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.
Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor, a far-left Democrat who is the elected prosecutor in the district where Susanna Gibson is running for statehouse, inserted herself into Gibson’s sex scandal while other politicians were publicly distancing themselves — with records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicating that Taylor was closely involved with Gibson’s campaign, and was using government resources to feed it information for the purpose of helping its campaign strategy.
Gibson, while her campaign was underway, raised money for her “good cause” by doing live online sex shows under the moniker “HotWifeExperience.” Viewers could pay tokens to get her to do specific sex acts with her husband while they watched, with larger payments leading to more extreme acts, such as watching her urinate or anal sex.
On September 14, The Daily Wire emailed Taylor’s office asking if she planned to seek an indictment of Gibson for prostitution based on Virginia code section 18.2-346. Lawyers said her conduct fit the statute, which outlaws sex for money regardless of whether the recipient has sex with the payee or with someone else.
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Gibson’s lawyer, Daniel Watkins, called the cell phone listed in the email and threatened legal action over the then-unpublished article.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.
The Daily Wire then filed a Freedom of Information Act request aimed at getting to the bottom of what happened. It showed that minutes after the email was sent to the prosecutors office, Taylor personally wrote to her staff: “I don’t know her campaign knows about this…. i will handle.”
The email suggests that Taylor was coordinating closely with Gibson, to the point where they were sharing information about what various media outlets were writing about her in real time. Taylor never responded to The Daily Wire, so “handl[ing]” the media inquiry exploring the potential for conflict of interest appeared to consist of tipping off the candidate—solidifying that appearance.
Her office has not responded to a FOIA asking for records showing communication with Gibson’s staff or anyone else on the matter.
Gibson did not return a request for comment and Taylor ignored a question about her interactions with the campaign.
Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, which monitors the politicization of prosecutors offices, said, “It is illegal for any official to use their office to advance purely political objectives, but for the jurisdiction’s chief law enforcement officer — the Commonwealth’s Attorney— to do so is an affront to the rule of law and shakes public faith in the justice system.”
Taylor is a founding member of Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice, a group of prosecutors — many funded by George Soros — who view their job as consisting of ideology as much as meting out punishment.
Taylor is an ambitious Democrat who has been floated for higher office, and is also president of the Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys. The Virginia state assembly — like Henrico County — is relatively evenly split along party lines, and Gibson’s race could help determine which party controls it.
Kennedy said the Taylor-Gibson relationship highlights how partisan prosecutors may simply exempt ideological allies from laws–or even prosecute opponents who haven’t done anything wrong. A member of Taylor’s progressive prosecutors group, the Loudoun County commonwealth attorney, tried to put the father of a rape victim in jail for saying a curse word after he became angry about the rape of his daughter by a skirt-wearing boy.
Such prosecutors openly boast that the purpose of electing them is that they will simply ignore laws they don’t like. “No matter what the law says, I’ll never prosecute a woman for getting an abortion,” another member of Taylor’s group, the Fairfax prosecutor, blared in the New York Times.
Kennedy said that “Sadly, Taylor’s apparent actions are the new normal for ideology first, justice last ‘progressive prosecutors’ in Virginia. From Fairfax to Norfolk, Portsmouth to Loudoun, the Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice clique is out to execute their agenda, not enforce the law.”
Early voting is now underway and Gibson has not dropped out, despite a poll showing that Democrats and women voters believe she should.