Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20150928

Him in all four quadrants of the city. Marion barry was held as a hero for the things he did and he embarrassed the people that loved him. I am not surprised. I think marion barry was a big figure. Four turns as mayor and as city council member. Brian because there are a number of officials from virginia, not from virginia yet, but from maryland, Public Officials that are in jail. We wanted to do an update. Lets start with i have some video of you interviewing someone that the audience might remember because of his father, ron brown. This is michael brown. He is in prison where . Tom he is in a small prison in alabama. A minimum security prison. It was a spectacular falling for michael brown. He had all of the gifts you could possibly want. From his father, ron brown who was so close to clinton. Michael brown was not a lawyer. But he was paid a lot of money to work with law firms. He was elected to the council. He ran on his fathers name. Brian he was on the city council. Tom what brought him down was that he offered to help two businessmen get through the maze of contracting in the city. What he did not realize was that the two businessmen were fbi agents and he took bribes. Brian in 2012, you interviewed him on the kojo nnamdi show. [video clip] tom people do not feel that you or the councilmembers at this point have a strong opinion that the ethics laws need to be enforced. We have a new Ethics Committee that still does not have an office space. It has to start working this fall. It seems like ethics is a back burner issue when it should be the engine. I dont know if it is back burner, tom, i understand what you are saying. As we deal with ethics and Campaign Finances which are two separate issues tom not in the publics mind. We have not seen a lot of evidence of pay or play politics. I have not seen that. Brian he used to have an office in this building. A very nice guy to see every day. What happened to him . Tom he was corrupt. It is unfortunate but he was corrupt. He skated through a lot of his life because of his fathers reputation. He had doors open to him that people would cry to have open for them. He fell in love with dressing well and having fancy cars. And acting up and having a good time as a public official. Something went off in his brain or he did not have it to begin with. When people say that money is the milk of politics, the mothers milk of politics, it is. It is a cliche but it is true. Brian how did he get the money . Was it cash . Tom there was money in a Washington Redskins can. He got the money. Look at the delight on his face even there. As a citizen of this city, which gets maligned in this nation as a corrupt town, looking at his face like that, it annoys the hell out of me. This person wasted his life. He is smart. He had access. And he could have done a lot for the city but instead he chose to do for himself. Brian the former governor of maryland died. We have some video from back in 2015 which came to me a short time ago. It is from nbc baltimore. Martin mandel also went to prison. Tom he did. Brian it was commuted. I will ask you about that in a moment. [video clip] his local career started when the political machine helped him to get appointed to a vacant seat in the maryland house of delegates. He became House Speaker in 1963. When spiro agnew resigned, he was appointed to serve out the rest of the term. His accomplishments were overshadowed. The record will show that during my administration, nothing was ever done to defraud the public of the state of maryland. Federal prosecutors claim that he accepted cash, favors, and gifts, in exchange for pushing through legislation that would benefit the old owners of the race track in Prince Georges County. Brian what can you say about him . Tom a fabulous politician. Like marion barry but i do not mean to compare the two except to say that Marvin Mandel wrote his own book in 2010 an accidental politician. Things happened. Spiro agnew just happened to be indicted. He knew people. He was a classic politician. He changed the way the state paid for education. He changed things so there was a clear understanding of how we fund the schools in maryland. He took a State Government with over 250 agencies, a morass of agencies, very Little Organization structure. He changed it to 12 department heads. A cabinet that would report to the governor about what was happening. He did a lot of things like that to make the state become much more modernized. It was a rural backwater before. Brian he did go to prison. Tom he did because he got caught up in the racetrack in Prince Georges County which is a suburb of washington. It needed more racing days. The number of days a racetrack could have is dependant the racetrack was going bankrupt. Some of his friends, i am not sure how much he had to do with it, got a bill killed in the legislature that would allow them to have more racing days. These same friends went and bought the racetrack and then they got permission for more racing days and made a fortune. They could sell the racetrack for a lot more money. And that is what the prosecutors went after mandel for. In the process, he got money for helping that. It was later overturned. I am not a lawyer so i dont want to get into why it was overturned. He served 19 months in prison. It was overturned because there was another case in new jersey or somewhere else where the prosecutors had reached too far to say he was corrupt. Brian this is the case that got to the Supreme Court and went back to the appeals court. Very confusing. Tom Ronald Reagan commuted