who also provided a $6,500 Rolex watch for the governor, a $15,000 Bergdorf Goodman shopping trip for the first lady and a $10,000 engagement gift to another daughter, Jeanine McDonnell.  The governor confirmed on Tuesday that Jeanine McDonnell had returned the $10,000.

Last week, McDonnell released a written statement apologizing for the scandal and saying that he had repaid Williams for $120,000 in loans: $70,000 to a real estate company owned by the governor and his sister and $50,000 to first lady Maureen McDonnell.

The governor has said that Williams and his company received no state benefits in exchange for the gifts. He has also said that he and his wife did nothing to promote Star or its dietary supplement, Antabloc, that they would not do for any state-based enterprise.

So help me understand something.  If the McDonnell family has all this money to be paying people back, why were they mooching off others in the first place?   Most newlyweds don’t have an extra $15k to toss around.  Where did the daughter get the money?  Is there yet another slush fund that some unknown, unheard of donor is supplying them with?  To hear Maureen McDonnell talk, she was on the verge of having to buy her inauguration gown at the Salvation Army surplus store.  Now she can do payback?  Being a first lady of a state, especially Virginia, must be a pretty lucrative business.

Stay tuned.  This McScoundrel business is like reading the funnies–first thing you do when you open the newspaper is dive to the funnies to see what’s happening.   This situation is definitely the comics.