You may have heard about Virginia's "porn candidate," Susanna Gibson, a Democratic contender for a spot in the state House of Delegates who was caught performing sex acts with her husband online for money.
We haven't written about it much here because it's a really gross, tawdry little scandal and we like to avoid turning your stomachs if at all possible.
But my goodness, it sure looks like this is going beyond "tawdry little scandal" right into full-blown political corruption territory:
A Virginia prosecutor may have violated ethics rules by colluding with the state's notorious porn-star candidate to help her navigate the scandal rather than prosecuting her for prostitution.
It seems rather black-and-white here. The Daily Wire emailed Henrico County Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor "asking if she planned to seek an indictment of Gibson for prostitution" given her sex-for-money scheme online.
This is pretty standard stuff. A political candidate has committed what looks to be a crime; you reach out to the nearest relevant law enforcement officer to find out if they're going to do anything about it. Often you don't hear back at all, but you gotta ask, for form's sake if nothing else.
But did The Daily Wire hear back? Oh yes:
Taylor never replied to the email, but less than 20 minutes after it was read, Gibson's lawyer, Daniel Watkins, called the cell phone listed in the email and threatened legal action over the then-unpublished article. The Daily Wire had not yet reached out to Gibson, but Watkins said he had been tipped off about it by a secret source.
Here's what it feels like when a journalist gets this kind of call from a subject's lawyer:
I mean, that's nuts. That sort of thing doesn't just happen randomly. A "secret source?" It's not hard to tell what's going on here.
DW did the work and filed a Freedom of Information Act request against Taylor's office. It seems that mere "minutes" after the outlet sent the original email, Taylor wrote to her staff:
"I don't know her campaign knows about this…. i will handle."
That's pretty slam-dunk stuff right there. "I will handle." Her "handling" of the situation apparently consisted of telling the porn candidate that people had found out about her porn videos. In other words, a state prosecutor was actively working with a state political candidate.
That's, um, a big no-no. It's illegal. It's obviously unfair. Are Virginia authorities just going to ignore this?
It sure looks like Gibson is on the way to a loss; she descended in the polls after the whole sex scandal went public, and she may very well just tank further and hand the election to her Republican competitor.
That's not enough, though. If there's illegal, corrupt collusion going on between a candidate and a state prosecutor, voters need to know about that — and law enforcement needs to do something about it.
Virginia officials: Don't whiff on this one. Look into it. Your voters deserve better than this.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
