Tag Archives: McDonnell trial

Bob McDonnell leaves the federal courthouse in Richmond yesterday. Photo credit; Washington Post.

by James A. Bacon

A sordid tale grew even more squalid yesterday as Jonnie Williams Sr., the star witness against Maureen and Bob McDonnell, spent the day on the witness stand. Williams, the former CEO of vitamin-supplement maker Star Scientific, declaimed that, despite all the time he had spent with them and gifts he had lavished upon them, the McDonnells “were not my friends.”

Williams also elaborated upon the grabbiness of McDonnell family members, which extended beyond designer clothes, a wedding reception, real estate loans, golf outings, the use of his private jet, landscaping services, a weekend getaway at Smith Mountain Lake and a Rolex watch. At the prompting of her mother, McDonnell daughter Cailin informed Williams that she had picked out a car for him to buy her. A McDonnell finally bumped up against the limits of what Williams was prepared to do to win state support for his Anatabloc vitamin supplements.  “I told her I just couldn’t buy a car,” he testified.

But grabbiness is not illegal. The McDonnells’ behavior was stupefyingly gauche and beyond the pale of acceptable social behavior. It was grotesque to see in the First Family of Virginia. But grabbiness does not, in and of itself, constitute corruption. It’s corruption only if the McDonnells performed substantive official acts in return for his largesse. And so far, the evidence of that is borderline. Williams received remarkably little for his $145,000-plus investment in the McDonnell family: a couple of introductions to state officials, the use of the Governor’s Mansion for a Star Scientific event, and three appearances by Maureen McDonnell at Star Scientific events outside the state. (I expect there to be considerable debate over whether these constitute unusual “official” actions.)

But if Bob McDonnell’s personal reputation was worthy of the Sears scratch-and-dent sale before the trial, it could well end up in the dumpster by the time this is over. To my mind, the most potentially damaging testimony yesterday concerned conversations between Williams and McDonnell to transfer stock certificates to McDonnell that he could borrow against to help with cash flow problems on his beach property. According to the Times-Dispatch reporting, Williams testified that he was concerned that such a deal would have to reported to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, so he never went through with it. But he added this critical detail indicating McDonnell’s state of mind: He said that McDonnell told him that he had his own disclosure problem.

That revelation — if it goes uncontradicted by McDonnell — seems especially relevant to two of the charges against him. Count Twelve alleges that McDonnell failed to include a $50,000 loan from Williams when listing personal liabilities of $2,075,000 in a financial application to TowneBank. County Thirteen alleges that Maureen and Bob McDonnell omitted mention of what by then had grown to $120,000 in loans from Williams in a loan application to PenFed. (A small digression: The liabilities they listed had soared to $2.8 million by then, an extraordinary increase of roughly $750,000 over four months. That’s a story worth digging into.) If Williams’ story holds up that the governor was acutely aware of his own disclosure issues, it will be difficult for McDonnell to argue that those omissions were an unintentional oversight.

The defense attorneys are sure to paint Williams as a huckster, swindler and self-confessed liar (he admitted yesterday to laying to federal authorities when they first investigated the case) out to save his own skin, which, given his track record, won’t be hard to do. Such a strategy may keep the McDonnells out of jail but it won’t salvage their reputation. Any thinking person would have to ask: How astonishingly poor was McDonnell’s judgment to accept gifts from, and obligate himself to, such a snake?

Jonnie Williams (left), the prosecution’s star witness, makes his appearance at the federal courthouse. Photo credit: Washington Post.

by James A. Bacon

Virginia’s best soap opera in 20 years continued yesterday as Jonnie R. Williams, Sr., the star witness in the prosecution of former Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen, took the witness stand. Williams added little new substance to the public record that wasn’t listed in the indictments but he did flesh out a few details.

Williams made clear that his motives in assisting the Virginia’s First Family were purely mercenary. When asked why he lent his jet aircraft to McDonnell and other Virginia politicians, he said, “If you have a Virginia company, you want to make sure you have access to these people, and the airplane … accomplishes that. … He’s a politician, I’m a businessman.”

Explaining why he lent his jet to fly the governor to California and back, Williams said: “I figured that would give me five to six hours with the governor … to explain to him that I needed his help.”

Then, when asked if he regarded the first couple as personal friends, he responded, “This was a business relationship.”

The question is this: Did the McDonnells view the relationship the same way? If they did — if they viewed the relationship as a means to extract money and gifts in exchange for official favors — the feds have a strong case. If Bob and Maureen viewed the relationship differently, then it will be difficult to persuade a jury that they were engaged in a conspiracy to enrich themselves by misusing the authority of the governor’s office.

