The long awaited trial has begun and dammed if the family values, ultra religious republican couple Bob and Maureen have turned out to be as fake as a three dollar bill. Turns out Maureen had the hots for Jonnie Williams and the McDonnell's mariage was falling apart. Bob and Maureen didn't spend any time together, they just faked it for the cameras. That's the republican way, fake it for the cameras and pretend everything is on the up and up.
I should not be shocked. Most all family values republicans fall apart if you take a second look. The family values bit is just politics for the religious right and church going public, just one more GOP trick played on the all too willing to believe anything republican voter.
By Larry O'Dell and Alan Suderman
The corruption trial for ex-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife plunged Tuesday into the sordid details of the couple's marriage and the former first's lady's "crush" on a businessman accused of lavishing them with gifts and cash in exchange for promoting his company.
The McDonnells are charged in a 14-count indictment with accepting more than $165,000 in loans, designer clothes, vacations and a Rolex watch from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of dietary supplements maker Star Scientific. If convicted, they could face decades in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Aber said during opening statements that McDonnell and his wife betrayed the public's trust by lining their pockets with "secret gifts and cash." McDonnell, a once-rising star in the Republican party who left office in January, had a duty "not to sell the power and
influence of his office to the highest bidder," Aber said.
"Mr. and Mrs. McDonnell knew what Mr. Williams wanted and gave it to him," she said.
Attorneys for the McDonnells told jurors the governor did what any of his predecessors would do for a Virginia-based company. They questioned Williams' character and said the couple couldn't have been scheming together because their marriage was falling apart.
Maureen McDonnell's lawyer, William A. Burck, said the former first lady was "duped" by Williams into thinking he cared for her. Williams filled a
"void" in her life, and she and her husband were pretending to be a happy couple although their marriage had "broken down" long ago, Burck said.
"They were barely on speaking terms," Burck said.
A lawyer for the former governor said Bob McDonnell will testify on his own behalf and will read an email in which he begged his wife to work things out with him.
"It fell upon blind eyes and deaf ears because that evening, Maureen was distracted by other interests," defense attorney John Brownlee said.
Brownlee said the government went to great lengths looking for people to say bad things about his client, even sending investigators to interview former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife, and "came up empty." McDonnell was widely mentioned as a possible Romney running mate in 2012, but passed over for unknown reasons.
Brownlee said the long hours Bob McDonnell spent at work fueled Maureen McDonnell's anger and resentment.
"She hated him for not being around, for serving the public night and day and not having anything left for her," Brownlee said, adding that the void
allowed an outsider to "invade and poison their marriage."
The McDonnells arrived separately at federal court over the past two days, a sharp contrast to the united front they showed when they were indicted 10 days after he left office in January. Before the trial, they often held hands in the courthouse and pretended to be a loving couple.
The McDonnells' attorneys sought to have them tried separately, but the judge refused. The former first lady's attorneys have suggested that she was not an elected or paid official and therefore not tied to the same scrutiny as her husband.
Burck said Williams and Maureen frequently exchanged text messages and phone calls, and that Williams often visited the Executive Mansion.
Burck said the pair had a relationship that "some people would consider inappropriate" and that one potential witness may describe Williams as Maureen McDonnell's "favorite playmate." He did not indicate if their relationship was physical.
Joseph E. diGenova, a former federal prosecutor not affiliated with the case, said the defense team is airing details of the couple's troubled marriage as a way "to create some sympathy" and show that Bob McDonnell could have been unaware of the dealings between Maureen McDonnell and Jonnie Williams.
The strategy could backfire, he said.
"There's always a risk the jury will think it's a ploy," diGenova said.
Aber, the prosecutor, told the jury that the luxury gifts and frequent text messaging between Williams and Maureen McDonnell were "always just a
business relationship and nothing more."
She showed the jury a photo of Bob McDonnell, smiling broadly and wearing sunglasses, driving Williams' Ferrari during a vacation at Williams' lake house.
