From local RW radio- McDonnell and his lawyer were as confident as Romney on election night

[underpants]

The local Richmond RW radio station had two reporters covering the trial.

McDonnell to reporters today walking into the courthouse "See you guys in a little while" All smiles.

Coming out he said he has faith in God that everything will work out. He said that everyday apparently.

His lawyer's only statement coming out of the courthouse was "We were not expecting THAT" emphasis added.

The two reporters and the host (they poo poo'ed the trial throughout) said that most observers thought that the bank and wire fraud charges would probably stick. One reporter said he talked to lawyers who said that the jury may have just felt they had "slammed him enough" on the conspiracy charges and gave both of them a pass on the fraud charges.

Bob faces 20 years. "Very little wiggle room for Federal judges" in sentencing. Fed Minimums require at least 85% of the max at sentencing.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

1. LOL

Good. Someone better put him on suicide watch though.

[underpants]

2. Had to change He to See you guys...

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Why?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

9. I've seen a number of white collar types, facing prison, off themselves

If the sentence is a few years, maybe they live with it, but possibly 20? And he's what....late 50's?

I recall a guy in our area who was a town administrator. Found guilty of bribery and other such charges. Went home right after the verdict and blew his brains out in his office. He was facing a long term. You never know what someone could do in that spot.

[thesquanderer]

20. Possibly a future republican president could pardon him or commute the sentence? (n/t)

[yardwork]

23. Of course. Always the chance for a presidential pardon.

[Jackpine Radical]

58. Well, Republicans are always interested in cutting the Federal budget, no?

Do you know how much a bed in one of those fancy country-club prisons costs per year?

I amplify my question. Why not let him do his part for the BOP budget?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

66. Oh....

Now I get what you mean.

[gwheezie]

3. Local news reports he was sobbing

Good, I hope he regrets every day for the rest of his life. He is a deranged loon and hates women.

[underpants]

5. "Face in hands...head almost hit the table"

Last edited Thu Sep 4, 2014, 08:46 PM - Edit history (1)

I read that in the NYT article

One of the reporters I mentioned was in the courtroom - Maureen was openly bawling. Sad, she tried to take the whole thing for him, was publicly humiliated, and all for nought.

[Cha]

15. That's

"bawling".

[gwheezie]

17. If she was balling, that would have been big news nt

[underpants]

47. EDITED- combination typing w/o glasses on iPhone and autocorrect

[Jackpine Radical]

60. I preferred it before the edit.

[gwheezie]

65. my iphone has autocorrected me with some strange words too, nt

[Demeter]

35. Please...she was bawling

not performing a sexual act...

[meow2u3]

37. Before, she was ballin'--now, she's bawlin'

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

[underpants]

48. Thanks

Edited. Typing without glasses

[George II]

36. Were there no cameras allowed? I'd love to see a picture of them.

[Fred Sanders]

14. He was as confident yesterday as Governor Perry is today....

[Cha]

16. Good point.

[gratuitous]

4. "Very little wiggle room" in sentencing for federal crimes

Why do I have the feeling that the sentence will squirm like a bucket of eels?

Sure, you can send some kid away for life because the FBI lured him into a bomb plot; but McDonnell's white! And rich! And too pretty for prison!

[underpants]

8. 4 months until sentencing - Jan. 6th

Guys like that get one more Christmas at home. He has to appeal and it wouldn't surprise me if he gets to wait that out on the outside - unlike everyone else as you point out.

[FarPoint]

55. Is he in jail tonight? Both of them?

If so....did they get handcuffs and a frog march?

Oh, Ms. McDonnell should get a forced vaginal ultrasound as part of her medical intake at the prison.

[underpants]

61. No they are at their separate homes

Guys like that get to go home before sentencing. Bob is living with his Catholic priest who got moved up to Richmond from Norfolk after he, the priest, got caught in a "bawdy place" (public park) with another man. Not implying anything about Bob but the whole trial was that freakin' crazy.

[FarPoint]

70. Thanks for the update.

Bob with the priest.....like icing on a cake.... ...

[Stuart G]

31. Did you ever hear of Rod Blagojevich? ex gov of Illinois?

He got 14 years...now he has served 2, and the verdict is on appeal..but, he is in jail right now, as this is written. Got him on federal charges too..I don't think he will get off..and he is not too pretty for prison, Blago..was pretty too..(at least some thought so)

[George II]

38. And John Rowland is in the second day of his corruption trial....

....another Federal trial.

