Julian Walker, government reporter for the Virginian-Pilot, talks with Rachel Maddow about the apparently brokered resignation that will change control of the Virginia senate and breaks the news that the FBI has taken an interest in the matter.
Waldo Jaquith writes..
Puckett was wooed away to run the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, which paid $309M to Virginia tobacco producers to persuade them to stop growing tobacco. The organization is funded by the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which was the result of a lawsuit that 46 states brought against Altria (née Philip Morris), R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard. In 1998, the companies settled, agreeing to pay $206 billion to those states. Virginia’s share is distributed via the state-chartered organization that Puckett will be headed up. And then there’s the company that brought McDonnell down, Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals, née Star Scientific, née, Star Tobacco. Star Tobacco manufactured cigarettes and chewing tobacco, and they remained in the tobacco business straight through 2012, as they sought to rebrand themselves as a pharmaceutical company. (Pharmaceuticals—or, rather, “supplements”—manufactured with tobacco, appallingly.) Although Star Tobacco refused to join the settlement, states ultimately got their money via Brown & Williamson, which manufactured Star Tobacco’s products in their plants. So we’ve got Puckett going to work for the organization that was funded by the profits generated by the company that allegedly bribed McDonnell.
But, wait, there’s more. The tobacco commission actually gave a $2M grant to Star Tobacco to help them promote their cigarettes and chew, appallingly. And—get this—a big part of what McDonnell is in trouble for was that he allegedly tried to persuade the tobacco commission to provide a grant to Star Scientific, by way of funding clinical trials of one of their tobacco supplements at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University, to provide a sheen of legitimacy to what is now clearly a useless substance.
And it gets better still! The chairman of the tobacco commission is Terry Kilgore, the Republican legislator who is said to have struck the deal with Puckett. Kilgore’s twin brother, Jerry Kilgore, isn’t merely a former attorney general of Virginia, but he’s also the attorney representing Johnny Williams, the CEO of Star Scientific, in the McDonnell case.