his sentence. Brian he is still a hero based on the coverage in maryland. Tom people look at politicians, and we sometimes have a rosy view. Looking at donald trump. Im going to do this and that and i cannot be bought. Politicians have to do a lot of compromising to get things done. If you get things done, just as marion barry did and Bob Mcdonnell got things done in virginia, when you are exposed to having some corruption or crime, the people who are most involved, those who benefited from you being governor or mayor, give you more balance on that. Mandel was a remarkable, personal politician, like clinton. You were a friend for life. Same thing with bill clinton and marion barry. When people have a builtup history like that, the fact that they do something wrong does not wipe the slate clean. Brian we are in maryland for the moment. Can you remember spiro agnew . Tom i remember him. I do not know why he was picked as Vice President ial candidate. He cheated money for groceries. He had small potato corruption color his time. Small potato corruption. Michael brown, the councilman we talked about a moment ago, a few thousand dollars here and there while his income was 130,000 as a councilman. He sold himself so cheap. If you are going to cheat brian he actually took cash money when he was Vice President. Tom it was an entitlement thing that he could take it. Brian what do you think about the fact that he pled no contest and did not have to go to jail, and went on to make millions. Tom he was out of Public Office. It was like ron machen investigating the former mayor gray. Even eric holder, the attorney general. He wrote a letter for all of the u. S. Attorneys. If the people who represent us are corrupt, then we have to get them out of office. Sometimes, he left office. He went on to make a successful life afterwards. He was shamed and ridiculed. Brian since 1989, you have been with channel four here in town. Tom i cover mainly City Politics as well as development issues. And how the federal government treats the city. It is a ward of the federal government. The Nations Capital is the most unamerican city in america. Its people that call it home do not have a vote in congress. We have a delegate that can vote in committee but not on the house floor. We have no representation in the senate. The constitution says that congress should have full legislative authority over the district. It is a remarkable place and i cover all of those interactions. When bill clinton in 1992 and 1993 sat on georgia avenue, and said we will help make this street come back, in 20 years, nothing has happened. Brian lets go to ron machin because i want you to explain him. Who is he . Tom he was the u. S. Attorney for the District Of Columbia for five years. He left office voluntarily on his own accord april the first of this year. He was a very aggressive prosecutor on public corruption issues. He was a successful lawyer before this and he is now in private practice and he is now successful in private practice. He led the investigation into the allegations of corruption over mayor vincent gray. There were, within a few months, there were allegations that money had been spent and not accounted for to get him elected. That unfolded with an fbi investigation that has now lasted over five years. Brian why did he step down . Tom i think he was the longestserving u. S. Attorney in the district for 38 years. It has over 300 lawyers. The u. S. Unlike anywhere else in america, the u. S. Attorneys office prosecutes all of the major crimes in the District Of Columbia. You would think the state courts would do in other places. They have to prosecute anything above a misdemeanor. After five years, it is a grueling thing and there is some criticism that he stepped down without concluding the case against mayor gray. He said, i have done this for five years. It is a demanding job. He thinks he did it well. A lot of people think he did it well except for the mayor gray thing. He was ready to move back into the private sector. I dont begrudge him that. Brian you did an interview with him after he stepped down for a show. Tom there is a place on capitol hill called the hill center. For the last couple of years, every few months, we invite a politician or a person to come in who is in Public Office to talk about themselves more than they do what they do for work. Where they come from, where they went to school. Ronald was on and i asked him things like you played football. We give people a chance to see people in public, like you talk to people. Brian this was back in november 2013 he was still in office. Tom yes. I dont know which clip you will show. [video clip] tom the business of d. C. Is politics. Corruption if you go down the laundry list of our cases you will see over the last four years, the largest federal contracting scheme in our nations history. Over a billion dollars in contracts and 30 billion in bribes involving officials in the u. S. Army corps of engineers. We know about the three councilman who have been convicted of felonies. The chief of staff to another councilman who has been convicted. We know about the two congressman who have been convicted. Here in d. C. , corruption is the name of the game here in d. C. Bread and butter. We have had over 125 public corruption and actions. It is critical and it is a priority because you have to go after leadership. And you do not have people who believe in the system of government and believe that officials are on the day, it tears at the fabric of our democracy. People lose trust in the system. Tom first thing i want to say is that i have more than one