Former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland (R) “is due in court on Wednesday for the start of his trial on charges of violating U.S. campaign finance laws by seeking backroom consulting jobs on two Republican congressional campaigns,” Reuters reports.

Hartford Courant: “Few criminal trials promise better plot lines than John Rowland’s latest encounter with federal prosecutors, scheduled to begin Wednesday barring another last-minute surprise. Rowland is a politically gifted — but, in the government’s view, entirely incorrigible — three-term former Republican governor. He is accused, for the second time since he was forced to resign from office in 2004, of subverting the political process for personal gain.”

A federal judge set a December 1 trial date for Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) “on charges of tax evasion and hiring undocumented workers, rejecting arguments from the Staten Island Republican that jurors might be prejudiced by negative election ads,” Newsday reports.

Roll Call: “Democrats had hoped Grimm’s trial would begin in October, leading to weeks of negative press in the run up to the midterms. But Grimm’s legal troubles still imperil his re-election hopes.”

“After weeks of sometimes deeply personal testimony, tedious and tawdry exhibits and scores of witnesses, jurors in the corruption trial of former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, today will hear closing arguments,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.

New York Times: “Five days of grueling, often contentious testimony by Bob McDonnell, the former Virginia governor accused of corruption, ended Tuesday with an apology from Mr. McDonnell for accepting so many gifts and so much money, but an emphatic denial that he had conspired with his wife to sell his office.”

“The federal trial, already 22 days long, could go to the jury as early as Wednesday.”

FiveThirtyEight: “According to Gallup, Americans think that political corruption has become more widespread over the past several years. And yet the best data we have on political corruption doesn’t bear that out. The Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department reports statistics on corruption cases to Congress every year, and although it might be a stretch to say that the country has gotten less corrupt over time, the problem certainly hasn’t grown.”

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) “laid bare his troubled marriage during a remarkable day of testimony that revealed he and his wife are living separately for the trial and he is staying in his parish priest’s rectory,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

“Anchoring McDonnell’s account of his marital drama was an emotional email the former governor sent his wife, Maureen, in September 2011. It conveys his love but deep heartache over a shattered marriage that worsened over time.”

Daily Beast: The five weirdest revelations of the McDonnell trial

“At some point, I’m entitled to be normal.”

— Former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell (R), quoted by the Washington Post, on why he drove Jonnie R. Williams Sr.’s Ferrari.

Former Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) “was officially named as a co-conspirator Tuesday in federal court when his friend and confederate pleaded guilty to criminal campaign-finance violations,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.

“That defendant, Ana Alliegro, didn’t name Rivera — that was done by a federal prosecutor at the urging of a judge who wanted to know the identity of a man previously identified only as a co-conspirator.”

Wall Street Journal: “China’s corruption crackdown has already taken a bite out of the hospitality sector in China with its ban on lavish banquets and is now starting to make waves in another corner of the economy, as officials afraid of government scrutiny are dumping apartments.”

“The dumping of properties is the latest iteration of fear that has spread through the Chinese government at all levels as President Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign rolls on. Already, government officials have toned down lavish banquets, gift-giving and travel.”

“After hundreds of exhibits and 45 witnesses over the past three weeks, prosecutors rested their corruption case against former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.

“In a gripping display Thursday, prosecutors directed a parade of designer dresses, pumps and handbags across the courtroom, a series of expensive gifts from Williams that the McDonnells returned after an investigation into the largesse was made public… FBI agent David Hulser, the government’s last witness, testified Thursday that Williams’ spending on the McDonnells — including two loans for $50,000 and a third for $20,000 — topped $177,000.”

Jeff Smith: “Andrew Cuomo is in serious trouble. Preet Bharara, the hard-charging U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has turned up the heat on his administration’s alleged interference with an anti-corruption commission he appointed, and for the first time in the New York governor’s four-year tenure, he’s lost control of a situation. That’s an awful feeling for any politician, but especially for one who so prizes control, and who prides himself on playing political chess while his opponents play checkers. It’s the classic tale of a pol so consumed with avoiding a short-term image hit that he risked his long-term freedom. (I know the story well, because five years ago this week I lost control of a similar situation and ended up in prison for obstruction of justice.)”

“Just six minutes after then-Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell e-mailed a wealthy businessman about a $50,000 loan, he sent a note to a staffer asking to discuss state university studies of the man’s new dietary supplement,” the Washington Post reports.

“The staffer, former chief policy adviser Jasen Eige, testified Tuesday that he didn’t know about the loan negotiations between his boss and Jonnie R. Williams Sr., then the chief executive of the supplement company. But he said that he was concerned about acting on the governor’s February 2012 e-mail.”

Said Eige: “This was just not something the governor’s office should be involved in. It wasn’t our role, our place to get in the middle of something like this.”

“There is a prominent flaw in the legal strategy of Bob McDonnell: Even if the disgraced former Virginia governor wins in court, he loses,” Dana Millbank observes.

“In December, during McDonnell’s final days in office, prosecutors offered him a deal that would have let his wife off the hook and would have required him to plead guilty only to a single charge unrelated to his official duties. But McDonnell chose to go to court… Had he taken the deal, McDonnell would have looked like a sleazy pol. Now, he looks like a sleazy pol and a cad. Even if the former GOP governor beats the 13 counts, the trial is showing him to be not just greedy but also ungallant, allowing his wife and children to suffer to minimize his own shame.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “is a skilled back-room operator, renowned for pressuring allies and foes behind the scenes to achieve results that show him in the best possible light,” the New York Times reports.

“But in Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, he has encountered an adversary who seems eager for the spotlight and is challenging the very way the governor does business.”

“In an escalation of the confrontation between the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over the governor’s cancellation of his own anticorruption commission, Mr. Bharara has threatened to investigate the Cuomo administration for possible obstruction of justice or witness tampering,” the New York Times reports.

“The wheeling-and-dealing Richmond businessman at the center of the corruption case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife stepped into public view Wednesday with a pivotal assertion: For $65,000, he testified, Maureen McDonnell said she would help his company, with her husband’s blessing,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Jonnie Williams: “She said to me, ‘I have a background in nutritional supplements, and I can be helpful to you with this project with your company. The governor says it’s okay for me to help you, but I need you to help me with this financial situation.'”

Rhode Island Democratic party chairman David Caprio resigned Tuesday, saying he couldn’t “dedicate the the necessary time and energy” to help candidates in their campaigns, the Providence Journal reports.

His resignation came a day after reports that the state police are investigating a contract awarded to Caprio for beach concessions.

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) 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,” the New York Times reports.

“In opening arguments in the couple’s corruption trial in federal court here, their lawyers made clear that they planned to rely on the sordid details of their unhappy union as the basis of their legal defense.”

Richmond Times Dispatch: “Depending on whom you believe, Bob and Maureen McDonnell were either gift-grubbing and financially desperate enough to conspire to sell the governor’s office, or so dedicated to public service that the stresses of a gubernatorial term wrecked their marriage.”