The worst allegation against ex-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell

On Tuesday evening, federal prosecutors released a 14-count criminal indictment against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. The couple is accused of soliciting or accepting about $135,000 in cash and no-document loans plus tens of thousands of dollars worth of other gifts from Jonnie Williams, the chief executive of dietary supplement maker Star Scientific, in return for promoting the company's products.

On Tuesday night, McDonnell appeared before reporters to deny all wrongdoing, saying he was being "falsely and wrongly accused" by prosecutors who had "stretched the law to its breaking point." He didn't take any questions. But the fraud and graft allegations have already taken a toll: McDonnell, once a rising GOP star, spent the final six months of his term under a dark cloud, and Williams has stepped down from Star. (The Washington Post has a useful timeline of the scandal.)

The indictment makes the McDonnells out to be, at best, grifters living beyond their means, with Maureen McDonnell especially brazen in her requests for designer dresses, loans, and other favors. In return, Bob McDonnell acted as unofficial Star Scientific pitchman who allegedly schemed to get a Virginia university to conduct clinical research into the company's supplements, with an eye toward giving them scientific validation. Read the indictment below or, if you don't have time to peruse 43 pages, check out Byron York's synopsis at The Washington Examiner. York concludes:

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The list of unreported gifts from Williams would be enough to make Rod Blagojevich blush — almost. It includes Oscar de la Renta dresses, Louis Vuitton shoes and accessories, golf gear and outings, the catering bill for their daughter's wedding, a silver Rolex watch with "71st Governor of Virginia" inscribed on the back, repeated use of Williams' private jet, and, kind of amusingly, 30 cases of Anatabloc, Star Scientific's flagship anti-inflammatory supplement.

The McDonnells are accused of some pretty sleazy stuff. And as is often the case, the cover-up — allegedly lying to federal investigators and otherwise obstructing the investigation — compounded the alleged fraud and graft, with a bit of insider trading thrown in. But here's the worst part of the indictment, in three parts:

The first is from an August 2011 meeting at the Governor's Mansion between Maureen McDonnell, Jonnie Williams (JW), and a senior policy adviser to the Virginia Secretary of Health. Williams supposedly tried to get the University of Virginia (UVa) and Medical College of Virginia (MCV) to conduct a clinical trial of Anatabloc, financed by a state-run tobacco fund:

The next part is from October 2011, after Maureen McDonnell flew to Michigan with Williams and a Star Scientific contract researcher for a Star Scientific promotional event:

Finally:

The McDonnells are innocent of the allegations until a court determines otherwise, but if convicted, they face decades in prison. They wouldn't be alone — The Washington Post's Carter Eskew reminds us that, along with Blagojevich in Illinois, 10 other sitting or former U.S. governors have been convicted and served time behind bars.

But while garden-variety graft and wire fraud are bad enough in public officials, scheming to use state employees as guinea pigs for an untested, tobacco-derived dietary supplement is another thing entirely.

Star Scientific has high hopes for Anatabloc — the company suggests it may help treat thyroid disease, diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. So far, the only test of those claims has been by the Roskamp Institute, which the indictment describes as "a Florida-based research group that had financial ties to Star Scientific."

The key ingredient, anatabine, is an alkaloid from the tobacco plant. The FDA has already warned Star Scientific, in a December 2013 letter, about overstating the health claims of Anatabloc and misrepresenting anatabine as a dietary supplement. If Star Scientific can convince an unaffiliated research institute to do a clinical trial of its products on humans, great — maybe anatabine is the miracle drug they claim it is.

But roping in state employees to unwittingly test out the product is clearly unethical and would probably put the Commonwealth of Virginia in legal peril. The scheming didn't get anywhere, but if the allegations are true and McDonnell seriously considered the idea, it would be a mortal political sin. That he allegedly did it for money is merely venial.

McDonnell indictment