POLL: SHOULD GOVERNOR MCDONNELL RESIGN?

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$120,000.  ^[2]  That’s what the Washington Post has tonight in unlisted gifts:

The money to the corporation and Maureen McDonnell brings to $145,000 the amount Williams gave to assist the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012 — funds that are now at the center of federal and state investigations.

Damn…

Williams, the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific Inc., also provided a $10,000 check in December as a present to McDonnell’s eldest daughter, Jeanine, intended to help defray costs at her May 2013 wedding ^[3], the people said.

…bringing the grand total to two McDonnell children having received wedding gifts.

The money went from a trust, controlled by Williams, to MoBo Real Estate Partners, a limited-liability corporation formed in 2005 by McDonnell and his sister, the sources said.

McDonnell viewed the payments to MoBo and to his wife as loans and not gifts, according to three people familiar with the transactions. State law requires elected officials to disclose their personal loans but not loans made to their corporate interests.

I have no words for that.

“The rules that I’m following have been rules that have been in place for decades,” McDonnell said Tuesday on a Norfolk radio show.

Anyone buying that?

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“I have been following the rules that have been in place for decades!  There are no Americans in Baghdad!”

Now here’s the asskicker, folks — truly a 10.5 shoe sized wedge right in the backside:

Virginia law allows elected officials to accept gifts of any size, including money, provided they annually disclose those worth at least $50. The law does not require the disclosure of gifts given to members of an elected official’s immediate family, nor gifts provided by relatives or “personal friends.”

McDonnell has said he considers Williams, whom he met shortly before his 2009 campaign for governor, to be a “family friend.” He has said the catering at the 2011 wedding was a gift to his daughter and did not need to be disclosed.

*drums fingers on desk*

One person familiar with MoBo’s finances indicated that corporate records show the governor and his sister agreed to a low-interest loan with Williams. Terms of the loan dictated that they would make no payments for three years but return the $70,000 by 2015.

*bites lip while drumming fingers*

That person indicated that MoBo had trouble keeping up with expenses after the collapse of the real estate market and had accepted three previous loans, two from McDonnell’s family in 2007 and 2008 and another from a family friend in 2010.

He indicated that the loan to the family friend has been satisfied and the loans from the family member have been partially repaid.