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Anti-Gay Indicted Former Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell’s Marriage Was A Sham

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Anti-gay, anti-women, religious extremist, GOP former Governor Bob McDonnell was indicted on corruption charges after leaving office this year. In his federal trial this week, it’s revealed his marriage was a sham and his wife was engaged in an “inappropriate relationship.”

Less than three weeks after taking office in 2010, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was positioned as a GOP savior. Clean-cut and handsome, he looked presidential. Some thought he might make it to the White House — as president or VP. Today, after a tumultuous four-year gubernatorial term, Bob McDonnell is on trial for corruption.

Back in January, The Washington Post reported that “McDonnell and his wife Maureen were charged in federal court Tuesday with illegally accepting gifts, luxury vacations and large loans from a wealthy Richmond-area businessman who sought special treatment from state government.” The Post added the feds “alleged McDonnell and his wife received gifts from [Jonnie] Williams again and again, lodging near constant requests for money, clothes, trips, golf accessories and private plane rides.”

As The New Civil Rights Movement reported then, Gov. McDonnell advocated for a state ban on same-sex marriage, and ushered in an administration openly hostile to its own LGBT citizens. In 2012, for example, Gov. McDonnell said gay parents threaten the ability of their children to achieve the American dream, and only straight parents can give children the right start in life. The year prior, McDonnell announced he wanted to block adoptions by same-sex couples. And just days after the newly-elected Governor Bob McDonnell took office, he signed a new state policy that specifically removed LGBTQ protections from state workers.

McDonnell, who graduated from Pat Robertson’s Regent University, wrote a 1989 thesis which proffered that the government should make policy favorable to married couples over “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.”

But McDonnell was perhaps best known, thanks to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, as “Governor Ultrasound,” for supporting a bill forcing women who were seeking an abortion to undergo a wholly medically-intrusive and wholly-medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasound. It was, of course, a GOP attempt to dissuade women from having abortions.

Today, Politico reports that “Bob McDonnell’s marriage was broken and his wife developed a crush on a businessman who lavished her with expensive gifts and attention, an attorney for the first lady said Tuesday during the couple’s corruption trial.

The McDonnells are charged in a 14-count indictment with accepting more than $165,000 in gifts and loans from former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams in exchange for promoting his dietary supplements company. If convicted, they could face decades in prison.

Maureen McDonnell’s lawyer William A. Burck said during opening statements that the former first lady was “duped” by Williams into thinking he cared for her. Williams filled a “void” in her life, and she and her husband were pretending to be a happy couple although their marriage had “broken down” long ago, Burck said.

“There were barely on speaking terms,” Burck said.Burck said Williams and Maureen frequently exchanged text messages and phone calls, and that Williams often visited the Executive Mansion. Burck said the pair had a relationship that “some people would consider inappropriate” and that one potential witness may describe Williams as Maureen McDonnell’s “favorite playmate.” He did not indicate that their relationship was physical.

WVTR has two video reports from the courthouse.

 

This post has been updated to properly state the founder of Regent University. 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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‘This Is a Big Deal’: Top Hegseth Advisor ‘Escorted’ Out of the Pentagon Amid Leak Probe

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A top advisor to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly was escorted out of the Pentagon after being identified in a leak investigation into an “unauthorized disclosure.”

Reuters, which exclusively reported the development, named the advisor as Dan Caldwell and stated that he has been placed on administrative leave.

Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin added that Caldwell is being “investigated for ‘unauthorized disclosure’ of classified information.”

Reuters noted that a “March 21 memo signed by Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, requested an investigation into ‘recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications.'”

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene to Constituents: ‘Sit and Listen’ at Town Hall or Be ‘Thrown Out’

“Kasper’s memo left open the possibility of a polygraph, although it was unclear if Caldwell was subjected to one.”

Meanwhile, Military.com’s Pentagon reporter Konstantin Toropin provides more context.

Caldwell was a low key but vital official,” he wrote, noting that Secretary Hegseth “said he was the best point of contact for the National Security Council in the Signalgate chat regarding the strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.”

Experts are weighing in.

Maybe overdue accountability is finally starting after SignalGate. Dan Caldwell is well-known in Washington as the former head of Hegseth’s former partisan political group, Concerned Veterans of America,” wrote Paul Rieckhoff, a veteran and veterans’ activist. “He also has loved to troll me on this platform over the years. A lapse of discipline or judgement would not be surprising. They are not just radical. They are sloppy and incompetent. That puts our national security at risk. And has our enemies celebrating.”

“This is a big deal,” adds Eric Bianco, Reuters National security correspondent focusing on intelligence. “Caldwell was integral to the Pentagon/admin’s Ukraine policy, especially when it came to discussions around continued military support for Kyiv.”

Developing…

READ MORE: Trump Agenda Mirrors Founders’ Grievances Against ‘Mad King’: Legal Experts

 

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Marjorie Taylor Greene to Constituents: ‘Sit and Listen’ at Town Hall or Be ‘Thrown Out’

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has declared her Tuesday night town hall is for constituents only, who must submit questions only in advance, must sign up, and then “sit and listen.” The Georgia Republican declared protesters, whom she alleged would only be “paid” Democrats, will be ejected.

