‘Tellingly, not one other reputable media outlet has seen fit to air this false claim…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) New sexual-assault accusations against Virginia’s lieutenant governor, paired with the racist scandal against its governor, could result in the Left’s biggest case to date of “intersectionality” run amok.
In one corner is racist Gov. Ralph Northam—who had confessed to being in a picture on his 1984 medical school yearbook page that featured a person in blackface and another in KKK regalia, before later backtracking and claiming he only ever wore blackface in a Michael Jackson tribute.
In the other corner, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who now stands accused of a very “credible” allegation of forced oral sex that was originally suppressed by outlets like The Washington Post.
Fairfax reportedly admitted to the encounter on Monday but claimed it was consensual.
It took conservative website Big League Politics breaking both of the damaging stories on the Democrats in order for them to see the light of day, even as The Post shelled out big bucks for a Super Bowl ad touting its “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan to counter the ever-growing chorus of criticism against the “fake news” media.
In an earlier statement on Monday, Fairfax had denied the “unsubstantiated” allegation and used The Post‘s decision not to publish in order to bolster the claim.
“Tellingly, not one other reputable media outlet has seen fit to air this false claim,” said the statement.
— Justin Fairfax (@LGJustinFairfax) February 4, 2019
But the Jeff Bezos-owned paper pushed back against the suggestion that there were no red flags.
In its story on Monday, The Post said it chose not to publish because it could find no one to corroborate the accounts.
However, it offered a detailed account of the lurid, heretofore undisclosed allegations.
“The woman described a sexual encounter that began with consensual kissing and ended with a forced act that left her crying and shaken,” The Post said. “She said Fairfax guided her to the bed, where they continued kissing, and then at one point she realized she could not move her neck. She said Fairfax used his strength to force her to perform oral sex.”
Ironically, it was also The Washington Post that first offered Christine Blasey Ford a platform to tell her story alleging a decades-old sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
That article added momentum to the uncorroborated and anonymous letter alluded to by Sen. Dianne Feinstein while seeking to delay confirmation, resulting in a divisive and highly watched Senate hearing. Ultimately, despite an FBI investigation that turned up nothing to substantiate, Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50-48 vote, divided largely by party line.
As with Blasey Ford, the woman making the accusations against Fairfax is reportedly a California college professor, according to Big League Politics.
The echoes of Kavanaugh in both the Northam and Fairfax scandals put Democrats in a difficult spot.
Unable to overlook the ‘youthful indiscretions’ and the shifting cultural context of the 35-year-old Northam photo after having drawn a red-line on Kavanaugh’s yearbook, those who might otherwise have remained silent were pressured to condemn the governor.
They did so, however, with the knowledge and assurances that Fairfax would take the governor’s office farther to the left with the added boon of diversity.
The latest allegations against the lieutenant governor, however, will certainly put to the test the “Believe women” mantra that the Left has pushed throughout the #MeToo movement to justify an assumption of guilt while denying due process to the accused.
If both Northam and Fairfax were forced out, one more Democrat, state Attorney General Mark Herring, would be in line for the office before it fell to Kirk Cox, the Republican speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. Herring was first elected into his office in 2013 under highly suspicious and contested circumstances by a margin of only 165 votes.
Thus far, Northam has defied the calls to resign, and some speculate that he may even be behind the Fairfax smear. It is unclear what recourse the state legislature might have in terms of censuring or impeaching the governor for the photo, though it would certainly be an uphill battle for him to lead.
Cox confirmed Monday that it was unlikely the state legislature would make any moves to force out Northam. “I think there’s a rightful hesitation about a removal from office,” he said. “Impeachment—that’s a very high standard.”
Northam, a pediatric doctor by trade, already was embroiled in a scandal from earlier in the week after seeming to endorse a defeated bill that would have permitted late-term abortion, with the governor suggesting that a baby might be “aborted” even after birth.
President Donald Trump publicly addressed the scandal by observing that the campaign of Republican candidate Ed Gillespie should have uncovered the racist yearbook photo when doing opposition research for the 2017 gubernatorial election.
Ed Gillespie, who ran for Governor of the Great State of Virginia against Ralph Northam, must now be thinking Malpractice and Dereliction of Duty with regard to his Opposition Research Staff. If they find that terrible picture before the election, he wins by 20 points!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2019