Legal experts have said one of the key questions for the jury will be whether McDonnell believed it was criminal to accept the gifts while supporting
Williams' efforts to grow a Virginia business. The former governor is accused of setting up a meeting between Williams and a state health official,
hosting a product launch reception at the Executive Mansion and attending a dinner and seminar aimed at persuading doctors to recommend a Star
Scientific product.
Brownlee said McDonnell, whose campaign slogan was "Bob's for Jobs," spoke favorably of all Virginia businesses.
"Bob McDonnell eats Virginia ham, he drinks Virginia wine, and my guess is if he smoked he'd smoke Virginia cigarettes," Brownlee said.
Brownlee attacked Williams' credibility, calling him a "master manipulator" who deceived the McDonnells and the government to receive immunity. Williams may have illegally sold $10 million worth of Star Scientific shares to a friend in secret, according to Burck.
So it goes, Mitt may have passed on Bob due to the difficulty of concealing his run around wife and broken marriage. Will this trial turn Bob and Maureen into federal prisoners for the next couple of decades?
Anyway republican voters are scouting candidates for their next family values christian candidate to throw their votes at.
Right Wing Conservative SCAM PACs
Faced with the horrors of Obamacare, the impending threat of a $10 minimum wage, and the chance to take back the Senate from Democrats, conservative donors may be feeling especially generous this election season. And, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, they have an abundance of options of how to best funnel money to their preferred candidates. With eight months to go til Election Day, 942 super PACs have already popped up, raising more than $140 million thus far.
But as these political groups solicit millions of dollars from donors big and small, not all of them are using their donations for their purported purpose.
A ThinkProgress review of Federal Election Commission PAC data found that several large political action committees and super PACs are spending most of their donations on “overhead” expenditures, with miniscule percentages going to actual political candidates.
In 2009, Iraq War veteran and unsuccessful Congressional candidate Kieran Michael Lalor (R) registered a political action committee called Iraq Veterans for Congress. Its stated aim: to “Recruit, Fund and Elect to Congress conservative Republican Iraq Veterans.” But while the committee raised and spent more than $800,000 before the 2010 elections, just $48,000 (less than 6 percent) of its most went to donations to candidates, as most of its funds went to outside fundraisers and printing shops. Now called the Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC, the committee continues to be a prime example of a breed of PACs that spend a huge amount on political consultants and little on actually political action.
Though its website has been defunct since late last year, Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC reported $469,967.46 in 2013 expenses — just $9,000 of that (under 2 percent) on candidate contributions. While it is not unusual for political committees to make more of their campaign expenditures in even-numbered years, when most elections take place, the committee’s -$14,359.04 cash-on-hand total would hardly indicate the committee is saving up its funds. Asked last year by the Poughkeepsie Journal about his PAC’s high overhead and low political activity, Lalor — now a New York State Assemblyman — said only that, “It’s expensive to raise money, but it’s more expensive not to.”
filings.
Base Connect
Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC paid $64,485.31 (more than 13 percent of total spending) last year to a company called Base Connect, a controversial Republican fundraising firm that claims to use “proven, highly-effective direct mail strategies to raise the critical dollars required to make a conservative primary or general election challenge viable and winnable,” but has been frequently criticized for its high fees and low return.
Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans PAC’s treasurer told the paper that it “donates more [to candidates] than the vast majority that rely on direct mail fundraising.”
And a ThinkProgress review of other current Base Connect clients found that for their clients, the PAC’s spending habits were indeed about par for the course. The Conservative StrikeForce, a PAC chaired by former Reagan administration Deputy Labor Secretary Dennis Whitfield, asks donors for funds on the claim that it “is dedicated to electing true conservatives to all levels of government.” But in 2013, it spent about $2.2 million while using just about $27,000 on an independent expenditure and $7,000 on donations to a pair of state-level candidates. Whitfield received $12,500 in consulting fees and Base Connect received more than $102,000 for direct mail — and the PAC ended the year with less than $64,000 left in the bank. The PAC did send $5,000 last month to Florida Congressional special election candidate David Jolly (R).
