She's now naked:
"Revolt recalled in corruption trial of former Va. governor; McDonnell aide details problems; portrays wife as angry, unstable" by Jonathan Weisman and Ken Maguire | New York Times August 19, 2014
Took a while for the Globe to get back to the trial, didn't it?
RICHMOND, Va. — A longtime aide to former governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia on Monday portrayed the governor’s wife, Maureen, as an unstable, angry woman who flirted with the businessman who lavished the couple with gifts allegedly in exchange for promoting his business.
Defense lawyers began their rebuttal of public corruption charges against the pair, leaning heavily on Virginia’s former secretary of the commonwealth, Janet Vestal Kelly, to detail Maureen McDonnell’s relationship with her husband, her staff, and Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the chief executive of dietary supplement maker Star Scientific.
“I don’t want to pile on,” Kelly said, her voice choking with emotion, as staff members in US District Court here got her a box of tissues. “I hope I don’t need these.”
She did not. Kelly, her voice at times animated but never again reluctant, detailed the strains that “ruined” her relationship with Maureen McDonnell.
She recalled the January 2012 revolt in the Virginia governor’s mansion, in which the first lady’s entire staff threatened to quit, and she recounted an airplane ride Kelly, Williams, and Maureen McDonnell took to South Carolina for a Mitt Romney campaign event, where Maureen McDonnell and the businessman were “kind of flirty.”
“She is pathologically incapable of taking any responsibility,” Kelly said of the former first lady, when asked why her staff revolt did not quell tensions in the governor’s mansion. With Williams, however, she was “very, very, very friendly.”
She's Jewish?
Lawyers for the couple began calling witnesses to portray Bob McDonnell as a trusting innocent, alienated from his domineering wife, neither of whom were capable of engineering a quid-pro-quo relationship with Williams.
What are these whips, chains, and hooks doing in the basement?
Kelly answered “no” when asked if Bob McDonnell saw ulterior motives in people, while she spoke of Maureen McDonnell hiding the fruits of lavish shopping trips, shrinking from her husband at private gatherings, and ignoring the advice of management consultants brought in to smooth her professional operations.
At one point, defense lawyer Henry Asbill displayed for jurors a letter signed by Maureen McDonnell’s staff that spoke of “screaming phone calls or nasty e-mails” and “the worst kind of bullying.”
In public, Kelly said, the McDonnells were very affectionate. In private, they barely interacted.
The imagery and illu$ion of politics.
Kelly, who was in charge of appointing thousands to boards, commissions, and other posts in Virginia’s government, said she was never asked to name anyone connected to Williams or Star Scientific to any positions in the state.
Indeed, the defense on Monday afternoon called the head of Virginia’s Tobacco Commission and Bob McDonnell’s secretaries of education, finance, and commerce, all of whom said they had never heard of Williams or Star Scientific, and that the former governor had plenty of opportunities to help the company and did nothing.
Beyond the character issues, the crux of the defense was clear: Williams might have had an inappropriate relationship with Virginia’s first couple, but he got nothing tangible in return.
Earlier in the trial, Maureen McDonnell’s lawyer, William A. Burck, told the jury that she had developed a “crush” on Williams, and had merely sought gifts and attention out of marital frustration.
Williams, who testified under immunity, denied any improper relationship with McDonnell.
Federal prosecutors have painted the McDonnells as broke and willing to trade official acts for cash and gifts. They claim the couple pocketed $160,000 in loans and gifts from Williams in exchange for using the governor’s office to promote Williams’s dietary supplements.
Defense lawyers sketched their case in their opening arguments: that the marriage between the McDonnells was so broken, they could not have conspired in a scheme in which the first lady received gifts and the governor bestowed favors. (As Maureen McDonnell is not a public official, prosecutors must show that she and her husband worked together to advocate Williams’s product.)
The McDonnells could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Defense lawyers opened their case by trying to show that Bob McDonnell had been completely transparent with his financial records.
Brenda Chamberlain, the first defense witness called, told the court that it was the first time in her 10 years as a bookkeeper that a client had given her full access to his bank records.
But she also said Bob McDonnell was her first client ever to ask her to sign a confidentiality agreement, and that request came days after federal investigators first interviewed his wife.
Chamberlain handled the books for MoBo Real Estate Partners, owned by Bob McDonnell and his sister.
Prosecutors said Williams lent money, under the entity Starwood Trust, to MoBo to avoid public scrutiny.
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McDonnell must have been a real danger to Hillary, although the greatest danger to her is herself:
"Clinton was the hawk in the administration, a proponent of a muscular and unapologetic US presence on the world stage who sided most frequently with then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. She makes Democratic doves flutter nervously."
As if there were such a thing as Democratic doves.
It's one party, a war party, period. Two factions, one party.
Related:
Clinton to attend key Iowa fund-raiser
Meerkats Are Mean
$coping Out the Senate
Also see: The Political Prosecution of Rick Perry
Clearing the decks of competition for Romney and Bush it looks like.
