LOL, gotta love it.
In the midst of a covert trip to Afghanistan to visit American troops, Gov. Bob McDonnell says he will discuss undisclosed gifts from donor and benefactor Jonnie Williams later.
The governor is part of an official Department of Defense delegation visiting U.S. service members stationed in Kuwait and Afghanistan, including members of the Virginia National Guard.
Meanwhile, Jeff Schapiro points out that “[j]ust because McDonnell is apologizing doesn’t mean the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, a federal grand jury in Richmond and the city’s prosecutor will drop their investigations.” Schapiro adds:
A master of reinvention, McDonnell is attempting to transform himself again. This time, he is shape-shifting from pariah to object of pity. He sounds like a man trying to get in front of bad news before it happens.
Could the bad news be a federal indictment?
Seems like a serious possibility, given how bad this scandal is. Meanwhile, what’s Ken Cuccinelli doing? As the DPVA pointed out earlier this afternoon, “Ken Cuccinelli hasn’t said a word about whether he will follow Governor McDonnell’s lead and apologize for embarrassing Virginia with his involvement and conflict of interest in the gifts scandal with Star Scientific and its CEO Jonnie Williams.” Cuccinelli “has also remained silent on whether he will pay back the more than $18,000 in gifts he took from Star and Williams, who was simultaneously battling Virginia in an effort to avoid paying taxes.” Why? “If Ken Cuccinelli recognizes that it was wrong to allow his penchant for accepting free gifts from Williams to sink his office into a headline-making scandal, then he will apologize and return the gifts.” And “[i]f he can’t recognize and own up to the damage his scandals have caused, then he is unfit to lead this Commonwealth.”
Maybe Cuccinelli should run for governor of Helmand province, and McDonnell for governor of neighboring Kandahar? They’d fit right in there, it seems to me, given that corruption is endemic there – lots of “Jonnie Williamses” in Afghanistan! Heh. On second thought, given how much McDonnell and Cuccinelli hate each other, perhaps they ought to be on opposite ends of Afghanistan? Finally, perhaps while McDonnell’s in Afghanistan, he might consider hocking his Rolex in one of the many fine, upstanding businessmen in Kabul? I hear you can get a pretty good price for a Rolex there… 😉
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