EVER HEAR OF SERIAL RAPIST BILLARY CLINTON, OR HAIR SNIFFER JOE?
10 Scandal-Plagued Democrats Who Remain on ActBlue
ActBlue remains haven for Democratic sex criminals, pedophiles, and wife beaters
ActBlue, the fundraising platform used universally by Democratic candidates across the country, made waves last Thursday when it kicked New York governor Andrew Cuomo off the platform.
Cuomo, who has now resigned from office after he was accused by at least 11 women of sexual harassment, was the first high-profile Democrat ever removed from the powerful fundraising engine. His removal came just days after a Washington Free Beacon report on his then-active page.
ActBlue did not respond to inquiries on whether a new standard has been adopted for active participants, a group that includes several politicians who face accusations ranging from spousal abuse to child sex crimes.
Here are 10 Democrats from around the country whose days could be numbered on ActBlue.
John Thompson
Thompson is a Minnesota lawmaker who repeatedly abused his girlfriend and spent time in jail for assault. After one of his attacks, the girlfriend told the police Thompson told her, "I'll choke you until you can’t breathe anymore." Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, has repeatedly called for Thompson's resignation. His ActBlue page remains active.
Justin Fairfax
Fairfax, Virginia's lieutenant governor, faced calls for his resignation from fellow Democrats after he was accused in 2019 of sexually assaulting a woman. His ActBlue page remains active.
Tony Navarrete
The former Arizona lawmaker was arrested last week and faces seven felony charges for allegedly sexually molesting a 12-year-old boy. Navarrete, a close ally of Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), resigned on Tuesday. His ActBlue page remains active.
Luis Sepulveda
Sepulveda, a New York state senator, was arrested in January after strangling his estranged wife. He was charged with criminal obstruction of breathing. New York Democrats immediately stripped him of committee assignments. His ActBlue page remains active.
Al Franken
Franken, a former Minnesota senator, resigned from the Senate after multiple women accused Franken of groping and photos emerged of him with women in compromising positions. In one instance, Franken allegedly tried to force a congressional staffer to kiss him, telling the woman, "It's my right as an entertainer." Franken's Midwest Values PAC raised over $200,000 through ActBlue in the last filing period, according to campaign finance documents. His ActBlue page remains active.
Tom Carper
Carper, a longtime senator from Joe Biden's home state of Delaware, has admitted to hitting his ex-wife so hard that he gave her a black eye, the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2017. Carper has lied about the incident throughout his political career, and is raising money for his 2024 reelection campaign. His ActBlue page remains active.
Michelle Lujan Grisham
Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico, grabbed an aide's crotch during a staff meeting and has since paid the aide over $60,000 from her campaign fund. Lujan Grisham "took a water bottle and dumped it on my crotch and then slapped and grabbed me in front of everybody," the Democratic aide said in 2019. Leaders in New Mexico's state legislature accused the governor of misusing taxpayer funds to push back on the accusations. Her ActBlue page remains active.
Joe Morrissey
Morrissey, a longtime Virginia state senator, served jail time for having a sexual relationship with his teenage secretary. Although he denied the sexual relationship, he later married the teenager and admitted that he was the father of her child. He resigned from Virginia's House of Delegates in 2014 after he was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Virginia has disbarred him on multiple occasions. His ActBlue page remains active.
Katie Hill
Hill, a former California congresswoman, resigned in 2019 after reports on inappropriate sexual relationships with several of her staffers. Hill was at one time in a "throuple" with her husband and a female campaign staffer. Since resigning, Hill created the HER Time PAC to "support young women running for office" and is reportedly considering another run for political office. Her ActBlue page remains active.
Alcee Hastings
Hastings, the now-deceased longtime Florida congressman, is one of just 19 federal officials to be impeached by the House of Representatives. While serving as a federal judge in 1989, Hastings was caught engaging in a "corrupt conspiracy" to extort a bribe worth $150,000 on a case before him. In a bipartisan vote, the Senate voted 69 to 26 that Hastings was guilty, stripping him of his lifetime pension. It was the first time a federal official was ever impeached and removed for a crime for which a jury had acquitted him. His ActBlue page remains active.
Hunter Biden Says He Lost *ANOTHER* Laptop to Russian Drug Dealers in Naked Pillow Talk
Hunter Biden claimed during a post-coital conversation with a woman identified by the Daily Mail as a prostitute that Russian drug dealers stole his laptop (not the one abandoned to a Delaware computer repair shop) during a Vegas bender where he nearly drowned in a hotel hot tub, according to footage unearthed by the tabloid.