In a social media video, Congresswoman Greene stated, “this is a town hall that’s strictly for constituents. That means you have to live in my district, and you had to sign up on the sign up link. That’s important. Make sure you bring your ID, as we will be verifying that you actually live in the district and have signed up to be in the town hall.”

Greene, under scrutiny over recent stock purchases she allegedly made, is holding the town hall in a county Vice President Kamala Harris carried in November by 15 percentage points, according to Fox News. The GOP Congresswoman established additional rules, namely, no protesting—despite First Amendment protections.

READ MORE: Trump Agenda Mirrors Founders’ Grievances Against ‘Mad King’: Legal Experts

“Also, this is important for everyone attending the town hall,” she said. “You need to understand this is not a place to protest. This isn’t a place to stand up and scream and yell. This is a place to sit and listen, and we have your questions if you signed up.”

Then she served up “one word of warning for you: If you’re planning to act up scream and protest, you’re going to be thrown out. And that’s the way it goes. We know how the Democrat Party is organizing and funding these protests for Republican town halls, all across America. And I’m just going to tell you, I don’t tolerate it.”

“America voted for President Trump, they voted for Republicans to be in charge of Congress and the Senate, and they voted to put America first, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” she concluded

Speaking to Fox News, Greene added she expects her constituents to “behave well. And we expect them to be, you know, respectful.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Call It What It Is’: Trump’s Latest Moves Are ‘Full Blown Fascism’ Experts Warn

 

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Trump Agenda Mirrors Founders’ Grievances Against ‘Mad King’: Legal Experts

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President Donald Trump’s key signature policies—the ones that will define his second administration’s early and perhaps entire tenure—echo the very abuses America’s founders listed in the Declaration of Independence as grievances against King George III, legal experts are warning.

“On Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, let’s recall the grievances he wrote in the Declaration of Independence against the abuses of the Mad King,” wrote George Mason University Professor of Economics Alex Tabarrok on Sunday.

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”

“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent”

“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”

“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”

“Sound familiar?” he asked. “Makes me angry. Should make you angry too.”

READ MORE: ‘Call It What It Is’: Trump’s Latest Moves Are ‘Full Blown Fascism’ Experts Warn

Similarly, attorney Tristan Snell, who successfully prosecuted the $25 million Trump University case for the State of New York, wrote that Trump is “literally re-creating the list of grievances from the Declaration of Independence.”

Tabarrok, Snell, and others, including retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who served as Commanding General of United States Army Europe, have all listed several of those grievances that they suggest apply to today’s Trump administration.

“One of the complaints that we had in the Declaration of Independence, at the beginning of the American Revolution was that King George was sending criminals to faraway prisons,” Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck told CNN Tuesday morning (video below). “It’s almost like history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes.”

“There’s no legal authority to send a U.S. citizen to serve a U.S. criminal sentence in a foreign prison,” he continued, saying that “it would be pretty striking if there was, because that would mean any of us could be effectively ‘disappeared’ into a prison with no U.S. legal constraints, with no potential human rights limits.”

Those last two grievances in the list were underscored on Monday, when President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele—appearing to act in a pre-arranged, tag-team fashion in the Oval Office—framed the situation as if returning a U.S. legal resident, whom American courts had explicitly barred the government from deporting, was now impossible. The individual, 38-year old Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had been sent to a Salvadoran maximum-security prison reserved for terrorists, in what legal experts suggest is a direct defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S Senator Chris Murphy, one of the most outspoken anti-Trumpism activists, explained the situation.

“Bone chilling,” the Connecticut Democrat begins. “A court ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that he was illegally removed. Trump is pretending he won the ruling 9-0. You may not think this case means anything to you. But let me tell you why it does.”

Indeed, Trump and his White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, falsely claimed the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion, ordering the administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S., was in their favor.

RELATED: ‘Dystopian’: Miller Makes ‘Outrageous’ Claim as El Salvador Refuses to Return US Resident

“Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. over 10 years ago. He married a U.S. citizen and has three U.S. citizen children,” Murphy continues. “He denies any gang affiliation.”

Trump and Bukele both said or suggested he is a terrorist, of which they have provided no evidence.

“You can think whatever you want about the merits of him staying (his U.S. family, his steady job) or being deported (the alleged gang affiliation), there’s really only one key fact: A court ruled he CANNOT be deported to El Salvador bc he would face threat of death there,” Murphy continued. ” In the United States, the executive is REQUIRED to follow a court ruling. Trump did not. He put Abrego Garcia on a plane to El Salvador. And worse, despite no allegation of criminal behavior, Abrego Garcia was put in a heinous El Salvador prison.”

He charges Trump’s team with being “engaged in nuclear grade gaslighting.”

“They say it’s up to El Salvador if they want to send him back. Bullshit. We bring people back all the time when we wrongfully remove them. They could get this guy in a hot second if they wanted to.”

“You may not think this case matters to you. But Abrego Garcia was legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us. His status as an immigrant doesn’t matter as a matter of law. If Trump can lock up or remove ANYONE – no matter what the courts say – we are all at grave risk.”

Senator Murphy warns: “This is a watershed moment, as Trump thumbs his nose at a Supreme Court ruling, gaslighting the public by pretending his won 9-0 when he lost 9-0. If we normalize this, there’s no end. He can lock up or remove anyone. We will no longer exist in a democracy.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Rages Against Critics, All But Silent on Alleged Terror Attack on Dem Governor

 

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