tie. Brian 125 public Corruption Cases while he was there. Is that unusual . Tom listening to him again, unfortunately, he does not say that in d. C. , that those cases were in the federal government. They prosecute all manner of corruption. There are 200 thousand federal workers in the metropolitan Washington Area. There are fraud cases. They do a lot of fraud cases with people milking the government. When you hear when hundred 25 cases, that is not District Of Columbia employees or citizens. We have had a too long list of corruption in the city but a lot of that is federal. Brian you mentioned that vincent gray who was the mayor of this town but was defeated in the primary by marion bowser. Everyone was waiting for an indictment that never came. Tom and still has not yet come. People have thought that this will be a time for the next person to come in. Vinny who is the acting u. S. Attorney, we thought vincent will come in to say that they are not going to bring charges against him but that has not happened. Within the last 24 hours, i checked in, they tell me again and again that the investigation is continuing. It was a complex scheme where 650,000 was spent in 2010 to get people to buy Campaign Material and do all kinds of things. None of the money was reported. The person who controlled the money pleaded guilty. Jeffrey thompson said Jeffrey Thompsons word in court is not very good. At least six people have pled guilty in this scandal. Including Jeffrey Thompson. People who handled the money. Do they have enough to nail the mayor . Last year, it was reported that he turned down a plea bargain on a federal felony charge and there is some suggestion that he even turned down a misdemeanor plea bargain where he would just have to ignore knowledge that he knew about the scandal. He is out of office. Brian where is Jeffrey Thompson . Tom he is around town and going down to the caribbean islands. He is still doing business. He used to have an Accounting Firm but he got out of that. He is a welltodo man. He is living the life. Someone sent me a picture of him buying shoes at nordstroms. He travels but he has to get permission from the prosecutors to go out of town. Brian any person for him . Tom that is one of those things that has a lot of people angry. He pled guilty in court a year ago in april in march of 2014. He orchestrated the money, and provided the money and he may face six months in prison. Brian when will he have to go to prison . Tom after the case is concluded. There are several people who pled guilty but they have not spent any time because they are waiting for the next shoe to drop, waiting for the mayor to be charged. The Defense Attorneys i have spoken with, people familiar with the prosecutors, and everyone who is involved, still think that there will be some sort of legal action against vincent gray. Brian in july, 2013, a writer for the Washington Post let us let her explain something a little more. [video clip] Jeffrey Thompson had been in the news. He is a local businessman who is at the center of a major federal investigation and no one really knew who he was. I told my editor that i wanted to write the definitive profile of Jeffrey Thompson. He is at the center of d. C. Politics and some folks say he is actually at the center of d. C. Politics falling apart. For years, behind the scenes, he had been giving to candidates, he had several contracts with the city, huge contracts. One was worth 322 million a year. No one really knew who he was until things came to light in 2011 over problems with the current mayor, vincent c grays campaign for mayor in 2010. Tom she is a terrific reporter and this ghetto would probably not have happened without her work. She now works for the New York Times and she is covering mayor de blasio among other things. Jeffrey thompson was not popularly known in the publics mind. But he was very well known in the districts community. Extremely wellknown. Back in the 1990s, 1995, the District Of Columbia was nearly bankrupt when marion barry was mayor. The congress put together a Financial Authority control port to control the citys finances. It left marion berry the authority to appoint a cfo. Out of the blue, marion barry picked Anthony Williams who had been working at the Agriculture Department as cfo. It turns out much later, we found out that the person who recommended to marion barry to hire Anthony Williams was Jeffrey Thompson. Brian thompson tom thompson was well known in the African American business community. Brian does he still have that business . Tom he left the Accounting Firm and that business. Brian he is still wealthy. Tom i have not seen his books but he seems to be wealthy based on his travel. He even had a business agreement with eric holder. This surprised me. We put it in an updated version of our book. When the Washington Nationals were still in montreal, the Major League Baseball said the team could move to washington, someone had to buy the team. There were 45 bidders and one of them was a group of businessmen put together that included Jeffrey Thompson and eric holder. I asked eric holder, did you have any other businesses with Jeffrey Thompson that you can tell us . It took them two weeks but he told me no. Brian i want to put up a map so people who do not live in this area can get some understanding of what this area looks like. It is between baltimore and Northern Virginia, about 9. 