**WARNING — GRAPHIC VIDEO**
The Daily Mail reports:
The alleged incident would mean Hunter lost a total of three computers – the first abandoned at a Delaware computer store and the second seized by federal agents – each likely to hold sensitive information on President Joe Biden and the embarrassing pictures, videos and communications of his son.
The third laptop still appears to be missing – and was taken by Russian drug dealers after they partied with Hunter in Vegas, he told a prostitute in a conversation caught on camera.
After filming himself having sex with the woman using his laptop in January 2019, Hunter left the camera rolling as he recounted a Vegas bender in which he spent ’18 days going round from penthouse suite to penthouse suite,’ sometimes costing $10,000 a night.
“I spent f***ing crazy amounts of money,” Hunter is seen telling the woman, before telling a story of how he almost drowned in a hot tub. “I was with these guys. The one guy was, not like you anyway… each night he’d be like ‘there’s going to be so many people here, crazy f***ing party’ and each night it’s nobody.”
“I went out to the hot tub by myself, which hangs over the edge of the f***ing top floor, with glass, it’s ridiculous,” Biden’s son recounts. “And so I’m sitting there and that’s the last I remember. And I don’t ever pass out, ever.”
“I wake up and the only people that are there are Miguel, the guy frantically running round gathering things up, ok – and Miguel, and Pierce, this guy, his friend,” he allegedly added. “They had kicked everybody out. And they had cleaned up the entire place, everything ok? And they were getting ready to leave, and I woke up. And there was this Russian 35-year-old, really nice, pure brunette. She refused to leave and they wouldn’t call an ambulance. And they didn’t know whether I was dead or not, at first.”
Hunter then explains the moment he realizes that his computer was missing.
“I think he’s the one that stole my computer. I think the three of them, the three guys that were like a little group. The dealer and his two guys, I took them everywhere. F***ing everywhere, crazy out of your mind sh**,” he says. “They have videos of me doing crazy f***ing sex f***ing, you know.”
“My computer, I had taken tons of like, just left like that cam on. And he would always put in a passcode and all that, you know what I mean? It was f***ing crazy sh**.,” he adds. “And somebody stole it during that period of time. He did all this kind of like pretend search and sh**.”
Later, the woman asks Hunter if he is concerned that the videos could be used to “blackmail” him.
“Yeah in some way yeah,” Hunter responds. “My dad [inaudible] running for president. He is. I talk about it all the time.”
“If they do, he also knows I make like a gazillion dollars,” he muses.
Cuomo’s Downfall Foreshadows Potential Looming Problems for Democrat Governors Nationwide
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) resignation might not stop the bleeding for Democrats in governors’ mansions nationwide facing problems of their own.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is on the ballot for a recall in five weeks in the Golden State, with polls signaling a potentially close race, while Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) faces corruption problems of her own in the upper Midwest.
If it succeeds, the second-ever recall election of a California governor — the first was Gray Davis, another Democrat, who lost and was replaced by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger a couple of decades ago — would likely set off an avalanche of national problems for Democrats with governors’ races later this year in Virginia and New Jersey representing pickup opportunities for Republicans. The last time a Republican won the governorship in either state was immediately after the last Democrat president, former President Barack Obama, was sworn in — meaning with Democrat President Joe Biden in the White House right now, history is on the GOP’s side in both states.
Next year’s midterm elections also present a bevy of pickup opportunities for Republicans at the governor level, with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) term-limited out of running for reelection. Republicans, meanwhile, are targeting Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D), New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), and others nationwide.
When Evers announced his reelection campaign in June, for instance, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) highlighted in a press release how Evers “had a tough run out of the gate” as indicated “when members of his own party struggled to muster up excitement and support for his reelection.”
But it is the Newsom recall possibility and a shot at Whitmer in Michigan that have Republicans most excited, especially in the wake of the Cuomo crash in New York. All three Democrat governors — Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer — each took on outsized, almost celebrity roles in the last year and a half in battling the pandemic with their various restrictions. They pushed masks and lockdowns and championed an until-recently bulletproof leftist narrative that the Democrats have been much more responsible and caring in responding to the pandemic than former President Donald Trump or governors like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) or Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
Interestingly, Cuomo’s downfall comes amid the resurgence in virus cases — many of which are so-called breakthrough cases, among vaccinated individuals — and the return of mask mandates and other restrictions and a broader leftist push for vaccine mandates.
