Another Democrat is embroiled in a case of corruption. Current Virginia Secretary of Commerce Maurice Jones broke federal anti-lobbying laws with an e-mail sent in 2013, when he was deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Washington Post,
Edda Emmanuelli Perez, a lawyer with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, testified before a U.S. House subcommittee about an e-mail sent in Jones’s name when he was at HUD.
The GAO found that Jones violated a “bright-line rule” by making a “clear agency appeal to the public to contact members of Congress in support of or in opposition to pending legislation,” according to a copy of Perez’s testimony posted on the GAO’s Web site.
Questions about Jones’s e-mail arose in February 2014 when the General Assembly was on the verge of confirming Jones’s appointment as commerce secretary in the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D)…
The revelation threatened to derail his nomination, but HUD Inspector General David A. Montoya assured legislators that he believed Jones did not knowingly break any federal laws.
