From the Washington Post:
IN THE end, it didn’t take long. After months of legal wrangling and public spinning; after five weeks of courtroom testimony; after two hours of a judge’s instructions in the legal niceties of the case, the jury in Robert F. and Maureen McDonnell’s trial knew public corruption when it saw it. Scarcely 48 hours after they got the case, the jurors rendered their verdict with no minced words: The McDonnells are guilty.
Until today, too many politicians in Richmond had convinced themselves of the commonwealth’s alleged exceptionalism — the supposed civility and ethical uprightness of the so-called Virginia Way. Convinced of its own abiding rectitude, Virginia’s political class has refused to enact laws with teeth to hold elected officials to decent standards of conduct in carrying out the people’s business. At the least, the McDonnell verdict should disabuse the old boys of their smug self-righteousness and their conviction that the state’s egregious absence of laws on public ethics is somehow all right. At the very least, it should end, once and for all, the common, cosseted view that legislation will not eradicate moral obtuseness. Of course it won’t; but a vacuum of laws will only encourage it.
Even after a year of lurid disclosures of the McDonnells’ outrageous conduct, lawmakers refused to take ethics seriously. They enacted new ethics laws so watered down as to be meaningless, exempting intangible gifts (such as meals, trips, vacations and tickets) from already squishy limits on giving to officeholders. Lawmakers authorized an ethics commission so toothless that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) vetoed it. The state’s attorney general, Mark Herring, got it right after the verdict Thursday. “If there was somehow still any doubt,” he said, “it should be crystal clear that the people of Virginia deserve real ethics reform that will turn off the spigot of gifts, tickets, and trips that opens the door to abuse and undermines public confidence in our government.”
The McDonnells’ tearful astonishment at the trial’s outcome reflects their own hubris as well as the delusional attitudes in Richmond. Presented with a generous plea deal months ago, Mr. McDonnell rejected it. He was convinced he had broken no law and done nothing very exceptional for Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the favor-seeking businessman who lavished the governor and his family with gifts, loans and vacations. Just “routine . . . access to government,” Mr. McDonnell insisted.The jurors didn’t buy it, and they shouldn’t have. Repeatedly prosecutors showed that the then-governor performed favors and granted access to Mr. Williams and his company directly after he had enjoyed the fruits of the businessman’s extraordinary generosity, which included tens of thousands of dollars in sweetheart loans. Mr. McDonnell, guilty on 11 of 14 counts of corruption, disgraced himself, humiliated Virginia and now faces the real possibility of prison time. In all likelihood, his once-promising political career is finished. Now it is up to Virginia lawmakers to shake themselves from their gauzy complacency and prove to Virginians that they have absorbed the lessons of the McDonnell debacle. If they fail to act, they will only compound Virginia’s disgrace.
The Washington Post is correct. Virginia’s lawmakers did nothing last year to correct the complete lack of ethics laws in Virginia. Did they think they and their cronies were invincible? I don’t believe the McDonnells are evil, scheming people. I see them as people who operated within the system according to the laws that were before them, or lack thereof. Unfortunately for the McDonnells, Virginia doesn’t exist in a state of total isolation. Lack of Virginia laws obviously will not shield the McDonnells or any other politician from poor judgement becoming criminal. It’s past time for Virginia to just get over itself. It is not a magical kingdom where good so permeates the capital city that all who come to govern are cleansed of any unintentional wrong-doing, misdeeds, or public mistrust. Current lawmakers must correct this situation immediately by legislating new ethics laws for public officials. A total overhaul of our current way of doing business is imperative.
There is one ethics law in place that is going to have a big play here. Back in 2011, Gov McDonnell signed a law that says if one is convicted of a felony, they lose their VA pension. This is going to bite him in the rear for the rest of his life.
Mostly, he just got himself in over his head financially and had to resort to getting free cash to get himself out of the mess. He wanted to own the beach houses and enjoy a few expensive vacations – but this is how corruption starts. And previously he was the AG – he should have known better. Oh, a gift or loan to my daughter or one-half owned LLC is not a gift to me, wink wink. He never returned any of it until it became an issue.
Where were his legal advisors? Apparently not shouting loudly enough.
Is that Virginia pension or Veterans Administration?
Another thing he did was to allow those convicted of a felony to get their voting rights back. Terry MacAuliffe made it even easier. McDonnell got that ball rolling though.
In the end, politics should not be a blood sport. I feel very sad for him and his entire family. I don’t think he set out to be a crook. I just think he used very bad judgement while living in a fish bowl.
My dislike of Maureen is even turning to pity. Yes she was an evil bitch. She also had to live in a gold fish bowl and probably has been left holding the bag alone for too many years. Maybe it turned her.
But where was the Virginia legislature last year?
His Virginia Pension.
Note to self, the my wife was a crazy b* and a nut bag defense is a non-starter for future reference. Talk about a war on women – the things that was said about her should never have had to have been aired.
I can’t begin to articulate why *I*, the resident feminist, am not horribly offended by what what said about her. I just am not. I think its because she abused her staff horribly. I have no sympathy for that from either gender.
I agree that the McDonnells behaved badly. If a public official contemplates a behavior or transaction that he would not want the public to know about, then he probably should not do it. There is no getting around the fact that the large gifts accepted by the McDonnells gave the appearance of impropriety.
A new law that forbids public servants in Virginia from accepting gifts larger than a certain value makes sense. That would remove the ambiguity that politicians use to enrich themselves.
My understanding of corruption, however, is that for a public servant to be guilty, he must (try to) use the powers of his office to benefit someone in exchange for cash/gifts. I fail to see what Johnnie Williams got out of all this. I have not seen any evidence that he profited from the gifts that he provided. His testimony almost seemed like a vendetta against the McDonnells, perhaps because he expected more than he got and felt cheated by them?
I think he had access to people, places and things he wouldn’t have ordinarily had. Luncheons at the gov’s mansion, the first lady on his arm, etc. I agree, he didn’t get much but he got a little more than he probably should have.
I guess what everyone got looked bad but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it corruption–not in the sense of the word that I know.
Stupid is as stupid does. Perhaps this is the danger of having qualified business people – managers – in public office vs political hacks. Their should be a mandatory ethics training for all incoming elected representatives – like that given annually to Federal employees. If they had directed the gifts to his campaign fund or the national committee and then expensed that fund all would have been ok.