But that virus resurgence, and the Biden administration and state and local Democrats again ordering their constituents to wear masks even if vaccinated, represents a failure among Democrats to put a lid on the pandemic once and for all as they had been promising during last year’s election and as Biden took office. What is particularly disappointing for them politically, too, is their narrative seemed to be playing out before Americans’ eyes — it looked like it was happening — as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lifted mask guidance for vaccinated individuals in the spring.
But now that mask mandates are being imposed again, a political quagmire may lay ahead for these very same Democrat governors who rose to national superstardom for fighting coronavirus. Axios recently reported that polling data is shifting against Biden and Democrats on the virus, going so far as to say an “early salvation” for Democrats — their handling of the virus — has now moved toward becoming a “liability” among the public. Combined with other indicators, like rising inflation, a border crisis, and more, the Axios report said Republicans have the edge going into the midterms.
Cuomo’s resignation announcement on Tuesday came as a result of an investigative report last week from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s (D) office that concluded Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women, including employees. Allegations included inappropriate comments, unwanted touching, and fostering a toxic work environment
In other words, nominally the reason Cuomo is finally going down is because of a string of sexual harassment claims against him from a number of women. But Cuomo’s questionable nursing home order during the pandemic has long simmered as a serious problem for him, with both Republicans and Democrats in New York demanding answers and accountability on that front. Deeper corruption concerns also have long swirled around Cuomo, who literally shut down a committee he created, the Moreland Commission, when it began investigating him.
Similar potent mixtures of pandemic failure and corruption surround both Newsom and Whitmer — neither of whom, however, faces any allegations of sexual misconduct — so Republicans are eager to see if Cuomo’s woes go beyond the headlines and represent a bigger trend in national politics and a shift among the public against this style of big state Democrat governor.
James announced the findings in her report on August 3, and Cuomo’s resignation came swiftly, just one week later, following a barrage of Democrat leaders — including Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — calling on him to resign.
Whitmer, in less assertive terms, also called for Cuomo to step down, saying she thought a resignation “probably makes sense”:
Newsom, too, decided Cuomo “should be held accountable for his actions,” according to his spokeswoman.
These broader concerns about Cuomo that go beyond the sexual harassment allegations have been festering for months though. The New York State Assembly had launched an impeachment investigation in March against the governor with a scope that went well beyond that of James’s investigation.
The Assembly’s Judiciary Committee chair, Charles Lavine (D-Nassau), said Monday during a press conference his probe had entailed not only sexual harassment allegations but also “other allegations,” including:
- That the governor improperly used state resources to write and produce a book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic
- Allegations concerning COVID-19 and nursing homes
- Allegations that he provided for preferential access to COVID-19 testing to certain friends and/or family members
The nursing home issue, in particular, began attracting attention last year after Cuomo instituted a policy prohibiting nursing homes from turning away patients who had been treated for coronavirus as cases were surging in his state. The policy drew scrutiny from Cuomo’s critics, who claimed it caused an increase in nursing home resident deaths, and eventually led to an inquiry last August from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Cuomo administration later was found to have knowingly concealed data about the death toll of the nursing home residents, in part out of fear of federal scrutiny, and the scandal now remains under investigation by the FBI, according to a New York Times timeline.
“Just on the nursing home question alone, there are more than half a million pages of documentation,” Lavine said of his committee’s own investigation, which Cuomo likely has now skirted by resigning before the committee is able to continue its impeachment pursuit.
In Michigan, Whitmer issued a directive similar to Cuomo’s to her state’s nursing homes. Self-reported data shows more than 5,600 deaths of “long-term care” facility residents in Michigan, but the governor’s policy and data collection methods, like Cuomo’s, have been sharply criticized and also led to questioning from the DOJ.
A poll in March revealed a five-point drop in the embattled Whitmer’s approval rating, and a majority of the poll’s respondents said they “strongly opposed” the governor’s nursing home management.
The conservative research group Michigan Rising Action described Whitmer as the “Cuomo of the Midwest” and said Cuomo’s resignation “should serve as a warning” to Whitmer.
