VIRGINIA GOV. BOB MCDONNELL & TERRY MCAULIFFE'S NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS & CHINESE EXPORT/SHIPPING VIOLATIONS PERSIST IN LIGHT OF CONTINUING INVESTIGATIONS INTO SMITHFIELD FOODS ACQUISITION BY THE CHINESE

VIRGINIA GOV. BOB MCDONNELL & TERRY MCAULIFFE'S NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS & CHINESE EXPORT/SHIPPING VIOLATIONS PERSIST IN LIGHT OF CONTINUING INVESTIGATIONS INTO SMITHFIELD FOODS ACQUISITION BY THE CHINESE

By Michael Welles Shapiro, mwshapiro@dailypress.com, 08/13/13

CHESAPEAKE — In town to talk about policy achievements and new business for the state, Gov. Bob McDonnell was nevertheless peppered with questions about a gift scandal that has cast a cloud over the end of his term.

The governor visited a Virginia Beach bakery Tuesday morning, spoke at a Portsmouth community college and was preparing to announce an exporting contract worth around $100 million between Perdue AgriBusiness' Chesapeake terminal and a Chinese firm as part of an 20-plus-city statewide tour to turn the narrative of his final months in office back to public policy.

Still, during a call-in talk radio show in Norfolk before those events, McDonnell reminded listeners he has apologized. "The public trust had been somewhat undermined," he acknowledged, by a series of revelations that a wealthy campaign donor gave high-dollar gifts to McDonnell family members and tens of thousands of dollars' worth of loans to a real estate company he co-owns with his sister.

He told reporters outside Sugar Plum Café later that the donor, Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams, and his company had received no preferential treatment or state money as a result of the gifts and loans, which have been returned and repaid.

Though Williams or Star Scientific employees were granted audiences with members of McDonnell's administration, McDonnell insisted that those meetings were hardly out of the ordinary.

Three meetings were mentioned in a report put together by Anthony F. Troy, a former attorney general who was appointed by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to represent McDonnell in legal matters related to a state inquiry into the gifts.

"Governors listen to people, whether a person's a contributor … or a food bank," he said. "Nobody receives special treatment."

Perdue deal

McDonnell was scheduled to finish his Hampton Roads swing with a big international trade deal that will push 8 million bushels of soybeans through a private Port of Virginia shipping terminal to China.

An aide said the deal was negotiated during a recent trade trip to China and, assuming the current $12-a-bushel price for soybeans holds, it will be worth roughly $96 million.

The deal, which covers the 2013-2014 harvest, is between Perdue and a Chinese company called the Jiusan Oils & Grains Industries Group Co.

It takes four giant Panamax-size ships to carry 8 million bushels of soybeans, the aide said.