UPDATE: Came out at trial that McDonnell is gay.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Might be incest instead?
"Sister of ex-Virginia governor says family finances were sound" August 20, 2014
RICHMOND — The younger sister of Bob McDonnell, the former governor of Virginia, testified on Tuesday that she had enough money to maintain the family’s real estate holdings, countering a contention by prosecutors that financial stress had made her brother vulnerable to the cash offerings of a dietary-supplement maker plying the governor with favors.
But at the same time, e-mails from the sister, Maureen Carney McDonnell, to her brother in 2009 and 2010 seemed to suggest the opposite. “We are in trouble and need to act NOW,” one e-mail in December 2009 said, suggesting a quick “short sale” on two beach properties, which would “not hurt our credit, unlike bankruptcy.”
Lawyers began their second day of testimony in their defense of McDonnell and his wife, also named Maureen, on public corruption charges stemming from claims that the couple collected $160,000 in secretive loans and gifts from the businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr.
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"N.H.-bound Rick Perry set to capitalize on indictment" by Noah Bierman | Globe Staff August 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — Governor Rick Perry, fresh off an indictment and then a brief stop Tuesday at a Texas courthouse to be fingerprinted and released, is shining up his boots to stage a New Hampshire comeback tour this week.
Yet in an odd political twist, Perry’s clash with the law may prove to be a valuable selling point in his bid to run for the GOP presidential nomination.
New Hampshire political scientists say they cannot recall another would-be presidential candidate showing up while under indictment. But many New Hampshire Republicans are rushing to Perry’s defense, talking about what they consider a politically motivated indictment last week, instead of focusing on Perry’s disastrous 2012 run for president.
“It would be in his favor for a lot of Republicans, I think,” said Bill O’Connor, a commercial airline pilot who is chair of the Strafford County Republican Party, which includes Dover and Durham.
“The indictment is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Spec Bowers, chair of the Sullivan County GOP in west central New Hampshire, who is also an innkeeper and candidate for state representative.
Perry, who has led Texas since December 2000, was indicted by a grand jury Friday on two felony counts of coercing a public servant and abusing his official capacity.
The case stems from Perry’s decision last year to carry out a threat to veto $7.5 million over two years from a statewide public corruption unit run by the office of District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. She had refused his demand to resign after her arrest on drunken driving charges that was documented in an embarrassing video.
She was shouting at staffers to call the sheriff, kicking the door of her cell and sticking her tongue out. Where do some people get such arrogance, huh?
Perry has stood by the veto.
“We’ll prevail because we’re standing for the rule of law,” he said Tuesday in a speech carried on live television outside a courthouse in Austin, just before he was officially booked.
He is scheduled to speak at a Heritage Foundation event on immigration in Washington Thursday before holding six events in New Hampshire on Friday and Saturday, his first appearance in the state since he dropped out of the last GOP presidential primary in 2011. Next week, he will appear in Iowa.
The New Hampshire Republican Party was quick to welcome Perry with a press release this week, citing comments made by prominent Democrats disparaging the charges against Perry.
John H. Sununu, the former governor and one of the state’s most prominent Republicans, said he plans to introduce Perry at a party rally on Saturday in Stratham.
“This hurts the Democratic Party,” said Sununu, who hasn’t endorsed. “It shows how desperate they are to avoid talking about issues.”
New Hampshire Democrats gave no indication they will back down, reissuing a statement from the Democratic National Committee mocking Perry’s “bluster.”
“This isn’t a partisan witch hunt,” said Mo Elleithee, the DNC’s communications director. “It’s our legal process. An independent and nonpartisan special prosecutor was tapped by a Republican-appointed judge to look into allegations Perry abused his power, and he presented his case to a nonpartisan grand jury.”
All the attention on the indictment may distract New Hampshire’s Republicans, at least for now, from Perry’s last run, when he entered with lots of money and lofty expectations before finishing sixth, with a mere 1,764 votes. His October 2011 speech at a conservative conference in Manchester, where he appeared loose to the point of wooziness, became a YouTube hit, drawing questions about his sobriety.
Less than two weeks later, at a Michigan debate, Perry forgot the name of the third federal agency he was dead set on shutting down, stammering amid follow-up questions and effectively ending his chances for winning the primary.
“I can’t. The third one, I can’t,” he said. “Sorry. Oops.”
OMG, he's an actual human being and not a pre-programmed robot managed by public relations propagandists.
It was later reported that he may have been taking pain medications for his back during the campaign.
Now that concerns me, and possibly disqualifies him from being president. Can't have drug addicts as presidents.
“He embarrassed his supporters last time, and that’s beyond just letting them down,” said Fergus Cullen, a former state GOP chairman. “Sometimes your first impression leaves such a bad taste in people’s mouth that you don’t get a second chance.”
Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political scientist, said Perry, who drew 5 percent among potential GOP contenders in an NBC News/Marist poll of New Hampshire voters last month, may not be a good fit in the state, where social conservatives have not fared as well as economic conservatives.
But Perry’s supporters, and many uncommitted New Hampshire Republicans, believe he can rehabilitate his image. They point to Texas’s robust job growth, to the governor’s leadership and tough talk on immigration, and to New Hampshire’s history of granting second chances.
Michael Dennehy, a New Hampshire political veteran who advised Senator John McCain’s two presidential runs, was hired by Perry’s political committee, Americans for Economic Freedom, in April. Dennehy acknowledged Perry’s poor performance in the run-up to the 2012 primary and the bad taste he left in some Republican activists’ mouths.
McCain was just up there.
“If he ends up running for president, he’s starting from scratch,” Dennehy said. “It’s a slog and it’s a lot of work and I know that’s what he’s trying to assess right now.”
Dennehy described a methodical approach this time around in New Hampshire, saying Perry plans to return in October to campaign for Republicans running on the November ballot if his reception this weekend is positive.
“Republicans in New Hampshire kind of hit a reset after each presidential primary,” said Bryan K. Gould, chairman of the Merrimack County GOP, which includes Concord, and general counsel to the state party. “The candidates can come back, and if they can prove themselves and make the case, the voters really give the candidate a clean state.”
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Speaking of wiping clean the slate:
"Texas father faces trial in slaying of drunk driver; Man’s sons, ages 11 and 12, were killed in accident" by Juan Lozano | Associated Press August 20, 2014
ANGLETON, Texas — A drunk driver did not deserve ‘‘execution’’ by a Texas father accused of taking the law into his own hands in a fit of rage over the killing of his two sons in an accident, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
I don't approve or sanction such a thing, but I sure as hell understand it.
David Barajas is accused of fatally shooting Jose Banda in December 2012, minutes after the 20-year-old plowed into a pickup truck that Barajas and his two sons had been pushing on a rural road. Twelve-year-old David Jr. died at the scene and 11-year-old Caleb died at a hospital. The pickup had run out of gas about 100 yards from the family’s home.
In opening statements Tuesday in Barajas’s murder trial, prosecutor Brian Hrach told jurors that Banda made a horrible decision by drinking and driving. “He deserved severe legal punishment, but he did not deserve a public execution,’’ Hrach said.
Texas has the death penalty, right?
I'm sorry, but I simply have zero tolerance for drunk driving.
Police allege that Barajas, 32, left the scene of the accident, got a gun from his home, and returned to kill Banda.
Sam Cammack, the defendant’s lawyer, told jurors that Barajas did not kill Banda and that he never left the crash site. Cammack described to jurors a scene in which Barajas, desperate to help his sons, was covered with their blood after performing CPR on them.
‘‘When police get there my client is doing what he was doing the whole time, trying to save his children’s lives,’’ Cammack said.
Legal experts said the case will be difficult to prosecute given the lack of hard evidence: no weapon was recovered, no witnesses identified Barajas as the shooter, and no gunshot residue was found on him.
Really? So once again we seem to have police FRAMING SOMEONE! Barajas must be black.
An even greater challenge for prosecutors could be overcoming sympathy in the community for the father. Many people in the town of Alvin where the tragedy occurred, 30 miles southeast of Houston, have supported Barajas. Some have said they might have done the same thing.
Hrach tried to minimize the absence of a murder weapon, noting that a fragment from a .357-caliber bullet was found at the scene, and that an open box of .357-caliber ammunition was found in Barajas’s home.
His house’s security system, with cameras that would have shown the accident scene, had been disabled, Hrach said.
Witnesses will testify that they saw Barajas leave the scene and then come back and approach Banda’s vehicle while appearing to be hiding something, the prosecutor said.
Also, Barajas’s blood was found on the armrest and dashboard of Banda’s car, he said.
I'm told no witnesses, no evidence, then I'm told witnesses and evidence. WTF?
In his talk to the jury, Cammack tried to cast doubt on the prosecutor’s allegations by noting various other people seen near Banda’s vehicle after the wreck could have been responsible for his death.
That's all you need, and if the government is shit you must acquit.
When 911 calls were played for jurors later Tuesday, Cammack suggested that Barajas would not have had enough time to shoot Banda.
While questioning dispatcher Grace Gambino, Cammack highlighted the timeline: The first call came in at 11:33 p.m., a child was reported dead at 11:34, gunshots were heard at 11:35, and police had arrived and cleared the scene for EMS crews at 11:40 p.m.
At least 25 family members and friends of Barajas were in the courtroom; they entered wearing buttons that said ‘‘Forever in our hearts, David and Caleb Barajas’’ and had a picture of the two boys. At least 20 relatives and friends of Banda were also in the courtroom.
Before opening statements, Judge Terri Holder asked that they take off the buttons, saying she did not want anything to unfairly influence the jury.
Other than all the official trappings of authority, right?
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