“Governor Whitmer followed in Governor Cuomo’s footsteps by placing Covid positive patients into nursing home facilities — and both attempted to cover up the deadly policy by hiding the data on nursing home deaths,” the group’s executive director, Eric Ventimiglia, said in a statement to Breitbart News. “The parallels between Andrew Cuomo and Gretchen ‘Cuomo of the Midwest’ Whitmer are striking,” he continued, adding Cuomo’s resignation “should serve as a warning to Whitmer that no matter how hard she tries, she will not be able to avoid accountability for her deadly and misguided policies.”
Whitmer, meanwhile, has faced a slew of accusations of hypocrisy for her statewide coronavirus mandates, including quietly flying a private jet to Florida in the spring and getting caught in May at a dive bar with a large group. Polling in June and July — after the incidents — showed a decline in Whitmer’s approval rating and also found her trailing a generic Republican candidate in her race next year.
In California, Newsom, who was the first governor to implement a statewide stay-at-home coronavirus mandate, received enormous blowback from his residents, especially after the California Democrat was caught in November also violating his own orders.
The recall effort against Newsom that began in February 2020 over issues such as the state’s high homeless population and his failure to “enforce immigration law” picked up steam.
Newsom was spotted dining in the state’s Napa region at the expensive French Laundry restaurant in Yountville without a mask, and as CNBC observed, petition signatures for the recall effort suddenly jumped substantially, from 55,000 to close to half a million in one month’s time. The recall election was officially triggered in June after signatures surpassed 1.5 million.
Gov. Gavin Newsom removes his mask before giving an update during a visit to Pittsburg, California, June 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
One California politics professor, Dan Schnur, speculated to CNBC, “The only thing that separates this recall effort from any of its predecessors is that this one gained its strength from Covid-19.”
While Whitmer still has time to attempt to repair her reputation, Newsom’s recall election on September 14 is fast approaching, and his prospects of surviving it appear to be faltering. Emerson College polls over the course of several months demonstrate waning support for keeping Newsom. The most recent poll, conducted July 30–August 1, revealed 46 percent of respondents favor recalling the governor versus 48 percent against it, which is within the poll’s three percent margin of error.
A Survey USA poll conducted August 2–4, show a majority of respondents, or 51 percent, favor recalling Newsom. The poll found coronavirus management is primarily driving the support for the recall.
The governor warned of national impacts of his possible recall in an interview with McClatchy’s California editorial boards in July. “If this was a successful recall, I think it would have profound consequences nationwide, and go to not just politics, but to policy and policymaking,” he said. He contended Republicans would be “advantaged” in 2022 if they could “gin folks up” and recall him in 2021.
Newsom could not be more correct in that regard: His recall election and whether he survives — or how close the race is — could very well send shockwaves across America. It is indeed the first indicator as to whether Cuomo’s demise was a lone Democrat failure or the beginning of a pattern of Democrats facing referendums on their job performances. Look for Republicans to champion that broader narrative, too, of Democrat failure on coronavirus across the country as evidenced by the RGA’s early attack on Evers in Wisconsin.
“We imagine this might be the case for most Democrat governors that mismanaged COVID response, killed jobs, and put the most vulnerable lives at risk,” the RGA said.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.
The Human Rights Campaign’s 40 Years of Colluding With Sexual Predators
From Harvey Milk to Andrew Cuomo.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Alphonso David, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s top gay rights lobby, is in trouble for helping former Governor Cuomo smear one of his accusers. After Cuomo’s resignation, the HRC has launched an internal investigation into Alphonso’s actions.
And with Cuomo gone and his presidential ambitions gone with him, the HRC has little reason to keep one of the former cronies of New York’s political boss at the head of the gay rights lobby.
The involvement of an HRC leader with a top Democrat accused of sexual misbehavior isn’t news. HRC bosses are usually Democrat operatives selected for their close connections to the party’s elite. Alphonso's predecessor, Chad Griffin, did work for Obama and the Clintons. His predecessor, Joe Solmonese, was an Obama campaign co-chair and a DNC CEO.
The ideal HRC boss is a consultant and fundraiser with the ear of a future president.
Picking Alphonso was a bad bet on Cuomo. The future HRC boss had been Cuomo's consigliere after working his way through various 'deputy-ships' in New York State's civil rights industrial complex from the Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights to the Deputy Secretary and Counsel for Civil Rights. That won Alphonso a seat at the right hand of the state’s vicious crime boss, dictating threatening letters to fellow Democrats on Cuomo’s behalf.
