This is not a doctored photo
Loudoun Board of Supervisors vice chairman Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run) last night expressed the hope that by at last censuring and sanctioning their perennially ethically challenged fellow Republican supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), the all-Republican Board would at last be able to “put an end” to the long-drawn out Delgaudio financial, corruption, misuse of office, and ethics scandal.
Of course it was the Board’s own inaction for a year that dragged it out up til now.
But fat chance, anyway!
Delgaudio’s youthful attorney Charles King this afternoon announced that his deep-pocketed and resolutely innocent client will continue to seek to have the courts intervene and overturn the Board’s decision, thereby guaranteeing that the matter drags on for months, at least.
The fact that the legal precedents are utterly against Eugene and that there is essentially no chance in the known universe for a court to second-guess a legislative body’s “core legislative act” of disciplining one of its own members — an act that is protected by “absolute legislative immunity” from lawsuits, as a Federal appeals court held in a virtually identical case involving disciplinary action against an earlier ethically challenged Republican supervisor, in Loudoun County no less — is of course irrelevant. To Eugene, politics is merely a stage set for his very lucrative business, which consists of mailing out hyperventilating warnings that the homos are taking over America, thereby shaking loose millions of dollars a year in contributions from frightened right-wing crazies (virtually none of whom live in the Sterling district he supposedly represents as a Loudoun supervisor) who peek nervously under their bedsheets every night to make sure there are no queers hiding there.
To those who think Eugene will admit anything, much less resign his office, they don’t even begin to understand that this is exactly the kind of theatrics he excels in.
It’s a fundraising tool. And as long as it keeps paying off, Eugene will keep “fighting.”
Meanwhile, Eugene’s attorney keeps hinting he has some dirt on York he will be able to add to the entertainment mix. York this afternoon told the Washington Post that Delgaudio’s attempts to have a subpoena issued by the Loudoun circuit court to force York to turn over all of York’s campaign bank records is “just more of Eugene’s silliness and threats” and he would seek to have the county attorney dismiss the subpoena.
But you never know, do you . . . Delgaudio’s attorney promises, “It’s going to get interesting.”
Meanwhile, too, it’s been very amusing to see the far-right crazies in the Loudoun County Republican Party still trying to claim that the persecution of poor Eugene is all a “witch hunt” launched by the evil liberal Washington Post and the evil liberal leftists . . . while the all-Republican Board grows increasingly hot under the collar with each passing hour, defending its censure of Delgaudio by now making exactly the same points that Democrats and other sentient beings have been making for a year:
“Sterling deserves better. Loudoun deserves better,” said York.
“I believe this board’s ethical standards should be much higher than a technical loophole in state law,” Williams said.
“The report did not exonerate Delgaudio. Quite the contrary. I know there are people in the Republican party who are mad at us right now. Read the report. Just read the report,” said Ralph Buona (R-Ashburn), referring to the scathing grand jury report that found Delgaudio had committed “direct violations” of the Board’s code of conduct, had misappropriated public assets for personal gain, had abused his staff, had used his taxpayer-provided office and staff for political fundraising and work for his outside anti-gay hate group, and had probably taken illegal unreported cash contributions.
The other interesting question is what Eugene has on Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) and Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge) that they cast the lone dissenting votes and stuck up for Eugene’s request for a long-drawn out delay before any censure vote.
Oh, for an investigative reporter in Loudoun County . . .
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