realloudoun

Perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) has come up with yet another explanation for why he is facing a legal proceeding to remove him from office for having corruptly enriched himself at public expense.

After telling us previously that it’s really “all about Obamacare”; that it is because he “supports traditional marriage”; that “the radical homosexuals” are out to “destroy his livelihood”; that “the Liberal Establishment” is trying to “discredit” him; that he is being victimized by “people who refuse to defend the flag”; and that his critics actually just “hate Sterling” . . . Eugene now says it’s really because he is too holy.

It’s always a pretty good sign that a crook’s legal defense is in trouble when he goes from adamantly denying he did anything to indignantly asserting that he did not take nearly as much money as they said he did.

Yesterday, Charlie King, the boyish attorney for perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), spoke to reporters outside the Loudoun Courthouse after his client’s latest appearance in the case to have him removed from office for corruption. While Delgaudio displayed his trademark buffoonery by bringing a snow shovel and pretending to shovel snow off the courthouse lawn for the benefit of the TV crews (you have to watch him here on WUSA9 to believe him), King explained that he planned to challenge the claim of former Delgaudio aide Donna Mateer that she had been required to spend most of her office hours — while on official time at taxpayer expense — making phone calls to solicit political campaign contributions for her boss.

As the special grand jury which investigated Delgaudio noted last year, such political work by taxpayer-paid staff is a blatant misuse of office and a misappropriation of public resources that would have led to an indictment, were it not for the bizarre loophole — now in the process of being closed by the state legislature — that exempts “part-time” employees including county supervisors from the penalties of the law in such cases.

But King said in fact he had proof that Mateer made “only” 107 phone calls from the fundraising list Delgaudio had provided her, and that he plans to challenge Mateer on this point when he cross-examines her.

This apparently marks a new milestone in the evolution of how politicians respond to scandal, which will secure for Loudoun a footnote in American political history as the place where  “I am not a crook” was supplanted by “I am less of a crook than you might think.”

Perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), hoping to change the subject from his corrupt misuse of office to his totally unjust victimization by a conspiracy of evil liberals, announced through his attorney Charlie King yesterday that he was seeking to subpoena all records of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that relate to the SPLC’s designation of Delgaudio’s million-bucks-a-year “Public Advocate of the United States” organization as a hate group.

This is probably a simple abuse of the legal process, which is defined as legal filings with no other purpose than to generate publicity, cause inconvenience to the other party, or gain economic advantage or other ulterior purposes — since the SPLC has nothing whatever to do with the legal case against Delgaudio soon to be tried in Loudoun Circuit Court: namely whether he should be stripped of his position as Sterling supervisor under the provision in Virginia law that allows for the speedy removal of corrupt officials upon the finding by a court of misuse of office, neglect of duty, or incompetence.

A preliminary hearing is to be held this morning by the new special judge appointed to hear the matter.

But as long as Delgaudio is raising the issue of the SPLC’s designation, it’s an opportunity to address Delgaudio’s perennial phony assertion that the attacks upon him are a result merely of his “conservative” stand in “support of traditional marriage.”

Our Lame Local Media has passively bought into this line repeatedly as well, Continue reading →