From the DPVA, Cuccinelli hits yet ANOTHER new low – even for him! Of course, he really ISN'T “in that category” – of anyone normal, sane, ethical, non-extreme, not unhealthily obsessed with telling other people what they can and can't do in the bedroom (or with their own bodies), etc.
Today during a radio interview Ken Cuccinelli said he doesn’t have to take accountability and return $18,000 in Star Scientific scandal gifts because he only took luxury trips, dinners and other gifts from the company and CEO Jonnie Williams, not “watches and clothes.”
Cuccinelli’s insistence on drawing imaginary lines between his unethical behavior and others’ is just more evidence that Virginians cannot trust him to put their best interests ahead of his own.
If he recognized that letting a company and CEO shower him with gifts and trips while he was supposed to be fighting them in court to reclaim $1.7 million in unpaid taxes is wrong, he would give the gifts back and apologize for letting his desire for personal spoils damage Virginia’s reputation for clean government.
The full transcript of Cuccinelli’s absurd excuse for refusing to take accountability for his actions on WVTF this morning is below:
HOST: You told reporters that Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams didn’t give you the kind of gifts that can be returned—about $18,000 worth. So you haven’t returned them and you have said “there are just some bells you can’t un-ring.” My question here is couldn’t you determine the value of a meal or a trip or a private jet trip and pay the benefactor back?
CUCCINELLI: Well the you know, what we’ve done is, is is identify all of these to folks. And obviously report them, and then and then I took the extraordinary step of handing my own matter over to a Democrat Commonwealth’s attorney to review and he cleared me. And so I think that’s what really matters in this case and the fact that some of this stuff was out of the blue. Like a $6,000 box of these little food supplements, I mean what do you do with that? I just gave them away. And I don’t think that’s what people normally think of when they think of this stuff. And I think the real focus ought to be on solving the problem which is why I called for a special session and supported a variety of the proposals for the things that have been put out there. Things like an independent ethics commission and things like gift caps and bans and those kinds of efforts that I think the people of Virginia just in my travels around the state would like to see.
HOST: Drawing that line, this is $18,000 worth. In McDonnell’s case it’s over $100,000 worth. His decision was to return the monies, yours wasn’t. Could you again delineate, why the difference?
CUCCINELLI: Well, of course, I didn’t get any money, I didn’t get any loans, I didn’t get any stuff. I didn’t get watches and clothes. That’s what they returned, it’s because that’s what they got. I’m not in that category.
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