In 2014, McDonnell, the former governor of Virginia, was convicted on 11 counts of corruption after he and his wife had accepted more than $177,000 in gifts and loans from Star Scientific in exchange for political favors.
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Justice Stephen Breyer said he doesn’t want a situation where all of the power is in the hands of the Justice Department to decide who is prosecuted for a felony and who is not.
Outside the court, after the justices heard intricate legal arguments about how thinly to slice the federal definition of corruption, the convicted former governor self-servingly avowed that he had never “done anything that would abuse the powers of my office”. McDonnell says he merely arranged meetings and hosted and attended events.
Justice Sonya Sotomayor said McDonnell clearly meant to help his benefactor.
Media chase former VA Gov. Bob McDonnell as he leaves Supreme Court arguments.
The big question for the hearing: what is an official act?
Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that the law might be unconstitutionally vague. “I do think it’s fair to say [the government] took a very aggressive approach, and used the facts as they found them to cobble together what was clearly a very compelling prosecution”. But the court has already taken several extraordinary steps to keep McDonnell out of prison during his appeal, a reprieve so uncommon that a cynic might be tempted to believe McDonnell’s stature influenced the justices’ decision-making.
If a majority of the eight judges side with federal prosecutors – again, probably unlikely – Mr. McDonnell would be ordered to prison to serve his two-year sentence. A decision is expected by late June. Nothing McDonnell did was technically illegal, so they went after him and his wife on “conspiracy to commit fraud” charges. The convictions were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit last summer.
But that’s the kind of thing that politicians do everyday-set up meetings with independent decision makers, Francisco said.
Hear a statement from former Gov. Bob McDonnell, along with his lawyer, Noel Francisco. “The Department of Justice will become the ultimate arbiter of politicians in public life”, argued Justice Breyer.
The businessman, Jonnie Williams, was seeking FDA approval for a dietary supplement made by his company, Star Scientific.
But lawyers for McDonnell argue that he never put any pressure on those officials and that Williams never got what he wanted state funding for medical studies on the dietary pills. Both were allowed to remain free on bond while awaiting their appeals.
While a prominent Republican’s freedom is on the line, the court did not appear likely to vote along ideological lines. What the current case allows the Court to rule is that the prevailing definition of “quid pro quo” is much too narrow.
“This might have been perfectly chargeable”, Kagan said of the overall bribery scheme alleged in the indictment, “but I guess I’m troubled by these particular charges and instructions”, which she said “seems to make every piece of evidence” into an “official act”, rather than focusing on the ultimate goal of getting the university to engage in testing the Anatabloc. In New York, former legislative leaders Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos are appealing their federal bribery convictions.
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“Perhaps we want to push back a little bit on this sort of politics as usual and this sort of blurring the lines on official acts in exchange for financial support or certain benefits”, Hunt said.