Defense attorneys made the prosecution’s case much more difficult to prove yesterday by claiming that the marriage was in tatters, there was a breakdown in communication between husband and wife, and that Maureen McDonnell, starved for attention, had a “crush” on Williams. A very clear implication is that Bob and Maureen had very different takes on the Williams relationship.

Only on one occasion, in October 2010, did Williams extract a “favor” from the governor directly, and that incident occurred before Williams began showering the family with personal gifts. When they were flying from California to Richmond in his jet, Williams told the governor about his anatabine vitamin supplement and asked for his help in getting Virginia’s medical schools to test it. McDonnell arranged a meeting with Bill Hazel, the Virginia secretary of health, but Hazel was unenthusiastic and the governor did not follow up or apply any other pressure. Governors routinely make introductions for campaign contributors, so the prosecution can’t make much of this event.

From there on out, Williams appears to have channeled his efforts through Maureen. Indeed, she was the one who initiated the requests for gifts — most notably the New York shopping expedition, the real estate loans and the wedding reception for daughter Caitlin. So, how was Bob responding to all of this? Apparently, he plans to tell the world his version of events at some point in the trial. Meanwhile, we have hints that he disapproved of some of the gifts, even while acquiescing to other largesse.

In December 2009, Williams offered to buy Maureen an Oscar de la Renta dress for an event in New York. Then he got a call from the governor’s office thanking him but turning down the offer. That call could not have occurred without the governor’s knowledge. It may have been initiated at his direction. One can surmise that, early in the relationship with Williams, McDonnell wanted to avoid the kind of entanglements that later ensnared him.

McDonnell also intervened when Williams bought son Bobby McDonnell a new set of golf clubs. As Bobby testified, “My father’s reaction was that I should give them back.” The gift, the father said, was excessive. (That’s after racking up thousands of dollars of expenses playing golf on Williams’ tab, so take McDonnell’s reservation with a grain of salt.) Interestingly, McDonnell lost that argument. Bobby said he had a friendship with Williams that was separate from his parents’ friendship; he viewed Williams as a mentor. Maureen sided with him. Bobby never returned the clubs.

The governor apparently also disapproved of Williams’ $15,000 gift to daughter Cailin to cover the cost of her wedding reception. Cailin had met Williams only briefly one time, shortly before in the Governor’s Mansion. Maureen had begged Williams for the money but she portrayed the situation very differently to Cailin, explaining, “Mr. Williams was so impressed with [her].” Dad apparently did not learn of Williams’ gift until federal investigators began asking questions about it. “He was very upset that she had taken that check,” Cailin testified.

The picture I’m getting is a man who lost control of his household. Bob McDonnell knew what was right and what was wrong but was unable to lay down the law. Working workaholic hours as governor, he was only intermittently engaged in family affairs and was incompletely informed. If Cailin’s statement is true that he didn’t learn of the $15,000 wedding reception gift until months later, it’s extraordinary that he was so disconnected from his own family finances. Meanwhile, Williams was engaging in routine communication with his wife — 1,200 phone calls and text messages — lending his jet to ferry around his children and playing golf with his sons. The governor told Bobby to return the golf clubs but couldn’t enforce his own edict.

While McDonnell may have had reservations about some of the gifts, it appears that he slid down a slippery slope. Eventually, he did accept a $20,000 wire transfer to help bail out MoBo Real Estate Partners, his underwater Virginia Beach real estate investment. So far, that seems to be the most damning piece of evidence against him. It will be interesting to see what kind of defense he mounts against that. So far, I have seen no sign of it.

One last observation: It’s one thing for a man like Williams to cozy up to the governor by befriending him personally or even he and his wife befriending the McDonnells as couples. It’s another thing to do so by cozying up to his wife (1,200 phone calls and text messages) and mentoring his son. Williams invested not just money but time in those relationships. Were his motives as purely mercenary as he now says? Was he really in it just for the business? Talk about cold and calculating! It says a lot about his character, too.

Maureen McDonnell flanked by daughters Rachel (left) and Cailin. Old view of Maureen: wicked witch of the Governor’s Mansion. New view: tragic figure. Photo credit: Associated Press.

In his post on the McDonnell trial, Peter Galuszka asked a profound question (something I don’t normally give him credit for!). Does living in the fishbowl of the Governor’s Mansion, with all the attendant pressure, put incalculable strain on a governor’s domestic life? “What should ‘public service’ be and how much should it take from one’s private life,” Peter wondered. “More importantly, why can’t it support men and women who pursue it? Should it be only for the rich?”

I had that question in the back of my mind this morning as I combed through the media reports of yesterday’s events. All newspaper accounts led with the revelation that the marriage between Bob and Maureen McDonnell had essentially broken down, and that Maureen had a “crush” on Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the then-CEO of Star Scientific who sought favors from the McDonnells to help his business. Maureen and Jonnie exchanged 1,200 phone calls and text messages. As William Burck, Maureen McDonnell’s lead defense attorney, said: “Unlike the other man in her life, Jonnie Williams paid attention to Maureen McDonnell.”

