Sordid: Lt. Gov. Fairfax Now Admits Relationship with Accuser as Hopes of Replacing Northam Now in Question
Well, this is escalating quickly.
In what feels like a matter of minutes, the sordid tale surrounding a woman accusing Democratic Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault has swiftly spiraled out of control.
To recap: Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, came under intense scrutiny and calls to resign after a photo emerged from his 1984 medical school yearbook that showed a man wearing blackface and another dressed in the robes and hood of the Ku Klux Klan. Northam at first admitted to being in the picture, though he didn’t say which figure, but then held a news conference Saturday to deny either of the men was him.
However, Northam admitted wearing blackface on another occasion in 1984 — to impersonate Michael Jackson in a dance contest.to having worn blackface, though not in the offending photo.
Naturally, the controversy cast a spotlight on Fairfax amid calls for Northam’s resignation. By virtue of being lieutenant governor, Fairfax would next in line to succeed Northam should he resign.
Only now, Fairfax may not have wanted that all that attention.
Not long after his name started gaining traction, a potentially devastating allegation surfaced, accusing Fairfax of having assaulted a woman at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
Fairfax’s team promptly denied the allegation.
— Justin Fairfax (@LGJustinFairfax) February 4, 2019
Then, The Washington Post disputed the assertion that there were “significant red flags and inconsistencies within the allegation.”
The Washington Post weighed in on an unsubstantiated sexual assault accusation against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, pushing back on his claim that the paper found “significant red flags and inconsistencies within the allegations” https://t.co/ebNLWRszqD
— POLITICO (@politico) February 4, 2019
Now? Fairfax is changing the story a tad. He admitted to reporters at the State Capitol in Richmond that there was, in fact, a sexual tryst with the accuser according to multiple outlets, including The Washington Times.
Fairfax, however, was utterly adamant that the sexual encounter was consensual.
MOMENTS AGO: Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax addresses sexual harassment allegations and Gov. Ralph Northam controversy https://t.co/7xyLbr0gfv pic.twitter.com/5fiJErwRBi
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 4, 2019
“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, wanted me to meet her mother,” Fairfax said at a news conference Monday afternoon, according to VirginiaFirst.com.
Whatever the truth of the matter — a consensual sexual encounter as Fairfax claims, or a sexual assault accomplished by brute force, as the woman has alleged — there’s no denying that the tone changed drastically between the Fairfax statement of late Sunday night and his news conference on Monday.
The statement adamantly denied the “false and unsubstantiated allegation.” The Monday statement acknowledged there had been an incident, just not what the woman claimed.
Even a careful reader of the initial statement might have concluded that nothing had happened between Fairfax and the accuser. The same careful reader hearing Fairfax’s new version might think things had just gotten sordid — and were likely to get even more sordid before it was all over.
So now that it’s confirmed that some sort of sexual encounter between Fairfax and his accuser happened in 2004, It has become a “he said, she said” situation as far as the ordeal being consensual or forced.
“He said, she said?” — Wasn’t there another huge deal made out of sexual allegations that involved a person of governmental prominence? An incident that allegedly occurred years and years ago, for which there was no current evidence?
Oh, right. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was utterly dragged through the mud after being accused of sexually assaulting a girl when he was a teenager. After a dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee showdown involving Kavanaugh, his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, and various Democratic senators getting their presidential election campaigns going early, Kavanaugh was eventually sworn in to service on the high court.
It’s a good thing so many Democrats and leftists were willing to give Kavanaugh his due process over the matter.
Wait. What’s that? They resorted to attacking him, literally invoking witchcraft and calling for his impeachment after he joined the court?
To be perfectly clear, Fairfax deserves to have due process play out. Anyone accused of anything that could destroy their lives should be given that fundamentally American right.
Kavanaugh deserved it — even though he certainly didn’t get it from the media — and Fairfax deserves it now.
Will Fairfax actually get it? It’s hard to tell given how voraciously the left can sometimes devour its own. But a story changing — even just in its tone — certainly doesn’t help. (Kavanugh never wavered an inch, remember.)
What’s not hard to discern is that the Democratic Party in Virginia is a total mess and in complete chaos right now.
Northam is almost assuredly going to leave and his immediate replacement is in crisis.
Frankly, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer party.
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