If you want to know where the wheels came of with the McDonnells? It was this moment right here:
“Gov wants to know why nothing has developed w studies after [Williams] gave $200,000,” Maureen wrote to the governor’s policy adviser on Feb. 10. “Gov wants to get this going w VCU MCV. Pls let us know what u find out after we return.”
Just before midnight on Feb. 16, the governor e-mailed Williams about their plan to have Williams transfer Star stock he owned into a brokerage account that could help pay the McDonnell beach house mortgages. “Know u have been slammed. Do u want me to call your lawyer on the certificates and the documents. Thanks for all your help. Gov.”
Six minutes later, the governor sent an e-mail to his policy adviser: “Pls see me about anatabloc issues at VCU and UVA. Thx”
This is an article you’re going to want to read if you really want to understand why Bob and Maureen McDonnell are in such hot water.
In July, the first family was off to Williams’s resort home at Smith Mountain Lake, as a Star staffer was delivering Williams’s Ferrari to the house so the governor could drive it. On the last night of the vacation, July 31, Maureen texted Williams a picture of the governor driving the Ferrari, and the same night, the governor e-mailed Hazel, the secretary of health.
“[I] would like to have [one of your deputies] attend a short briefing at the mansion about 10 am with first lady on the Star Scientific anatablock [sic] trials planned in va at vcu and uva,” he wrote.
Sitting together before the Aug. 1 briefing, Maureen McDonnell admired Williams’s Rolex watch and eventually asked him to buy one for her so she could give it to her husband, prosecutors have alleged. The chief executive asked her whether a public official would feel comfortable wearing one but agreed to buy it. He had it engraved per her instructions: “71st Governor of Virginia.”
On Aug. 30, the McDonnells hosted the Anatabloc product launch at the mansion.
There is no defense for this, and the Washington Post is showing a keen interest in making sure the details are in full public view.
The bad news? The state indictments haven’t come out yet.
The worse news? Wait until Jonnie Williams actually testifies.
…and this is just on the criminal side of the house. The article in the Washingtonian with former chef Todd Schnieder let’s on that there are more personal details of a personal nature that have not come forward yet:
These days, Schneider has a lot less on his mind. Nearly two years after leaving the mansion, he’s back in the food business and recently got a job as an event planner.
Not that he expects to be throwing parties forever.
For one thing, there’s a book in the works. It’ll be about his tangle with the McDonnells, and Schneider hopes it’ll bring in enough cash to cover $100,000 in legal bills. He can already see the movie version, with Meryl Streep as Maureen and Billy Bob Thornton as the governor.
He also says he has additional, and equally unflattering, info on the governor. He plans on keeping it private—unless Virginia comes after him again.
For all the rancor and the “restoration fund” nonsense (and who is funding that, anyhow?) trying to attack the character of anyone who seems to turn their nose just slightly askew at all this towards the McDonnells, you have to ask yourself — who took the $165,000 in gifts, again? Surely it wasn’t the public trust. For one, it’s tiresome to watch everyone else’s integrity get questioned by a group that believes McDonnell’s actions were within the boundaries of ethical behavior. It’s condescending, brutish, and frankly entirely in keeping with the prosecution’s argument.
Some closure would be nice, but we can’t even have that so long as the denials persist.
What a bad dream.