HRC got a leader who had the ear of the most powerful man in New York and was being touted as a future president. And Cuomo got a crony tapped into HRC’s powerful fundraising network. If everything had worked out, the Cuomo-HRC alliance would have gone to the White House.
Instead, Cuomo is looking for a new job and the HRC’s first black boss is stuck answering some awkward questions about his role in enabling the predatory sexual habits of his disgraced white heterosexual boss.
When HRC picked Alphonso, it wanted to move on from Chad Griffin, whom Harvey Weinstein had called “my friend”. The monstrous movie studio boss had been a major HRC donor who had used the gay rights group to promote his movie projects. In one of the more shameless HRC-Weinstein co-productions ever, the gay rights lobby had joined the sexual predator's Oscar campaign for The Imitation Game by placing full-page ads in the New York Times.
During his reelection campaign, Cuomo spoke at HRC's gala and the gay rights group backed his campaign. Next year, Alphonso, Cuomo’s counsel, took over HRC. And HRC went on to repeatedly promote Cuomo.
But the entanglements didn’t end there.
At the end of last December, a top Cuomo aide contacted Alphonso, who was heading HRC, to show him a tweet calling Cuomo “one of the biggest abusers of all time" and requested the "full file" of the woman who had tweeted it. Even though Alphonso was no longer working for Cuomo, he still had a copy of the accuser's file. Cuomo aides then sent the file on to reporters even though it was labeled "privileged" and "confidential" in order to take them down.
A Cuomo aide showed Alphonso a draft of a letter attacking the accuser and the HRC boss agreed to help find signatories for a pro-Cuomo letter. The head of a civil rights group was participating in a secret plot to defend his old boss at the expense of his accuser.
The Alphonso pick was supposed to help the HRC move on from the Weinstein mess, but Governor Cuomo’s counsel had already been involved in it when he wrote a letter to the Manhattan DA on behalf of Cuomo blasting him over his handling of the Harvey Weinstein case.
Then Cuomo suspended the investigation after a $25,000 check from Weinstein’s old lawyer.
The HRC whored itself out to Cuomo, the way it had to Weinstein, to the Obamas and the Clintons. Like the rest of the elite coalition, its primary cause was party politics. And as the HRC head was helping Cuomo fight allegations of sexual harassment, it was no longer all that clear who had co-opted whom. Had HRC co-opted top Democrats or had they co-opted HRC?
“The Human Rights Campaign markets itself as champions for LGBT Americans. In reality, it champions left-wing Democrats – apparently even those guilty of sexual harassment – and bullies anyone who gets in their way," Charles Moran, the head of Log Cabin Republicans, wrote. "Next time corporations donate money to the Human Rights Campaign, they can stop deceiving their customers that they’re supporting LGBT Americans. They’re supporting radical and corrupt left-wing politicians.”
But the HRC was tainted from birth.
HRC was co-founded by Terry Bean who had donated $1 million to the group and whose name decorated its headquarters. The Oregon gay rights activist from a powerful political family didn't just build up the organization, but invented its signature template of combining massive fundraising for Democrats with political influence that had made HRC such a powerhouse.
Bean raised $500,000 for Obama alone who named him a "great friend and supporter" and gave him a ride on Air Force One. The HRC co-founder remained on its board until he was arrested in 2014 on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse committed against a 15-year-old boy.
The HRC co-founder’s former lover claimed to have discovered a hidden camera in a smoke detector which had shown half a dozen men "in a state of nudity engaged in intimate acts with [Bean]." This was the same man whom Bean had taken on a private tour of the White House and to an Obama fundraiser. Not to mention the birthday party of Portland’s former Mayor Sam Adams who had been accused of grooming a 17-year-old intern and exposing himself to an assistant. (Adams now works as the director of strategic innovations for Mayor Ted Wheeler.)
The teenage boy briefly disappeared after allegedly being paid off by Bean. He reemerged in 2019 alleging that his progressive lawyer had made a secret deal with Bean, forged his signature on the agreement, and gave him only $5,000 of the $220,000 settlement. This wasn’t too implausible because his lawyer was later accused of embezzling millions from her clients.
Bean was arrested and his former lover was convicted on sex abuse charges.
HRC has written Bean out of its history, but the past isn’t as easy to revise as that. The group recently moved out of Harvey Milk's old digs. The Human Rights Campaign has long made use of Milk's iconic image for its brand. The accusations against Bean easily pale in comparison to the truths about Milk who lured underage runaway teens and was a key Jim Jones supporter.
