Williams takes the stand

The real star of the McDonnell trial — former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams — made his first appearance on the stand Wednesday. Williams will offer more testimony today. What he has put forward so far, though, appears quite damning:

The prosecution spent a lot of time focused on Maureen. Williams said that the then First Lady told him the McDonnells were on the verge of bankruptcy and she hinted that if he was able to help them, they could help him.

Williams had a much different take on his relationship with the first family than then they have often described.

“He is a politician, and I am a businessman,” Williams said describing how he felt about the former Governor. When asked directly by the prosecutor if he even considered Governor McDonnell a friend, Williams replied “no”.

Perhaps the most damning testimony was Williams alluding to the fact that McDonnell knew about all the money Williams was giving Maureen.

“He’s the bread winner and I am not writing his wife any checks without him knowing it,” said Williams.

Now you know why the Justice department gave Williams transactional immunity. They want him to lay everything bare, in the plainest terms, in order to put the McDonnells away.

And Jonnie gets to walk.

The looming question is whether anything he says can be believed. As Paul Goldman and I wrote in the Washington Post back in January:

Williams’s background is not widely known, even today, in Virginia. But he has been on the federal government’s radar since the 1980s, according to extensive reporting on his business ventures that appeared in the Boston Globe at the time. And a 1981 story in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star describes Williams as a young “super salesman” and owner of an optician shop who suddenly “departed for parts unknown leaving in his wake a host of debts and countless pairs of unclaimed eyeglasses.”

Prior to the McDonnell probe, Star Scientific faced a federal investigation that was potentially financially ruinous. This securities probe has seemingly stopped.

Our research confirms the observation, made in a Post report, that the “key question for prosecutors is who is most believable about the interactions between the governor and Williams.”

Williams says it was all business. The McDonnells say it was all personal (very personal).

The McDonnell defense will work very hard to destroy Williams’ credibility, bringing to light every bit of his past.

That’s to be expected. But it automatically raises the question as to why the McDonnells would have anything at all to do with such a character. Bad judgement? Hubris? Ignorance? Or were they just as shady as Jonnie?

Jim Hoeft took to the airwaves to discuss the Williams testimony and echoes the above sentiment, but also asks the relevant question: Was any of this gift giving illegal and did any of translate into benefits for Williams?

In Jim’s view. the government doesn’t have a strong case because it has no “smoking gun” and that Williams did, indeed, change his tune once immunity was waved in front of him. Not to mention, Jim says, that nothing really new has been presented from the indictment.

Hoeft also notes that the emotional bombshell dropped by Maureen McDonnell on day one might not hold the jurors for six weeks. While Hoeft thinks it’s shocking to think of the McDonnells as having an estranged relationship, he wonders if the nuances and, perhaps, even boredom of the trial might overcome the initial emotional tone set by Maureen and Cailin McDonnell.

“This trial could end today with Williams testimony,” said Hoeft. “Unless, of course, the former governor wants to also take the stand.”

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Jim will also be on WVEC-13 (ABC-Norfolk) tonight at 5:30 pm with Vivian Paige to discuss the case.

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