5 billion people. Tom it is between baltimore to the north and richmond to the south. Brian to the side of the District Of Columbia is a county called Prince Georges County. What can you tell us about jack jackson who was the former executive of the county . Tom jack johnson built himself up and became a prosecutor. He ran and became the county executive. He got caught up people forget this when we talk about how long the vincent gray investigation went on. He was part of politics for more than five years. Jack johnson was taking money from kickbacks. There was a horrible explosion when he was indicted. The fbi raided his house. It was hugely embarrassing. His wife was at home when the feds came to the door. She called jack johnson and he is telling her to hide money in her bra so the fbi would not see it. To flush a check down the commode so the feds would not get it. This was all caught on audiotape. They had bugged his own. It was a humiliating fall. Prince georges county has been known as a rapidly changing community. The police were considered horrendous but that has all changed. He was part of the africanamerican leadership in that community. He fell to the money. Brian his wife is out of prison after serving 10 months. He is still in and he is a prisoner in north carolina. Here is the video of one of the sting operations where he is taking money from an fbi agent. [video clip] i have a message to take everything from you. [indiscernible] thank you. Prosecutors always want to try, especially minorities, they like to put them in jail. If a prosecutor could bring someone like me down. That would make their whole career. But they prosecuted jack johnson. Tom i dont like to use the word arrogance but that is what it was. The feeling that he was above all of this that he can take money and laugh about it. Brian the minority accusation that he made. What do you think . Tom there is no credible information that africanamericans are singled out by prosecutors in the District Of Columbia. It shows you how corrupt i tell people, when you think about all of the corruption that we are talking about in this immediate Washington Area including virginia and maryland, you have to remember that four governors out of seven in illinois has been or are in prison. Ray nagin, the mayor of new orleans when katrina happened. Turns out he was convicted after he left office. He was indicted and is serving a 10 year prison sentence. Kilpatrick in detroit. From 1976 until 2010, there are almost 1300 officials public corruption is there because that is where the money and the power is. There will always be people who try to steal it, try to coopt things. That is why we have to have better ethics laws. It was a survey done by the university of texas, i dont want to get my surveys next, i mean the university of illinois at of the 50 states and how they rank in terms of ethics. This was in 2012 or 2013. 47 of them got a f or a d rating. When something bad happens, the media gets on it, there are calls for reforms, some reform is done and then it is all forgotten until the next scandal. And we repeat the cycle. Brian tapping about jack johnson. He gets out of prison in 2018. It goes back to marion barry. He was sent to prison for six months on a misdemeanor. Jack johnson was sent on a felony and he got a lot of time. Should marion barry be sent for a misdemeanor . Tom a lot of people would tell you no. He initially faced 14 charges of corruption in drug abuse. 12 of the charges the jury was hong on them. One was not guilty. He was caught smoking crack. People felt he had been in trapped. He was convicted in another case of having marijuana with another woman. Judge jackson who radiated irritation gave him the full 6 month. And among other people in the city that marion barry was mistreated. He had a drug problem not a corruption problem, they said. Brian we have several to go in this area. By the way, Prince Georges County for our viewers have a million people. Arch moore went to prison, the governor of West Virginia and he died this year. His daughter is the United States senator from West Virginia right now. Tom we do not follow that case. It is unnerving for me, i worked at nbc for here in washington, and the people who run the station tell us that we have viewers in West Virginia. I am doing my job. It is hard for me to think about the people in West Virginia. I have not covered West Virginia politics. You could go to almost every state, he used to tell people, put me in any jurisdiction in the country and i will find some kind of corruption. Brian he was governor from 1969 until 1977. He was convicted of five felonies. Tom if you go back, and look at the roads and schools in West Virginia, he probably did a lot of that. Successful politicians do things, and maybe that is where they get this fake shield of armored that they feel they can do these corrupt things. That is why we need better ethics laws and the application of the laws in every state. The Washington Post has good news for the District Of Columbia. I wrote an editorial recently praising the city for its much tougher ethics. There is an agency now. If you have a question about ethics, you can go after him a question or they will go investigate and they can fine people. It has put a damper on unethical actions in the city. Brian his daughter, has never been accused of anything and she was just elected to the United States senate. Tom that is a good example of someone being a child of a successful politician, unlike michael brown. Harry thomas was a council. His father had been one also. When harry was elected to replace his father, i said to him you know you will be offered a lot of money and you will be offered that in subtle ways. To move things around. Where you can make money. You should be very careful. He said he would be careful. It