[underpants]

53. Posted this earlier - the difference in coverage was noticeable

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025488986

Remember Garry Condit? He was never even a suspect.

[NYC Liberal]

44. Another reason to fight like hell for a Dem in 2016.

Guaranteed a Repub president will pardon this POS. Or at least commute the sentence, depending on the political climate.

Shrub did it for Libby and that was an ongoing scandal within his own admin. Three years from now nobody will remember and it'll be safe to pardon.

[mucifer]

45. Governors get long prison sentences here in Illinois.

[drray23]

6. well

Sometimes its hard to discern reality through the right wing bubble of denial

[underpants]

10. This was pretty straight forward

You could tell they didn't have anyway to get around 11 felony convictions.

[drray23]

11. oh yes

For normal thinking folks like us, not for megalomaniac, delusional repubs.

[Tanuki]

62. Rachel Maddow reported that he had turned down an offer of a plea bargain.

The terms would have had him plead guilty to one felony charge, his wife would not have been charged with anything, and he would have been spared a trial. What an idiot. No wonder he was crying.

[underpants]

64. Yes. Plea offered that would have kept his wife safe

Let alone what she was dragged through in this case.
Not sure of the details but it would have been much quieter (the lack of coverage of this whacked out trial was noticeable) maybe disbarred but no jail time and eventually he gets a job as a lobbyist or at least has a book and speaking deals.

[joeybee12]

12. I too, had faith in God that everything would work out...

But my definition of "work out" was different from McDonnell's.

[Thinkingabout]

67. Faith in the justice system worked in this case, guess he missed on the outcome.

[Fred Sanders]

13. I notice NY Times covered this on the web 4 hours ago, CNN 1 hour ago.....and yet to mention

on their cable news entertainment licensed channel.....

[underpants]

54. The lack of coverage was noticeable

Posted this earlier today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025488986

The NYT live blog was a daily check for me

Blagojevich
Gary Condit
I could mention others

The only Va Governor to ever be CHARGED with a crime and then the trial started and it got weird. Just what the media usually manufactures.

[Enthusiast]

74. Gary Condit seemed to be full time when Fox "News" and others had him convicted of murder.

This media SUCKS!

[SunSeeker]

18. If you are evil and delusional, your life rarely ends well.

Or at least that is what the Bible McConnell professes to follow teaches.

[Cha]

19. thanks underpants..

Rosalind Helderman ✔ @PostRoz
Follow
Bob McDonnell guilty of 11 counts--all corruption counts.
9:02 AM - 4 Sep 2014 616 Retweets 171 favorites

Rosalind Helderman ✔ @PostRoz
Follow
Maureen McDonnell guilty on 8 corruption counts and obstruction of justice.
9:03 AM - 4 Sep 2014 355 Retweets 102 favorites

http://theobamadiary.com/2014/09/04/news-of-the-day-36/

[DrBulldog]

21. Our nation right now needs ...

... thousands of such trials to take place. Blatant and destructive corruption is absolutely everywhere in America.

[DrBulldog]

22. His lawyers now understand how it feels ...

... to have an ultrasound probe shoved up their butts.

[TNNurse]

25. Thank you.

[underpants]

50. GREAT reference

Thanks

[Cirque du So-What]

24. And to think...

he coulda copped a plea and his wife wouldn't have been on the hook for anything. Talk about buyer's remorse!

[Nay]

71. Really! What a delusional idiot! But I live in VA and knew that both these

grifters would probably believe nothing like this could ever happen to them....

[kairos12]

26. On appeal he will ask to stay out until case is heard. He won't see jail for a while I bet.

That is how Tom Delay delayed. Rethug successful tactic.

[Snarkoleptic]

27. Hope his conviction is not DeLay'd

[3catwoman3]

28. Sweet.

Sweet, sweet, sweet!

[elleng]

29. Pretty silly for a lawyer to be confident,

but I must admit, even tho I did not follow the trial closely, I thought lots of 'guilty' would be difficult. GLAD I was wrong!

[SummerSnow]

30. "I don't need a concession speech"-Romney...

Later on that evening...

"WHAT AM I PAYING YOU PEOPLE FOR..WRITE ME A DAMN CONCESSION SPEECH!!!"- Romney

[dballance]

32. Good Grief. How could they have been at all confident w/ that flimsy defense?

The "throw your wife under the bus" defense probably angered the jurors more than it helped to defend him. I would have been pretty insulted by it just from the tidbits of evidence I read in the news. I can only imagine how bad it was in the courtroom where one could hear all the evidence and not just the salacious parts reported on the web and TeeVee.

