McDonnell helped benefactor get meeting with Va. health secretary, e-mails show

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McDonnell helped benefactor get meeting with Va. health secretary, e-mails show
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/mcdonnell-aided-benefactor-directly-e-mails-show/2013/07/17/74e17292-ef03-11e2-a1f9-ea873b7e0424_story.html

By Laura Vozzella and Rosalind S. Helderman,

RICHMOND — Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the wealthy nutritional supplement maker at the center of Gov. Robert F. McDonnell’s gifts scandal, met with Virginia’s health secretary to pitch his product at the recommendation of the governor, according to an e-mail his assistant wrote the day of the November 2010 meeting.

“This email is to confirm a meeting between Jonnie Williams and Secretary Bill Hazel on Thursday, November 4th at 9:00 am,” Monica Block, McDonnell’s scheduler, wrote to Williams’s assistant in a message two days before he sat down with Hazel, the state’s secretary of health and human resources.

The e-mails, obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, are the first indication that McDonnell (R) directly intervened on behalf of Williams, whose gifts of luxury items and five-figure payments and loans to the McDonnell family have triggered state and federal investigations.

Until now, only first lady Maureen McDonnell was known to have taken direct steps to promote Anatabloc, the nutritional supplement produced by Williams’s firm, Star Scientific. She had touted it at a Florida investors conference and arranged a product-launch party at the governor’s mansion, which the governor also attended.