The Democratic candidate in a competitive Virginia House district denounced reports that she and her husband had performed sexual acts on a pornographic livestreaming website, describing the sharing of those videos as “the worst gutter politics.”
The existence of the sexually explicit videos, first reported by The Washington Post on Monday, has injected a highly sensitive issue into one of the most competitive races in this fall’s battle for control of the Virginia General Assembly.
Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner, faces Republican David Owen, a retired home builder, in the 57th District, a suburban Richmond seat that is key to Democratic hopes of upending the 50-46 GOP majority in November’s elections. It’s one of seven competitive state House districts, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.
Democrats, meanwhile, are defending a 22-18 state Senate majority. The outcome of this year’s legislative races could determine whether Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin can enact conservative policies, including a 15-week abortion ban, amid speculation about his potential late entry into the 2024 GOP presidential race.
Gibson, a 40-year-old mother of two young children, and her husband, a lawyer, reportedly streamed sex acts in exchange for “tips” on a livestreaming pornographic website. Those videos were recorded and then archived on another site. The Post reported it had been alerted to the videos’ existence by a Republican operative. CNN has not independently verified the content of the videos.
The videos were first livestreamed on a website that is not password-protected and on which The Post reported the couple had more than 5,700 followers. Gibson’s attorney, Daniel P. Watkins, said that sharing the videos violated the state’s revenge porn law.
“Capturing and disseminating this content without permission is unlawful recording and it plainly violates Virginia’s revenge porn statute. We are working closely with law enforcement to bring accountability to the wrongdoers,” he told CNN in an email.
“This is an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family. It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” Gibson said in a statement shared with CNN on Tuesday.
“My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up,” she said. “They are trying to silence me because they want to silence you, and I won’t let that happen.”
She added: “My opponent and his allies know that the people of this district are on our side on the issues, so they’re stooping to the worst gutter politics. There’s too much at stake in this election and I’ll never stop fighting for our community.”
Owen, Gibson’s Republican opponent, said in a statement that he found out about the existence of the videos on Monday when The Post story was published “like everyone else.”
“I’m sure this is a difficult time for Susanna and her family, and I’m remaining focused on my campaign,” he said.
The Virginia House Democratic Caucus declined to comment, pointing instead to Gibson’s statement.
The initiation of an impeachment investigation against a president ought to be an earthshaking moment in the nation’s history.
Yet when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the opening of such a probe into President Joe Biden Tuesday, it felt like more of an inevitable consequence of America’s diseased politics than a constitutional thunderclap.
McCarthy argued that the impeachment inquiry was the “logical” next step amid Republican claims – so far unproven – that Biden was enriched by his son Hunter’s business ventures when he was vice president. Impeachment did seem to be a logical next step – but less from an evidentiary perspective than a political one, with the effort pushed by hardline Republicans, including many members who voted not to certify Biden’s 2020 victory. The House GOP majority, which has remained in thrall to Trump, now serves as an arm of his bid to win back the White House next year.
The speaker’s impeachment move comes as he is facing extreme pressure from far-right pro-Trump members of his conference ahead of an internal GOP showdown over spending and amid questions over whether he could survive as speaker if he fails to impeach Biden, following the double impeachment of his predecessor.
The impression that McCarthy is acting at the behest of a vengeful Trump was bolstered by the disclosure that the ex-president was on the phone with House leadership on Tuesday, as CNN reported.
It’s not new for the California Republican to be seen to be Trump’s proxy. He pledged loyalty to the former president at Mar-a-Lago days after he left office in disgrace for telling his supporters to “fight like hell” before the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Republicans could use an impeachment investigation of the president to fuel public suspicion over Hunter Biden’s cascading controversies. They’ll try to muddle the political effect of Trump’s own two impeachments and his four looming criminal trials by creating the impression that political corruption is simply endemic.
The United States is now on the cusp of its third possible impeachment in three and a half years. McCarthy’s move raises the question of whether the standard for this last-resort constitutional remedy is being watered down. A new impeachment process that comes to be seen as purely politically motivated also raises the risk that a once-rare step will become a regular habit when the House is controlled by one party and the White House by another.
But the coming impeachment investigation represents a gamble for Republicans since it could cause a backlash in moderate districts that their majority depends on. And heading into 2024, when polls show limited enthusiasm for Joe Biden’s reelection bid even amid in his own party, an impeachment inquiry into the president may help the White House boost excitement among Democrats. Ian Sams, a White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, blasted the impeachment investigation as “extreme politics at its worst.”
But the strain of an impeachment inquiry is hardly the way the White House would have preferred to prepare for election year. The White House plans to send a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging the media to “ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” according to a draft copy obtained by CNN.
Even if nothing comes of the inquiry, the chatter could increase voter concern about the president’s role in Hunter Biden’s affairs after 61% of the public said in a CNN poll released last week that they think he had at least some involvement in his son’s business career.
And McCarthy’s announcement came as concern mounts among some Democrats about Biden’s age – he would turn 82 before being inaugurated for a second term. In a column likely to drive conversation on the issue on Wednesday, influential Washington Post foreign policy writer David Ignatius, who is often sympathetic to the president, said he didn’t think Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should run for reelection.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told CNN Tuesday that while the impeachment inquiry decision was a symptom of an “out of control” Republican House majority – and that there was no evidence to back impeachment – he did feel “uncomfortable” with the impression that Hunter Biden capitalized on his father’s position, as he did about similar allegations about Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in the previous administration.
