Prosecutors will drop all charges against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, according to a motion filed in US District Court.
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The decision from federal prosecutors comes after the Supreme Court wiped out McDonnell’s conviction – and a two-year prison sentence for the one-time rising Republican star – in a June decision.
Prosecutors also made a decision to drop charges against Maureen McDonnell, who was sentenced to one year in prison. “We thank the Department of Justice for the care with which they reviewed the case”, Buruck said. We are thrilled Governor McDonnell can finally move on from the nightmare of the last three years and begin rebuilding his life.
Randy Singer, a lawyer for Maureen McDonnell, said in a statement: “Maureen has maintained, from the outset, that neither she nor her husband would ever betray the trust of the people of this commonwealth”.
“I think it was corruption because they knew what they doing, they knew the rules before beginning, they know the politicians who paid the price in the end, so they knew this out front and chose to go on with it”, expressed Sussin Robinson, who has been following the case closely.
McDonnell was found guilty of accepting the loans and gifts in exchange for performing “official acts” as governor. It’s a blow to both the U.S. Attorney’s Office – which had recommended pressing forward with the case to Justice Department higher-ups – and advocates for strict enforcement of anti-corruption legislation. It contributed to the election of a Democratic governor in 2013, Terry McAuliffe, who now finds himself under federal scrutiny for possible violations of a little-enforced law requiring American citizens who lobby for foreign governments to register with the Department of Justice. “People and policies are”.
“Our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns”, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in reference to some of the gifts bestowed on McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who is awaiting an appeals court ruling in a corruption case, and former New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, D, who aims to overturn his corruption conviction.
We easily can gather what McDonnell’s thinking is on this latest decision, but what are members of the jury who more or less squandered an entire summer in the name of justice thinking?
That being said, though, consider that McDonnell never spent so much as one hour in jail despite his felony charges. Fighting back tears, McDonnell apologized to her family and Virginians and said she takes full responsibility. But some legal analysts say the ruling – and the decision not to prosecute McDonnell in spite of it – was necessary.
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“True quid pro quo has always been and will remain a prosecutable case”, James said. But the Supreme Court said the prosecution’s definition of the term – to include setting up meetings and hosting events – was too broad.