turns out that he had already are did the paperwork to start corrupting some city contracts for youth and athletic activities even before he took office. Brian 300,000. Tom the contract was for summer youth sports programs. In the summer, a lot of children do not have parents at home. I told him after he got convicted and pled guilty, i told him that if i had one of those baseball bats i would hit him with it. He got a hang dog look. He is in prison in alabama. Low security prison. Brian harry thomas got 38 months sentenced. Tom yes. With good behavior, he got out early and spent time in a baltimore halfway house. Last march, he was out. Brian the earlier one we spoke about, kwame brown. He resigned from office. Tom one of the principal goals of the prosecution of a public official is to get them out of office. There should be more going to prison which might help people from doing these unethical things. Brown, his father Marshall Brown was very active and a political leader in the city. He went over the whole city getting people out to vote for marion barry. He was a wellknown and wellliked person in the city. Brown benefited from his fathers reputation and he ended up unethically cheating on his mortgage. Michael brown was the son of ron brown. He ended up humiliating himself and his creasing his family name. And harry thomas. All three Council Members. All three should have been the leaders of the city even now have a paid attention to the job instead of the money that they could make on the side. Brian have there been accusations of the current mayor . Tom mayor bowser who won on a platform of clean politics. It is a very small city. 600 50,000 people. 68 square miles. Its budget is 13 billion a year. Just like other cities, we have had a tremendous explosion in economic growth. We have 100,000 new people in town. There is a lot of money. She said herself. We have to be very careful in how we do all of these contracts. Brian did you follow the mayor of baltimore, the one before now, sheila dixon where she had to step down because she was taking these gift cards that were supposed to go to people in poverty . She has already announced that she will run again. Tom again, i wish we could just say that you have the robe of goodness or a robe of corruption on what it is often just a mix of things. Like marion barry. Why did he put up a disguise of drugs and women. This person built a fire station in southeast washington where there was not one. This is a person that took care of senior citizens. He would talk about taking care of people in the dawn of life and the twilight of life. He did a lot of these things. If you are a politician, they have constituents. They dont just pass out money and contracts. They are seen as people who try to do well and then they get corrupt. That is the thing that drives me the most crazy as a political reporter. They do not need to do that. Brian last time i saw you was 21 years ago. Here you are, 21 years ago, talking about marion barry. Tom marion barry used to point me out in a crowd. That is tom sherwood over there. I made him. That is what he would say. And i would shout back yes you did. Brian lets watch you to me when years ago. [video clip] tom he did not talk officially for the book that he did talk for a decade. He would ask what was in it for me. It turned out we did not know all of the bad stuff. It surprised us. Even now, he does not like to talk about the book or dispute the book. He just says that i am a better reporter then i am a writer. He dismisses it and says the book happened and these things happened in the past. I am a new person and a new marion barry. Id knowledge my problems with women and drugs. Taking my hand off of the tiller. I am moving on. He did not want to address the book for that reason. Brian just for a moment, how many different times was he a elected . Tom he was elected mayor four times. Three times in a row. In 1978, in 1982. And then he was elected in 1994. Brian how many times with the elected to the council . Tom four times. In his political career, he was elected to the council atlarge and the council ones and after being mayor, he was elected to counsel for ward eight. Three times. Brian at his memorial service, Newt Gingrich spoke, Bruce Johnson spoke. Tom my competitor on channel nine a cbs station also spoke. Brian what do you think about that . Tom i have spoken at memorials for people. None of whom were elected but they were publicly wellknown. I think that marion berrys widow wanted someone from the media to acknowledge the impact of marion barry on the city. Bruce johnson has been covering the city since the 1970s. People call me the dean of journalists for the local Washington Area but bruce was working a couple of months before me. I have mixed emotions. I get invited to speak to a lot of things that are political but i have to turn them down. Bruce also does inaugurations. We have a big city of inaugural and bruce is often called upon to be the master of ceremonies for that. Some people think it is not good and too chummy with people you are covering but i have never seen evidence that bruce has done anything improper because of it. Brian throughout Marion Barrys life in this town, after he went to prison for six months, he did come back and constantly have problems with the law but never really suffered. Tom he would have fender vendors. One of my favorite stories about him is that he had a fender bender in the southeast near the baseball stadium area. There was a dancing club there. During the day, i went to the neighborhood to see this club because i had not been there. I went there