Much has already been written regarding the case of Jay Jones, the Democratic Party candidate for Virginia’s next attorney general. This addition to the volumes already written concerns the job he wants: a position inartfully referred to as the commonwealth’s “top cop.” Spearheading investigations and acting on behalf of the Virginia taxpayers, the job can wield enormous power for good or ill.
But first, a short tangent to explain Jones’ interest in relieving himself on the graves of Republican leaders like Todd Gilbert and choosing to shoot Gilbert if faced with the choice between Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, or this former Virginia speaker of the House.
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Several years ago, the group Government Accountability and Oversight published a report titled “Law Enforcement for Rent” that detailed what it discovered in its investigation into private attorneys who were offering their services to various state attorneys general to “investigate groups that fund climate deniers.” You can read the report here, but in general, it shows that the Office of Attorney General has the very real power to target “enemies.”
Jones’ offending texts to Republican state Del. Carrie Coyner that she gave to National Review detail a man who could be driven to such hatred simply because he felt that GOP leaders’ condolences on the passing of moderate Democrat Del. Joe Johnson were disingenuous.
According to the National Review piece, Jones called Coyner and explained that “public policy only changes when policymakers feel pain themselves, such as that felt by parents when their children die from gun violence.” This should be one of the even more concerning parts, given the potential punitive power of the Attorney General Office.
Take what current Democrat Speaker of the House Don Scott, after condemning the text via a statement, said while campaigning for the Democrats for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general in Hopewell about the texts: “We have to be mature in our thinking and how we vote.”
“We can’t get distracted,” he continued, “because they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else. Stay focused.”
Democrat Senate leaders Louise Lucas and Mamie Locke issued an eerily similar joint statement: “Jay must take accountability for his actions. But we will not allow this moment to distract from the urgent fight we are in for Virginia’s future.”
The word of the day must be “distracted.”
What of this future? Is it a stretch to harken back to what the Government Accountability and Oversight report found was attempted during former Attorney General Mark Herring’s two terms (and why)? Is it a stretch to imagine an “enemies list” written by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Greenpeace, or the Soros’ groups like Open Society—a list filled with organizations like the Family Foundation, the Virginia Education Opportunity Alliance, and Moms for Liberty to be targeted by an attorney general who imagines about them what he imagined about Gilbert just because he disagreed with their positions?
Faster than you could say “Crossfire Hurricane,” people’s homes could be subject to raids at the crack of dawn or cell tower pings would be used to build RICO cases against his political opposition. Yes, I know both of those things have happened already. That’s the point: The real authoritarians already know how to do it.
Many people, even some Democrat writers, like Chris Graham of the Augusta Free Press, are insisting that Jones is disqualified because of what he said. Though what he thinks about people he disagrees with politically coupled to the potentially punitive power of the Attorney General Office is what should disqualify him to Virginians.