Before too long, the Human Rights Campaign will probably replace Alphonso David.
The presidential aspirations that Cuomo had dedicated his career to are now in ashes. HRC will need a political operative closer to someone more useful than a disgraced ex-governor.
And with Biden pushing 80 years and Kamala Harris pushing 40 in the polls, that’s up in the air.
But it’s a good bet that HRC’s next leader will be a career operative with a track record of doing the dirty work of the powerful men and women who are at the top of the Democrat food chain. And the Human Rights Campaign will eagerly help whichever future president it has settled on violate anyone’s civil rights as long as it gets its donors one step closer to the center of power.
The HRC is as much about gay rights as about the power and profit of its donors. Gay rights is a great brand for wealthy people looking to influence politicians under the umbrella of civil rights. And so the corporate money will continue rolling in and the big donors will fund major galas as long as the future presidents, the speakers and majority leaders keep coming to rub elbows.
As feminists have argued, rape is really about power. So is the Human Rights Campaign.
Terry McAuliffe Sneaks Off to Las Vegas for Fundraiser with Democrat Gov. Sisolak, Who Is Accused of Abusing Ex-Wife
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is running for his old job again, is en route to Las Vegas, Nevada, to hold a fundraiser Thursday night with Nevada’s Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak, a man accused of abusing his ex-wife and of impropriety by another woman.
One woman, Sisolak’s ex-girlfriend, years later recanted allegations she made in 2012 against him, including claims she made that Sisolak was inappropriate with her then-15-year-old underage daughter. Another woman, Sisolak’s ex-wife, stands by her allegations as of now, but her and Sisolak’s two daughters—who are adults now but were underage at the time of the alleged 2000 incident—fervently defended their father and undercut their mother’s story when it came out publicly in 2018.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – MARCH 17: Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak speaks during a news conference on the state’s response to the coronavirus outbreak at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building on March 17, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sisolak announced a statewide closure of all nonessential businesses by noon on March 18th for at least 30 days and said all gaming machines were to close by midnight tonight. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic on March 11th. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
These allegations are newly relevant now in two major ways politically: First and foremost, since Sisolak is running for reelection next year in Nevada—especially after the downfall of New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo—years-old allegations of impropriety by powerful men from women they allegedly victimize continue to reverberate years later, and sometimes the full story takes years or even decades to materialize.
Secondly, Sisolak’s decision to host Virginia’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate, McAuliffe—and McAuliffe’s decision to appear with him in Las Vegas despite these charges—is particularly newsworthy as well a few months before the Old Dominion state will decide whether to give McAuliffe another shot at leading the state or voters will swing the pendulum back to the Republicans by electing businessman Glenn Youngkin.
What’s more, McAuliffe has a history of surrounding himself with those very same powerful types of men it took years to expose for said impropriety—including being a close ally of former President Bill Clinton and of disgraced ex-Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
The most powerful allegation against Sisolak comes from his ex-wife, who in 2018 gave an interview that leveled serious charges against him. While their two daughters do not back up her story, several friends and pieces of contemporary evidence that came out at the time did corroborate her allegations.
Sisolak’s ex-wife, Lori Ann “Dallas” Garland, spoke out in 2018 in a Daily Caller exclusive accusing her ex-husband of physically harming her several months after she filed for divorce in January 2000 and was getting her things from their marital home in August 2000.
The Daily Caller’s Andrew Kerr reported in October 2018, a few weeks before Sisolak’s election as governor of Nevada:
Garland detailed an incident in August 2000 in which she says Sisolak threatened to call the police on her after he allegedly left her with a bruise on her neck. Garland provided The Daily Caller News Foundation with pictures she said her lawyer took of her bruised neck, along with entries of her contemporaneous diary detailing the altercation. Three of Garland’s longtime friends told TheDCNF they personally saw her bruised neck after the incident.
The photographs, published in the Daily Caller article, show Garland’s bruised neck. Kerr wrote:
The altercation occurred on Aug. 24, 2000, the day after she moved out of their marital home, according to an entry in her contemporaneous diary, which was reviewed by TheDCNF. Garland wrote in the entry that she returned to the house that evening after picking up her two daughters from the local community center to retrieve her make-up, which she had forgotten to pack the day before. Garland wrote that she tried to follow her kids as they entered the house through the garage, but Sisolak blocked her at the door. Garland tried to push her way past Sisolak after he told her to provide a list to his lawyers of the things she wanted to collect, the diary entry read. Garland told TheDCNF there was no court order at the time that prevented her from entering her house.