On Edit:

I think people are pretty freaking tired of politicians turning their office into a wealth-enhancing scheme. Cantor did it the legal way but he's still a piece of shit.

[FuzzyRabbit]

42. Why were they confident?

How could they have been at all confident w/ that flimsy defense?

Easy. Rich, white and republican.

[dballance]

43. Good point. /nt

[underpants]

52. 5 women on the jury and even the RW host said McDonnell taking the stand was a mistake

Bob claimed that as bad as he was portraying his wife he never yelled at her "I never yell" Bob said on the stand. The host said that that doesn't make since to anyone who has ever been married or in a relationship.

[NastyRiffraff]

57. Absolutely

I've thought throughout the trial that the jury might not like his throwing Maureen under the bus. Juries as a rule hate defendents who try to blame someone else, particularly a spouse.

He could have copped a plea and let Maureen off, but he was so confident that this silly defense would work he humiliated his wife publicly. Doesn't matter if she approved the strategy; it was still a shitty thing to do.

[Nay]

72. Indeed. The moment he threw her under the bus, I knew he was gonna

lose big time. A governor, a white Christian GOP head of household, can't keep his wife from taking bribes and gifts??? That didn't fly at all among the jurors. Not only do they hate whingers who blame others, they also hate politicians who bully the public and then claim they're unable to 'lead' their family members. He was a moron for thinking this would work.

[SCVDem]

33. This cannot be overstated!

Fug 'em!

[mountain grammy]

34. Good, every once in a while, there's justice..

[lpbk2713]

39. Just like they used to say about Shit-for-Brains ...

All hat, no cattle.


Blustering gas bag.

[Historic NY]

40. Tried by his peers...not rich ones.

[C Moon]

41. A tad off topic: I was following the election mostly from DU...

...so I was surprised on election night, to hear that Romney was blindsided when he lost.
Some of my friends were also "relieved" when Obama won. That's what you get for watching the skewed network polls.

[Ikonoklast]

46. Meanwhile In Texas:

Governor Rick Perry Reads News Today And Pooped His Pants, Details At 11.

[Jack Rabbit]

49. McD was about as confident as Mitt the Twit with about as much good reason.

Being overoptimistic, I can forgive. Being willfully ignorant is something else again.

[underpants]

59. Jack I didn't really complete that in the OP

The RW hosts clearly alluded to Bob and his lawyer being VERY confident not just going in today but throughout the trial. This is RW radio so they both probably had insight or were part of the PR that this was no big deal. These radio guys were flabbergasted today.

Of course, they lead with the charges Bob WASN'T convicted of

[Jack Rabbit]

68. Nor is my remark directed at you

In fact, it is directed at the right wing media and Mitt the Twit himself, who, for reasons completely unknown to me, thought their man was in like Flynn. It's a bit reminiscent of Dick Morris' now infamous "by a quite lot, really" in picking Mitt the Twit as the winner on FoxNews as the polls closed.

There wasn't a poll in the nation that showed the Twit even terribly close. The righties were so so self deluded over there decades long fables about librul media that they just assumed that all those polls were fixed and some wizard even had the idea of going through the fruitless exercise of "unskewing" the polls. Of course, the "unskewed" polls showed the Twit winning. It would have worked if the underlying premise of the idea had the slightest truth in it, namely that there were just as many Republicans as Democrats ready to vote. But the GOP brand has been taking a pounding for ten years or more. What part of Bush the Frat Boy was an abject failure did they not understand?

I could see this verdict coming weeks ago. It's a good thing, too. I don't think I could stomach the McD's celebrating their acquittal by running off to Tahiti to sip piña colladas on the beach together after telling the world about how bad their marriage is.

[underpants]

69. Great post

They factored in the "energy" of his rallies. Hell everyone has energy at their rallies. That's the point of rallies.

[Tanuki]

73. I think Mitt and company were "confident" in spite of the polls because they thought they

could rely on voter suppression and dirty tricks to manipulate the outcome. They didn't think that people would actually stand in line for four hours to vote in precincts where they had cut back on early and Sunday voting and under-supplied voting machines.

[MADem]

51. Were Karl Rove and Frank Luntz doing the prodictions, there?

[underpants]

56. ...and the landslide will bring you down....

I read that here in DU after the election and will never forget it

[merrily]

63. What are they going to say to media? "We expected a guilty verdict!"

They are going to try like hell to appeal now. So, of course, they were "shocked, shocked."