No one pretends to be more squeaky clean on ethical issues than conservative politicians and the "godly Christian" crowd. Yet, time and time again, reality proves that things are very different from what these folks claim in all their prancing false piety. Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli are cases in point as more information comes out about their cozy relationship with Star Scientific, a Virginia based company now focusing its efforts on supplements, that has been most generous to McDonnell and in which Cuccinelli has focused all of his investments. Star Scientific is engaged in litigation with the Commonwealth of Virginia and Cuccinelli's refusal to get outside counsel raises very real conflict of interest issues as noted previously on this blog. For McDonnell - who made national news last night - the Star Scientific saga is even messier. A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the situation. Here are excerpts:
Bob McDonnell, the earnest-sounding kid from Fairfax County, is governor of Virginia, an office to which he vowed to bring the sensibilities of his middle-class upbringing. That included ethical straightforwardness. McDonnell is veering from it — again.
This time — as with last time and before that — McDonnell is tripping up over money. Again, it’s someone else’s. Again, it’s a large amount. Again, it’s perceived as having strings attached. Again, it’s explained away as much ado about nothing.
The latest: $15,000 from the politically active boss of Henrico County-based Star Scientific, Jonnie Williams Sr. The money paid for dinner at the Executive Mansion for about 200 guests at the 2011 wedding of McDonnell’s daughter, Cailin, to Chris Young.
The money, first reported by The Washington Post, was never disclosed by McDonnell because it was not a gift to him, the governor’s office said. Rather, it was for Cailin, who — unlike the governor — is not required by state law to provide an annual inventory of gifts, be it travel, entertainment or tchotchkes.
There are few requirements on disclosures by relatives. Officials must report investments and other holdings shared with members of their immediate family. They also must report paid positions, such as jobs and directorships, held by a spouse or child.
In addition to unnecessarily casting a pall over a joyous occasion, this episode of administration dissembling calls attention to Virginia’s porous ethics law. It relies almost entirely on self-policing, requiring elective and appointive officials and candidates to, in effect, tell on themselves.
Star Scientific has, over the past four years, supplied McDonnell and his political action committee with $108,500 in travel on the company jet, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The firm and Williams have given McDonnell more than $9,600 in food, lodging and entertainment since 2011.
As a regulated venture, Star Scientific has issues not with the state government but with the federal government; specifically, an inquiry by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia into the company’s stock transactions.
However, Star Scientific — much as other companies do in a state where the business of government is business — looked to Richmond for help. McDonnell played host at the Executive Mansion for the launch of a Star Scientific dietary supplement. First lady Maureen McDonnell talked up the product at an investors conference in Florida.
The cozy relationship between Star Scientific and McDonnell is not an isolated example, especially of the headaches such entanglements have caused him.
This is a throwback to Old Virginia, when government was largely the purview of a privileged, well-mannered few — an “affluent minority,” as Times-Dispatch political reporter Jim Latimer put it. There were almost no official rules because gentlemen didn’t need them to know how to behave.
There's more, but you get the drift.
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