The story then quotes Garland describing what happened:
I tried to push the door open. I told him I’m not leaving without my makeup, it’s not like I was going to do anything else, I just wanted my makeup. He was trying to shut the door. He had his arm out and had it up against my neck pushing me and trying to shut the door.
Kerr’s report continues with more of the gruesome allegations against the now-governor of Nevada:
Garland said she and Sisolak pushed against each at the door for a few moments until, she charges, her ex-husband suddenly “stumbled back on purpose and fell on the floor,” allegedly claiming to be injured while yelling at their daughter, Carley, that she had to stay away from her “dangerous” mother.
“Our daughter, Carley, was crying hysterically, yelling, ‘Daddy, please just let Mommy have her makeup,’” Garland said.
Garland said she walked over her ex-husband, who she said was groveling, grabbed her makeup from the bedroom and left the house without any further incident.
Garland wrote in her diary that her two daughters begged her not to get their father in trouble by telling their court-ordered psychologist about the incident.
“When I got back to the garage I told Carley I was sorry & that I wouldn’t get her dad in trouble,” the diary entry reads. “I told Steve I was sorry too.”
Garland denies ever forcing Sisolak onto the ground. She claims his fall was nothing more than a theatrical ploy to make her look bad in front of their child. Garland said Sisolak was 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed over 200 pounds at the time of the incident, over double the weight of Garland, who was about 100 pounds.
“I think what Steve was trying to get me supervised visitation. He was trying to say there was domestic violence — that I hit him,” Garland said.
Garland said she learned through her lawyer the following day that Sisolak was threatening to call the police on her. She said the threats stopped after she had her lawyer send Sisolak a picture of the bruise on the right side of her neck.
“Steve would have went to jail, because he didn’t have a mark on him,” Garland said.
TheDCNF contacted the attorney Garland said took a picture of her bruised neck, Jon Norheim, who declined to say if he recalled taking the photo.“I’m sure that whatever happened in her life was incredibly important and memorable to her and she would have a really good memory of it, but I did a lot of cases and they were all similar, and my recollection of 18 to 20 years ago is pretty poor,” Norheim told TheDCNF.
In response to these allegations from Garland, Sisolak’s campaign did not deny a physical altercation—but instead his 2018 governor campaign said Garland was the aggressor, not Sisolak. What’s more, his team provided sworn statements from Sisolak’s and Garland’s two daughters backing up Sisolak and undercutting Garland.
The Sisolak campaign did not deny that a physical altercation occurred between Garland and Sisolak in August 2000. The campaign provided sworn statements from Sisolak’s daughters signed Oct. 17, 2018, that, put together, share similarities with the account of the altercation detailed in Garland’s diary, with one key difference — that it was Garland who had injured their father.
The sworn statements of Ashley and Carley Sisolak — who were, respectively, 13 and 10 at the time — detailed a physical altercation that occurred on August 24, 2000, nearly 20 years prior, at 7 p.m. when Garland arrived at their home to retrieve her makeup before Sisolak stopped her at the garage door, just as described in Garland’s diary.
The daughters’ sworn statements differ in that they say it was Garland who was the aggressor against Sisolak. Ashley said Garland “battered” her father, who she said slipped on a rug and fell to the ground after Garland pushed him.
The second allegation against Sisolak came from an ex-girlfriend named Kathleen Vermillion, a former Henderson City, Nevada, councilwoman who dated Sisolak when he was Clark County Commissioner. When they had a high-profile breakup after a five-year relationship, the two Nevada officials had dueling press conferences leveling all sorts of accusations at each other—including Vermillion claiming inappropriate behavior by Sisolak when it came to her at-the-time underage then-15-year-old daughter.
The Las Vegas Sun had this detail from its coverage in 2012 of the high-profile spat from a press conference, with attorneys for Vermillion alleging that Sisolak took the young girl to Victoria’s Secret:
The media were shown a highly edited video interview of Vermillion’s 15-year-old daughter.
In the video, the daughter said on two or three occasions Sisolak took her to the lingerie store Victoria’s Secret. She also said Sisolak would give her money and send her text messages after 11 p.m.Fierro said the messages and money came even after Sisolak and Vermillion broke up in October.
