Earlier this month when I wrote about former Governor Bob McDonnell’s disgusting attempts to throw his wife under the bus to save himself I was roundly criticized because it was the prosecutors who were saying terrible things about Maureen McDonnell, not Bob McDonnell’s team. Prosecutors have now ended their portion of the trial and the defense is presenting their side. Nothing has changed, the defense is piling on Maureen McDonnell in their efforts to save the Governor. McDonnell’s team has run over Maureen, backed up and run over her again and poor Bob McDonnell was just a helpless victim, stuck in the middle between the two powerful Maureens in his life, his wife Maureen McDonnell and his sister Maureen McDonnell. From the NY Times,
On the second day of his defense, Mr. McDonnell sat impassively in United States District Court here as his lawyers painted him as bedeviled by two Maureens — one his younger sister, who made the money in the family but failed to stop him from taking a loan that could now land him in prison; and the other his wife, who badgered him and invited in the businessman who would become his undoing.
“She seemed enamored with him, infatuated,” Kathleen Scott, special assistant to the first lady, said of Ms. McDonnell’s feelings for the businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., whose $160,000 in secretive loans and gifts are the crux of the corruption trial. “I think he made her feel special.”
The defense on Tuesday focused on the couple’s finances, with a smattering of personal shots against the former first lady. The idea was to show that Mr. McDonnell was in no financial jeopardy and did not need to trade his influence for Mr. Williams’s largess. Instead, it was Ms. McDonnell’s blind spot for Mr. Williams, the former executive of the dietary supplement maker Star Scientific, that caused the trouble.
Poor little Governor was simply helpless and clueless while his wife was infatuated with a snake oil salesman.
Mr. McDonnell’s sister (the other Maureen McDonnell) and Ms. Scott (special assistant to the First Lady) also reinforced the defense strategy of depicting the former first lady as a selfish bully, while celebrating the former governor, once thought to be a possible running mate for Mitt Romney, as an honest and naïvely friendly politician. Ms. Scott described scenes in the private quarters of the governor’s mansion in which the first lady would be “ranting and raving about this, that and the other” while the governor tried to read the newspaper or watch television news. “He usually just tuned her out,” Ms. Scott said.
What a guy! His children must be so proud of their father. It’s completely disgusting that the Governor would allow his children’s mother to be portrayed this way in court. No child, regardless of their age, wants to hear that their mother was a shrew and their father tuned her out. Bob McDonnell is allowing terrible things to be said about his children’s mother without any regard for the effect it will have on his adult children. We’ve already seen Cailin McDonnell cry on the witness stand. Obviously it’s not likely that the McDonnell’s marriage will survive this trial but we have no idea what the long term effects will be on the five McDonnell children. It will have an impact on their lives forever. Bob McDonnell will do whatever he has to do in an attempt to save himself, without regard for his wife and children. I have no respect for a ‘man’ who behaves this way. None at all.
Bacon’s Rebellion has a good post on the McDonnell trial here. Some good comments too.
Much more here, here and here. More details on the McDonnell’s finances here. I will be so glad when this sordid trial is over. I’m sure the McDonnell children will be too.
The latest from BaconsRebellion.com on “Mo Maureen and Po Maureen”.
The other Maureen McDonnell.
Steve Helber/Associated Press
