Virginia’s Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is fed up with what he describes as a “smear” campaign against him, and as a result he is considering legal action against media outlets over allegations he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:
Fairfax said it was no coincidence that the allegation, which was published on the same conservative website Sunday night that first published a photo from Northam’s page in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook showing a man in blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan outfit, surfaced just days after the Northam bombshell.
“Does anybody think it’s any coincidence that on the eve of potentially my being elevated that that’s when this uncorroborated smear comes out? Does anybody believe that’s a coincidence?” Fairfax asked a swarm of reporters Monday at the Capitol, where the lieutenant governor presided over the Senate chamber during a long day of legislative business.
[…]
Fairfax’s defense against the allegations kicked off before dawn Monday, hours after the website Big League Politics published elements of an allegation by a woman who said Fairfax sexually assaulted her at the Democratic convention in 2004. The initial story was based on a personal message allegedly from Adria Scharf, executive director of the Richmond Peace Education Center, that included comments from the alleged victim, a Facebook friend of Scharf’s.
Fairfax tweeted a statement that included a threat of legal action at 2:57 a.m. Monday morning, declaring he would,”take appropriate legal action against those attempting to spread this defamatory and false allegation.”
— Justin Fairfax (@LGJustinFairfax) February 4, 2019
The Washington Post both confirmed and disputed some of Fairfax’s claims in a story they did on the allegations Monday afternoon:
The Washington Post confirms the woman did approach the paper a year ago with her claims. In an article published by The Washington Post on Monday, the paper disputes that it found “significant red flags” and said Fairfax and the accuser gave different accounts of the event, but that neither version could be corroborated since they were the only people in the room. The Washington Post ultimately decided not to run the woman’s story.
As to the allegation of sexual assault, Fairfax spoke to reporters yesterday to give them his version of events:
Admitting to a consensual one-night stand with his accuser in 2004, the lieutenant governor said it was years later that she objected to their encounter and made him the victim of a political “smear.”
He described his accuser as a spurned lover, not a rape victim.
“Everything was 100 percent consensual. Not only that, the same person called me sometime later and wanted to meet with me, wanted to come visit me [and] wanted me to meet her mother,” said Mr. Fairfax, a Democrat.
In related news, the alleged victim has retained Katz Marshall & Banks, the same firm that represented Christine Blasey Ford during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings last October.
Between Delegate Kathy Tran’s extreme abortion bill, the blackface/KKK photo of Governor Northam (and his callous defense of Tran’s bill), and now these #MeToo allegations against Lt. Gov Fairfax, Virginians have to be wondering: “What will we find out next”?
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