“After 11 o’clock at night,” Fierro said. “Does that sound like the actions of a reasonable person?”
The Las Vegas Review Journal story on it claims that Vermillion’s attorneys claimed Sisolak would have the then-underage girl model bathing suits for him:
Vermillion’s team told Sisolak they had a news conference scheduled for Monday to show a video of her 15-year-old daughter saying Sisolak had her model bathing suits for him, took her on a “movie date” and texted her late at night.
The teen also said that Sisolak was “obsessed with her looks and how she dressed” and that he tried to continue his relationship with her even after he and Vermillion ended their rocky five-year romance in October.
Importantly, however, Vermillion later recanted her allegations against Sisolak and sent a letter to Republican Adam Laxalt—whose 2018 gubernatorial campaign featured the allegations in part in an attack ad website it made against Sisolak—threatening to sue if he continued to use the allegations she was now, six years later, recanting.
The Nevada Independent reported this on Vermillion recanting the allegations:
In the letter to Laxalt, an attorney for Vermillion refers to “her current admission of her untruthfulness with regard to those accusations back in late 2011 and early 2012” and hints at potential litigation if their use brings her emotional distress and sets back her recovery from substance abuse.
“I also advised her that by coming forward as to the falsity of the accusations she made, any use of them by you or on your behalf, without also simultaneously revealing their untruth, could be actionable by her if it caused severe emotional distress resulting in mental or physical damage to her, such as relapse into addiction,” wrote attorney Dominic Gentile.
The 2018 Nevada Independent story also reveals that a 2012 police report found a police investigation into the claims on the video of Vermillion’s daughter proved it to be unreliable—and that the daughter told police her comments on the video were taken out of context. The report continues:
A police report obtained by The Nevada Independent concluded that Vermillion and others provided ‘some level of coaching’ for her daughter’s answers, and that the video was edited ‘to look like something it was not.’ In an interview with police, Vermillion’s daughter said the video was out of context and that her answers had been prodded by her mother’s then-attorney.
What’s more, the Las Vegas Police Department apparently requested a warrant for Vermillion’s arrest on extortion charges—but local prosecutors declined to bring charges against her—backing up Sisolak’s claim he was being extorted for nearly $4 million.
Nonetheless, a fundraising invitation obtained by Breitbart News shows that McAuliffe is indeed proceeding with a fundraiser alongside Sisolak in Las Vegas at an undisclosed location on Thursday evening. The fundraiser invite asks for at least $500 to attend as a guest to up to $5,000 to be a “sponsor.” Mid-level donors can give $1,000 to be McAuliffe’s “friend” and $2,500 to be his “ally.”
McAuliffe’s campaign has not replied to a request for comment from Breitbart News on this matter—including when asked specifically about the multiple allegations against Sisolak, the recanted one and the one his ex-wife still stands by publicly.
That, combined with McAuliffe’s history of associating with Democrats and elitists accused of sexual misconduct, has his GOP opponent Youngkin’s campaign ripping him.
“I guess if you’re best friends with predators like Harvey Weinstein and spent decades doing God knows what with Bill Clinton, prowling around Vegas with another abuser is just another day that ends in Y for Terry McAuliffe,” Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez told Breitbart News.
Interestingly, McAuliffe’s history with such individuals is certainly long. In 1999, the Washington Post called him the “first cheerleader” for then-President Clinton as he battled allegations of sexual impropriety surrounding the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
McAuliffe, per a recent Washington Free Beacon report, actually hosted a fundraiser in 2019 with a convicted sex offender Democrat who served jail time for having sex with an underage assistant.
In 2007, McAuliffe called Weinstein a “friend” and accepted more than $57,000 in campaign contributions from him.
According to a report in the Daily Mail this year, McAuliffe took another $100,000 from a billionaire hedge fund manager named Paul Tudor this cycle even though Tudor very aggressively and publicly defended Weinstein.
McAuliffe even reportedly left his wife in the delivery room while she was giving birth to their child for a Washington Post party, showed back up for the birth of their son Peter, and then on the way home from the hospital made a pit stop at a Democrat Party fundraiser to mingle with donors and raise another cool million dollars.
Voters in both states—in Virginia later this year and in Nevada next year—have the opportunity to go a different direction than both of these men. It remains to be seen if that happens, or if the voters approve of—or are willing to overlook—all of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment