Politics is a dirty business with most of those involved in the various campaigns focusing on hiding, spinning, and deflecting anything that puts their candidate in a negative light.
The potential voters only hear vague platitudes and untenable promises, never the rest of the story.
On Thursday Christina Freundlich, a top spokesperson for Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign accidentally included a Fox News Digital reporter, Tyler O’Neil, in a group email concerning internal deliberations over how to “kill” a story about the campaign hiring a top Democratic lawyer known for spearheading election challenges.
(McAuliffe campaign email to Fox News (Tyler O’Neil, Fox News)
Shortly after O’Neil sent his email, O’Neil received a note from Freundlich calling to kill the story and to which she added, “To dispute the challenges of the election,” according to Fox News.
EXCLUSIVE: Team @TerryMcAuliffe emails reveal effort to "kill this" @FoxNews story. The campaign did not take kindly to questions about @JonathanTurley's suggestion that hiring Marc Elias suggests McAuliffe might plan to challenge the election results.https://t.co/HVQyLT2ofQ
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 28, 2021
O’Neil was reportedly writing a story on McAuliffe’s campaign recently dishing out $53,680 for services from the Elias Law Group, which was founded by attorney Marc Elias.
McAuliffe may be preparing to challenge any win by Republican Glenn Youngkin. He has given $53,680 to the Elias Law Group. McAuliffe does not appear disturbed by Elias’ highly controversial career or his possible exposure in the Durham investigation…https://t.co/Gb6YzAJmBo
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 28, 2021
Elias has a history of working with Democrats during closely contested elections and in the runup to the 2020 presidential election. As a former lawyer at the law firm Perkins Coie, Hillary Clinton hired him in 2016 to conduct research on Trump, which included Christopher Steele’s dossier, Fox reported.
Although well known in the democratic establishment, has not been very successful in his efforts.
Earlier this year, Elias was sanctioned by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for filing a “redundant and misleading” motion in a case challenging a Texas law forbidding “straight-ticket” voting. The court said Elias and his legal team from Perkins Coie filed a motion in February that was nearly identical to an earlier motion that had been denied.
Elias also led an unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 election result in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, in which Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Rita Hart by just six votes.
After O’Neil’s story about her email was published, Freundlich responded in a tweet and said she thinks “it’s clear based on this story that we did in fact… kill the story.”
I think it’s clear based on this story that we did in fact…kill the story https://t.co/rRCEzAL0Kj
— Christina Freundlich (@christinafreund) October 29, 2021
Well, Christina here you go again. I don’t think your attempt to deflect, minimalize this story is working.
In the big scheme of things, this story will not have a long news cycle, unless of course Marc Elias is called upon to try to, as Marc Levin is charging, steal the election for McAuliffe in the event of his loss on November 2nd.
Eric Thompson is a syndicated political writer and Christian podcaster.
