Earlier today, RedState reported on a disgusting, false smear that took place against Republican Glenn Youngkin as he rallied in Charlottesville, VA. A group of people stood in front of his bus, some with Trump hats on, posing with tiki-torches and pretending to be racist supporters of Youngkin. The scene was meant to be a call-back to the “Unite the Right” rally some years ago which caused such a political firestorm.

In what appeared to be a coordinated hit, media figures and members of the Terry McAuliffe campaign immediately spread the picture as proof that white supremacists support the Youngkin campaign. Yet, it was obvious the picture presented the opposite.

As I noted, you could zoom in and see that one of the men was black, which would be odd if these were actually white supremacists. Another appeared to be a woman. The entire ordeal was too perfect, as well. The “reporter” who spread the picture claims to have heard them say: “We are all in for Glenn.” Within minutes, McAuliffe’s spokeswoman was on social media saying the picture disqualified Youngkin from the race.

These men approached @GlennYoungkin’s bus as it pulled up saying what sounded like, “We’re all in for Glenn.” Here they are standing in front of the bus as his campaign event at Guadalajara started.@NBC29 pic.twitter.com/l681ejyBjc

— Elizabeth Holmes (@holmes_reports) October 29, 2021

Now, we are beginning to learn who the participants in the stunt appear to be. I must stress that the identifications being made are alleged and not fully confirmed. Still, their political affiliations appear to make things fairly certain, and past that, both have locked their Twitter accounts.

BREAKING: Financial director for Young VA Dems has gone private after being exposed for posing as a white supremacist pic.twitter.com/fbCbafIiZf

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) October 29, 2021

🚨 I am now confident that we have identified the woman in this group of political actors as Colleen Wachenfeld, with @vademocrats. pic.twitter.com/qySknRSUrd

— Alec Sears (@alec_sears) October 29, 2021

Colleen Wachenfeld and Camden Layton both list in their bios that they work for Virginia Democrats, which is the official Democrat Party organization in the state. Given that, it’s probable that the other people in the picture are also paid operatives, not just by some third-party group like The Lincoln Project, but by an organization that directly coordinates with Terry McAuliffe.

As I speculated in my initial write-up, the speed with which members of the McAuliffe campaign latched onto this was too suspicious. It seems likely this was coordinated, with McAuliffe’s staff knowing this would take place. If that’s true, this will go down as one of the most dishonest, despicable political hitjobs in modern history.

It would have been one thing had McAuliffe’s campaign just admitted the picture was meant to be ironic. Instead, they ran with the idea that these were actually Youngkin supporters and that he was actually disqualified from the race over it. That’s a level of falsehood that even the most contentious campaigns rarely delve into. Usually, candidates try to live in gray areas with wiggle room, even when they tell falsehoods. In this case, McAuliffe’s surrogates went full bore with an obvious lie and don’t even appear to be walking it back.

While I doubt this kind of stupidity moves the needle in a state that cares much more about important issues, it does show just how desperate the McAuliffe campaign is. A campaign that thinks they are winning does not do stuff like this because the chance of it backfiring is too high. They pulled the trigger anyway, though, and that says their internals must be dire.