That picture received confirmation from testimony recounted by the Virginian-Pilot. Prosecutors called Cailin McDonnell Young to the stand to recount circumstances surrounding Williams’ offer to cover the $15,000 expense associated with her wedding reception. On cross-examination she revealed the following:

Young said that, during Bob McDonnell’s tenure as governor and his previous service as attorney general, “I hardly ever saw my father.”

“Anytime I wanted to see my dad, I had to go through a scheduler,” she said.

A daughter needs a scheduler to see her dad? That’s brutal. But that’s what family life is like with a man who works 14- to 16-hour days. Life couldn’t have been much better for Maureen McDonnell. For a long time, I regarded her as the heavy in this whole affair. But now I have a keener appreciation of the domestic dynamics. She spent much of her time feeling isolated, frustrated and anxious. She often lost her temper with her husband and staff. For the first time, I feel a modicum of sympathy for her. She was a lonely, stressed-out and unhappy woman.

None of this excuses her actions, much less McDonnell’s alleged failure to exercise full disclosure. But it does provide context. I return to Peter’s question regarding what kind of financial pressure does being governor put on a First Family of modest means? I would expand the question to include, what kind of strain does the time demands of public office put on a family?

— JAB

Maureen Williams and Jonnie Williams. Photo credit: Daily Progress

by James A. Bacon

Jury selection for the trial of former Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen begins today. The 43-page federal indictment against the former First Family piles up a mass of detail to present a devastating portrait. Particularly damaging are revelations that the McDonnells intervened behind the scenes to help their friend and patron Jonnie R. Williams Sr., CEO of Star Scientific, in his efforts to establish research relationships with the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Opinion seems universal, even among those inclined to defend McDonnell, that the First Family’s behavior recounted in the indictments are beyond the pale — not only insufferably “tacky,” as a lawyer friend of mine put it, but downright shameful. However, before we convict the former governor of corruption, let us pause a moment and catch our breath. The indictment represents a cherry picking of the facts most damaging to the McDonnells. Let us also remember that the McDonnells will seek to establish a different narrative. At this point, we don’t know what that narrative will be. But whatever it is, I will hazard a guess that it will reveal a lot of information that has yet to surface about the relationship between the McDonnells on the one hand and Jonnie Williams Sr., CEO of Star Scientific, and his wife Celeste on the other.

The indictment consists of a recitation of facts shorn of context. The feds charge that the events described amount to “a scheme to use Robert McDonnell’s official position as the Governor of Virginia to enrich the defendants and their family members.” They list a series of events and communications in chronological order, creating the strong impression that favors Williams performed for the McDonnells were directly related to favors the McDonnells performed for Williams. That may be an accurate impression. But it also might be a deceptive one. The way in which the information is presented precludes the possibility that anyone was acting out of personal friendship.

Missing from the indictment is any evidence describing the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. McDonnell and Mr. and Mrs. Williams, which would be highly relevant in interpreting the events described by prosecutors. Celeste Williams barely figures in the picture at all. Reading only the indictment and the news reports based upon it creates the impression that Maureen McDonnell and Jonnie Williams were extraordinarily close — almost creepily so. What kind of man takes his friend’s wife shopping in New York? As outside observers, we have to consider the possibility that Maureen McDonnell and Celeste Williams were close, too, that Mrs. Williams was a participant in the shopping expeditions and conceivably that she cajoled her husband into helping the McDonnells financially out of friendship. If that were the case — and I have no idea if it is or not — it would complicate the prosecution’s narrative immeasurably.

From the published record, we have only a few clues by which to piece together a portrait of the two families’ friendship.

“We had a very positive relationship for three or four years,” a somber McDonnell told The Associated Press last August.

McDonnell, who carefully couched his relationship with Williams in the past tense during the AP interview, said the enterprising venture capitalist had been his kind of guy: a self-made man from working-class stock who, like the governor, got his start in the health care services and supplies field. Both are in their late 50s. They discovered they had even both honeymooned in the same spot, Bar Harbor, Maine.

“I admire people who are entrepreneurial, who are finding ways to create opportunities in Virginia and that’s one of the reasons that when I first met him back in ’09 (or) ’10 that we established a friendship,” McDonnell said. “We both had big families. He had four kids, I had five.

“We had interesting early discussions about the field of health care and about our families,” he said.

The two men met in March 2009 when McDonnell was running for governor and Williams, a major bankroller of a previous Republican candidate, Jerry Kilgore, loaned him his airplane. When McDonnell was elected November 3, according to the indictment, “they had no personal relationship and were merely professional acquaintances at that time.” Continue reading →