State Senator A. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) has gone to court to compel the attorney general’s office to release communications involving a businessman who is at the center of a political scandal.
Sen. Donald McEachin said Tuesday he filed the lawsuit in Richmond Circuit Court after the attorney general’s office put up “unreasonable obstacles” to his request for the release of the communications under the Freedom of Information Act between business executive Jonnie R. Williams Jr. and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli is the Republican candidate for governor.
Williams is the chief executive of a tiny nutritional supplements company in suburban Richmond who gave thousands of dollars in gifts and money to Cuccinelli and more than $166,000 worth of gifts and loans to Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell and his family. Federal and state criminal investigations are looking into McDonnell’s ties to Williams and his company.
While most of the giving was never disclosed on McDonnell’s annual statements of economic interest, he has said their exclusion was in accordance with the state’s weak financial disclosure laws.
In April, Cuccinelli amended four years’ worth of economic interest filings to add $18,000 in gifts from Williams he said he had earlier forgotten.
