The picture of Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in blackface that surfaced on Friday was indeed a right-wing anti-abortion hitjob, as the Washington Post's story on the source of the scoop finds the conservative site that broke the story was tipped off by one of Northam's medical school classmates furious at the Governor's comments on a proposed abortion access expansion bill.
The reporter who exposed the racist photo on Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page said a “concerned citizen” led him to the story that has prompted widespread outrage and calls for the Democrat’s resignation.
Patrick Howley, editor in chief of the website Big League Politics, first reported Friday the existence of a photo on Northam’s page of his medical school yearbook depicting a figure in blackface standing next to another person in a Ku Klux Klan hood.
“It’s very easy to explain,” Howley, 29, said in an interview Saturday. “A concerned citizen, not a political opponent, came to us and pointed this out. I was very offended [by the photo] because I don’t like racism.”
The tip came after Northam’s comments on Wednesday about late-term abortions, he said. Howley declined to give any further information about his source, citing a confidentiality agreement. But he said it took him just a few hours to confirm that the photo was authentic.
The source of the tip appears to have been a medical school classmate or classmates of Northam who acted as a direct result of the abortion controversy that erupted earlier in the week, according to two people at Big League Politics, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
“The revelations about Ralph Northam’s racist past were absolutely driven by his medical school classmate’s anger over his recent very public support for infanticide,” one of the two said.
So does this mean that Democrats should rescind their calls for Northam's resignation, given that this is very obviously Republicans taking revenge as Howley is an ex-Breitbart and Daily Caller writer?
The answer to that is absolutely not. Northam still needs to resign and hopefully he does so today. The fact remains he did it, then lied about, then tried to pass it off as nothing, and that's not how it works.
But now the issue has gotten far more complicated as the same Big League Politics site is reporting that Virginia's Democratic Lt. Govenor, Justin Fairfax, committed sexual assault at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax issued a statement early Monday after an online article hinted at sexual assault allegations against him in 2004.
The site “Big League Politics” shared a private post from a woman who said an office holder who assaulted her at the the Democratic National Convention was about to get “a very big promotion.” She says her attacker won a statewide office in 2017.
On Monday morning, Fairfax released a tweet that said “the person reported to be making this false allegation first approached the Washington Post ... after being presented with facts consistent with the Lt. Governor’s denial of the allegation, the absence of any evidence corroborating the allegation, and significant red flags and inconsistencies with the allegation, the Post made the considered decision to not publish the story.”
Fairfax says he will take legal action at anyone “attempting to spread this defamatory and false allegation.”
If this is true, Fairfax will need to resign as well.
It's not a good look, Democrats.
Not at all.
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