A welcome break

Published 9:06 pm Friday, August 15, 2014

Thank you, Judge James S. Spencer.

Those of us repulsed by the lurid details of Bob and Maureen McDonnell’s dalliances with a snake-oil salesman during their gubernatorial tenure got a well-deserved long weekend when Spencer gave jurors Friday off and recessed the McDonnells’ federal corruption trial until Monday. That’s when defense attorneys will begin countering weeks of testimony from prosecution witnesses that was equal parts damaging and embarrassing for the former first couple.

We’re reserving judgment on whether one or both McDonnells committed a crime. They deserve their day in court, and, to his credit, McDonnell plans to take the witness stand himself in the days ahead to refute prosecutors’ claims.

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But we don’t need a jury verdict to conclude the obvious: that the McDonnells behaved foolishly, greedily and recklessly in accepting more than $175,000 in loans and gifts from dietary-supplements entrepreneur Jonnie Williams.

The “ick” factor grew with each of the 45 witnesses who paraded through the courtroom in recent weeks, each offering his or her own titillating insight on the Williams-McDonnell relationship. Before wrapping up their case Thursday, prosecutors displayed for the jurors some of the grossest examples of largesse heaped on the McDonnells by Williams, including designer apparel purchased for Maureen McDonnell during a $20,000 Manhattan shopping spree in 2011. Jurors had earlier seen photographs of a beaming Bob McDonnell sporting a Rolex watch and sitting in Williams’ Ferrari at his Smith Mountain Lake vacation home.

The trial has confirmed people’s worst suspicions about politicians and their motives for public service. There are good men and women in elected service, to be sure. But the McDonnells, part of a long line of political families who have succumbed to the trappings of power, cast a cloud over all of state government with their actions, whether or not illegal.

The trial likely will drag on for another couple of weeks, unfortunately. Like many, we’re just ready for it to be over. The sooner Virginia puts this sordid episode to rest, the better.