January 25th, 2013 was the day that Bob McDonnell’s fate was sealed.
The allegations surrounded one Kevin Ring, an associate of Jack Abramoff. The decision by the court in United States v. Ring held that even an implicit offer of a quid pro quo — that is quite literally, something for something — was sufficient enough to charge someone for honest services fraud.
In short, one only needs a quid and a pro. No quo necessary.
The problem with this, of course, is that an unscrupulous (or even a scrupulous) lobbyist can ply a lawmaker with gifts, invitations, and trips without having the slightest of intentions, and should the lawmaker act on that lobbyist’s interests, in today’s climate that is the very definition of honest services fraud.
So who gets swept in? Governor McDonnell took over $177,000 in gifts from Jonnie Williams, reported the same with one notable omission, and gave Williams precisely nothing in exchange.
That’s honest services fraud.
Former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli operated under a similar rubric with Williams — including a Thanksgiving dinner — and reported his gifts.
Hundreds of other lobbyists and elected officials accept trips, gifts, lunches, even a cup of coffee from individuals and lobbyists all the time, nevermind campaign contributions from special interests, heartfelt individuals, and citizen organizations looking to band together and influence civic discourse.
In today’s climate, can we think of even one scenario where a legislator at any level of government would take even so much as an offer for a cup of coffee from a constituent?
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was recently released from the Russian gulag system in December 2013. The circumstances are different, but the parallels between
Khodorkovsky writes a series of vignettes in his recently published My Fellow Prisoners. Short book, but one well worth reading given the parallels of politically motivated prosecutions.
In it, Khodorkovsky reflects on the Russian prison system, its investigators and informers, those who escape justice and those who feel the hammer fall the hardest:
And what happens to those of us who are too frightened to stand up for our rights, who adapt and hide behind a mask of submissiveness? Does this protective mask not morph to become our real face? Do we not gradually turn into slaves, silent and unresponsive, but prepared to commit any abomination if so ordered from on high?
McDonnell can be blamed for many failings. None of those failings rise to the level of criminal punishment.
But what does it say for the current nebulous climate insofar as where the law is applied? Why is the same activity that Governors Warner and Kaine engaged in permissible while Governor McDonnell is targeted? What of Mr. Williams, who is able to testify to his deeds without being punished? What of the dozens of others who did business with Jonnie Williams, only to find themselves breathing easy on the outside?
Perhaps, one might argue, the solution is to sharpen the laws yet again. But when the goalposts move and words no longer mean things in the wake of King v. Burwell, what trust do any of us have in a system that makes up the rule of law as it goes along?
Virginia’s politicians are no more or less corrupt than their predecessors. The vast majority are good and honorable individuals seeking to make an imperfect world a little less so.
Our problem today is that the rules are set up in just such a way where powerful interests — should they choose — can target just about anyone they please, with even the mere allegation of malfeasance sometimes being enough to convict, if not a courtroom, then at the very least in the public square.
This is the problem that McDonnell finds himself in today, a climate that Virginia lawmakers all find themselves in. It’s not our politicians that are unethical or corrupt, it’s the system we ourselves have thrown the people’s representatives into. Blame the coterie of lawyers masquerading as politicians for crafting a system where only the high priests can navigate the system… and perish the boat rockers who try to change it.
After all, how do you catch a criminal? Make everything a crime.
