NYT:

Former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, on trial for conspiring to use his office for personal enrichment, outlined an unexpected defense on Tuesday: Their marriage was so broken that they did not communicate enough to conspire about anything….

Prosecutors do not portray Mr. Williams as an angel. Ms. Aber described him dismissively as “a vitamin salesman.” But she alleged a quid pro quo between Mr. Williams’s gifts to the McDonnells and the governor’s actions on his behalf. She presented a text message from Mr. McDonnell to Mr. Williams in May 2012 reading, “Per voice mail, would like to see if you could extend another 20k loan for this year.”

Mr. Williams’s response: “Done.”

Another time, after thanking Mr. Williams for funds to help cover expenses for some real estate investments, Mr. McDonnell sent an email to his policy director just six minutes later telling him to meet to discuss how to advance Mr. Williams’s products.

The aide’s reply: “We need to be careful with this issue.”

Mr. McDonnell’s defense argued such interventions were not improper; they are what all elected officials do to promote state businesses. “To criminalize this bedrock principle,” John Brownlee, one of the former governor’s lawyers, said, “would make felons of virtually every person who’s held public office.”