and it was open. I didnt know it would be open in the middle of the day and i said that i was a reporter. I asked if this was Marion Barrys place. They said yes. I went back to the office and i called him up. I said mr. Mayor, i have been to club 55. Do you realize that people are watching where you go and what you do. You sit there all the time to watch naked dancing girls. There was a pause on the phone and he said it is nice there isnt it . There is a big dispute about taxes. He did not file his taxes and as a government employee, money was taken out of his paycheck to pay part of his taxes. He did not file to see if he owed more or got a refund. A lot of his money was taken out but he never filed taxes for 1015 years. When they went over his money, he owed taxes. It was a misdemeanor i believe. It was not a felony. People thought you dont pay your taxes it is a felony. He did pay taxes he just did not complete them or file. Brian for those who do not remember marion barry, here he is late in his life. [video clip] washington, d. C. Is our Nations Capital. It is our local government. For any of the embassies here. The National Government and agencies are here. International press is here. National press is here. Which means that there are more eyes on me than any other person in america. In america. And i have survived that. And i have overcome that. I am not going to let it get me down. I want to thank the people of washington, d. C. Who are beautiful for having the sense and understanding to cut through all of the bs. And also, with the major press here, we have a few marion barry haters. A few dozen. Some are here tonight. What they do is they cannot find anything good. There is always good in something. Tom he was a master. We think of donald trump in the summer and Fall Campaign that we are in now. That was a good picture of marion barry late in his life. He had the ability to frame things the way he wanted to. He was good at it. If you know his crime of being arrested and the contracting scandals, he looked like a foolish old man talking about life. There was a councilmember there Charlie Jarvis who was at an event where marion barry was talking. He was talking about how he had suffered in public life. I have suffered a thousand moons to which Charlie Jarvis leaned over and said, all selfinflicted. Brian Marion Christopher barry. Ran for the eighth ward where his father represented the council. What happened . Tom Marion Christopher barry lost. Marion barry had wanted his son to become the next councilmember and carry on his legacy. Marion barry the christopher was changed to the c when he ran for office. This is a small town. We have an International Community here with the embassies. We have the federal road here with the congress and the white house. And just below that is a little southern town called the District Of Columbia. In those neighborhoods like ward eight, you cannot bogart your way in. Patricia roberts harris, the former housing secretary, and johnson, she is famous in the nation for trying to run for mayor. She had no local ties. Christopher barry lived in ward eight but had no real local ties. He had a small painting company. He would show up at his fathers thanksgiving and christmas giveaways. But he did not have his own he could not stand on his own two feet. He has had all sorts of problems. He is not in prison. Tom he has had some drug possession problems and most recently, just before he was running, he went down to his local bank to get some money to pay his workers, he said. The person behind the shield said i cannot give you that much money. Christopher got furious and threw a chair over the plexiglass. I dont think it hit the woman but he was charged with assault. That case to my knowledge is not finished. Brian at the funeral of marion barry, for those who get selfrighteous about the things that he did wrong, lewis fair con had this to say. [video clip] i was here in washington when my brother went through his great trials. And the reporter from one of the washington newspapers came to me with a question. But before she asked her question, she was building me up as a moral giant. Somebody who was married and had a good life and did not use drugs. And what do you think, she said, of a man who broke his marital vows and used drugs. And i said who are you talking about . Jfk . Brian back to ron machen he also put Jesse Jackson junior in prison. He is out of prison now but his wife is in or due to go in. What was that story . Tom that was out of illinois. He had a house here, right next door to where walter washington, the first mayor of the city lived. That was the case i did not follow because it was out of illinois. I dont want to talk about what Jesse Jacksons son did because i do not know the details. He took the money. And did not report it. Brian finally, one more case this man is not in prison. He has been sentenced to go to prison for at least two years and his wife for at least one year and one day. Bob mcdonnell. Before i ask you about this, here are the two reporters from the Washington Post that spent a lot of time on this case reporting on the conviction of the former governor of virginia, Bob Mcdonnell. [video clip] he has earned the dubious distinction of being the first governor in the history of virginia to be charged with a crime. Bob and maureen stand accused of trading the prestige of the Governors Office in exchange for a man that ran a dietary supplement company. He gave them 177,000 and Luxury Vacations and gives and sweetheart loan deals. They are charged with conspiracy. Defense attorneys are saying that their