Federal prosecutors have asked for three more weeks to decide whether they will pursue the public corruption case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, saying in a court filing that Justice Department officials are still debating how to proceed.
Friday’s filing asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to keep both cases on hold until Sept. 19, adding that it will be the last request for any delay. It offers no indication of how prosecutors may be leaning.
This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the former governor’s corruption conviction and set a higher bar for charging public officials with such corruption crimes, but it did so in a way that left open the possibility that McDonnell could be tried again. The high court ruled unanimously that the instructions given to jurors in McDonnell’s case about what constituted an “official act” were flawed and said that a lower court should consider whether the former governor’s case could be brought under the new definition it laid out.