Similarly, Freedom’s Defense Fund, which boasts that because it has “no office, overhead or staff,” it is uniquely positioned to “rebuild an American conservative majority” and back “conservative, pro-freedom candidates.” The group’s $1,641,005 in 2013 spending included $50,000 in independent expenditures (which tried to tie then-New Jersey Senate candidate Cory Booker (D) to Elliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner and slammed him for “liberal pandering” ), less than $75,000 to political candidates, and more than $1.2 million in fundraising. $146,278 of that went to Base Connect, and the group ended the year with just $65,184.23 in the bank.
InfoCision
Another firm, InfoCision Management Corporation, has received even more money from conservative PACs for fundraising. The company, which calls itself “the nation’s second-largest privately held teleservices company,” agreed to pay $75,000 and change its practices after Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) accused it of illegal charitable solicitation practices (the firm admitted no wrongdoing).
Despite InfoCision’s questionable track record, numerous conservative political committees gave the first six- and seven-figure payments last year for fundraising, often giving more of their funds to the firm than all other expenditures combined.
In 2012, ThinkProgress reported that three InfoCision clients were running similar television ads. One, by a group called the Conservative Majority Fund PAC, featured a one-minute long laundry list of anti-Barack Obama conspiracy theories. The ad asked viewers to call a toll-free number to sign a “demand to disqualify Obama” and suggested that with 10,000 signatures from every Congressional district, they could “boot this guy off the ballot.” The PAC paid InfoCision Managment Corporation, an Akron, Ohio-based firm specializing in telemarketing, hundreds of thousands of dollars for telephone fundraising and voter contact calls opposing President Obama.
In 2013, the Conservative Majority Fund spent just over $3 million, with $2.4 million of that going to InfoCision. Though its donation page claims it is
a “grassroots PAC dedicated to fighting liberalism, promoting the truth, and electing conservatives all across the country,” it spent only about $50,000
on independent efforts in support of unsuccessful Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli II (R) over the year and had less than $130,000 left
on hand at the end of December.
The American Legacy PAC, which raises money by highlighting honorary chairs former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and his wife Callista, as well as anti-Obamacare activist Ben Carson, says it aims to “identify and support only true conservative capitalist candidates for office.” Yet of the roughly $2 million it spent in 2013, an astounding $1.8 million (almost 90 percent) went to InfoCision for fundraising costs. Less than $50,000 went to
political candidates and just $51,443.27 remained in the bank at the end of the year. A spokesman for the PAC told Mother Jones that it was building up its fundraising list for 2014.
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Finally, Patriot Voices PAC, founded by former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and his wife Karen, still claims on its website that donations will be used to “defeat Barack Obama and elect conservatives in the House and Senate,” 16 months after the President won a second term, just over $10,000 of the more than $1 million it spent in 2013 and the first month of 2014 went to candidates (in “in-kind” contributions). The PAC paid almost $590,000 to InfoCision (more than 58 percent of its total expenses over that time) and gave thousands of dollars to the former Santorum campaign staffers now working for his political committee. At the end of January, Patriot Voices reported having only about $15,000 in the bank.
This PAC raised over a Million dollars and slightly more than $10,000 went to candidates. The Sweater Vest Guy has big pockets.
Donor Beware
While these and numerous other InfoCision- and Base Camp-tied PACs are raising money without being clear about where the donors’ contributions really go, these practices are likely legal in the current anything-goes campaign finance climate.
Campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center frequently warns — when donating to PACs and super PACs, it is really “donor beware.”
In the Wild West campaign finance culture that the Supreme Court and broken Federal Election Commission have created, donors may find that their political donations are doing little other than enriching political consultants and vendors.
We should also include SarahPAC in this list. Last year Palin collected $1,177,802, and only gave 1 $5000 donation to Jason Smith of MO. The rest of it was spent on grifting for SarahPac.
Republicans are into real income distribution. Take from the stupid and give to the greedy.
Amherst County Virginia Democratic News
ACVDN
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