marriage was broken and at times they were hardly talking and so they could hardly have inspired together. They did not interact with one another. They were showing through their body language that they were not conspiring together. Further, that Maureen Mcdonald has a crush on Johnny Williams and maybe that rather than a lust for money was why she was soliciting things from him. Brian those two reporters were Rosslyn Holloman and matt. Tom roslyn in particular was the reporter that got the story going. There were other who were employed with the Washington Post that worked on the story. This was the case of the media reporting what happened. A quick federal investigation, an indictment, a trial, and imprisonment. And a conviction. Brian there is a picture we have of the former governor in Johnny Williams ferrari. Tom julie carey who is our Northern Virginia reporter covered this case for us. I did speak a great deal about the case. I am familiar with this. As we sit and talk now, we are waiting to see if the Supreme Court is going to be a final savior for mcdonnell. He was convicted in this trial. He appealed and they turned him down. He appealed to the full appeals court, 15 judges, to reconsider his conviction. It said no. And now he is gone to the Supreme Court. He got one blip of good news where the Supreme Court judge, the chief judge, john roberts, said you can stay out of prison until we decide if we are going to take your case or not. If they do not take the case, he will go to prison for two years. If the Supreme Court takes the case, i do not think he wont go to prison until the Supreme Court decides. Brian and his wife, her appeal is in october. Tom she finds out if her appeal will be accepted or not. Virginia has some of the most lax ethics laws in the country. You can give any amount to anyone who is running for office. He says he never did one overt thing him and never passed any legislation. And did not do anything other than what a good politician does. 44 attorneys general from around the country signed a letter saying they agree with the governor that what he did was politics, not bribery. These gifts, he should have reported the gifts, that might be a crime, not reporting these gifts. The problem was that he was a potential Vice President ial candidate. He was in over his head when he got into the Governors Office area he had two beach homes as investments. He could not afford to pay the mortgage. His wife somewhat imperiously running the Governors Mansion was out looking for money to pay their bills. Maxed out credit cards. This is another case where you are a public figure and you let your messy private life combined together. Brian we have talked about the mayor of baltimore having to step down, we have talked about the former governor of West Virginia going to prison. The former governor of maryland, Barbara Mandell who just died. Agnew having to leave the vice presidency. The recent governor of virginia. The three Council Members in the District Of Columbia, jack johnson in prison at the moment. And the former mayor of washington, d. C. Vincent gray. What do you think based on what you have heard and five years of investigation, will he ever be indicted . Tom as a reporter, i should not say that i think he will be indicted. There have been a couple of opportunities, i mentioned one, that was a time for the prosecutors and the Justice Department to say that we have looked for five years into vincent gray, we cannot nail him to the corrupt acts that we know occurred. Therefore, we will let the case go. They did not do that. That was a perfect window of opportunity that they did not take. From Defense Attorneys to people familiar with the prosecutors they agree that he will have to acknowledge that he knew about this Shadow Campaign and did nothing to stop it. Brian what kind of grate would you give to our democracy in this area over the last 30 years . Tom you may not like my grade but i will say it is in the b area. We have had some fs along the way. I think politics and corruption is the milk of the entire country. That is why we need better ethics laws and more than that, we need better enforcement of ethics laws. More disclosure. Everything a public person does ought to be disclosed if it has anything to do with his or her business. Hillary clinton is in trouble about emails. When you have great power and great wealth, there is a great opportunity that someone is going to take advantage of it, it is human nature and that is what we cover as reporters. Brian tom sherwood has been in washington for 41 years. We thank you very much for joining us. Tom thank you very much. I am glad i gave some insights. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q a. Org. Q a programs are also available at cspan podcast. Quakes cspan, created by america jk Cable Companies and brought to as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Here on cspan, wash ington journals next purity we take you to the u. N. Where president obama addresses the assembly. Up, usa today washington correspondent paul say talks about congressional efforts to keep the governmentfunded in order to avoid a government shutdown. A look at how much the u. N. Benefits financially with barbara adams. Host a busy day for the president. He will address the general assembly. Washington, the senate will take a procedural vote on a bill that will keep the government running past thursday. John boehner is expected to pass the legislation, should it pass the senate. Several stories looking at the future of the republican party, highlighting the tugofwar between establishment republica