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2nd woman accuses Virginia official of sexual assault
WASHINGTON — A second woman accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault Friday, saying the Democrat raped her 19 years ago while they were both students at Duke University.
Calls for his resignation grew steadily as the day wore on.
A lawyer for Meredith Watson, 39, said in a statement that Fairfax had attacked Watson in 2000. The statement described the assault as “premeditated and aggressive,” and noted that while Watson and Fairfax had been social friends, they were never involved romantically.
The lawyer, Nancy E. Smith, said her team had statements from former classmates who said Watson had “immediately” told friends that Fairfax had raped her. A New Jersey public relations firm representing Watson provided The Associated Press with a 2016 email exchange with a female friend and 2017 text exchanges in which Watson said Fairfax had raped her. She also expressed dismay about his run for political office.
Watson’s representatives declined to provide further documentation and said their client would not be talking to journalists.
Fairfax shot back at his accusers quickly: he said in a statement that he would not resign from office, and vowed to clear his name against what he described as a “vicious and
“I deny this latest unsubstantiated allegation,” the embattled Democrat said. “It is demonstrably false. I have never forced myself on anyone ever. I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations. Such an investigation will confirm my account because I am telling the truth.”
Duke spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said the university’s police department has no criminal reports naming or involving Fairf
Police officials in Durham, North Carolina, where Duke is, said they had no records of an accusation against Fairfax in 2000.
This is not the first time Watson has accused someone of assault. Following inquiries from AP and other media, Watson’s lawyer confirmed that while in college she accused another man, a basketball player at Duke, of raping her when she was a sophomore. Smith said Watson reported it to a top-level university administrator but received no help and was discouraged from taking the claim any further. The lawyer said Watson also told friends — including Fairfax — about the earlier incident.
Duke officials told AP on Friday they had no immediate knowledge of the accusation against the basketball player but were researching the matter.
The latest accusation against Fairfax comes two days after Vanessa Tyson, a 42-year-old political science professor, said publicly that Fairfax sexually assaulted her in a Boston hotel room during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Tyson says Fairfaix , then a law student working as an aide to Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, forced her to perform oral sex.
Fairfax says his sexual encounter with Tyson was consensual.
At the time, Tyson was working as a student adviser at Harvard University and was a frequent speaker to Boston-area support groups for rape survivors. Tyson has said she was sexually molested by a family member as a child.
A man who was romantically involved with Tyson in the late 1990s said Thursday that she disclosed the childhood abuse to him during a conversation about why she found certain kinds of physical intimacy difficult. The man spoke to AP on condition of anonymity out of concern publication of his name would damage his career.
He said Tyson told him oral sex in particular brought back painful memories of her childhood trauma. The man said he finds it nearly impossible to believe that Tyson would have performed oral sex without being forced.
Though the man also knows Fairfax and considered him a friend, he said he believes Tyson is telling the truth.
The Associated Press typically does not identify those who say they were sexually assaulted, but both Tyson and Watson issued public statements using their names.
Tyson said Wednesday the 2004 incident left her feeling deeply humiliated and ashamed. She only began to tell friends about the alleged assault in October 2017, after seeing a photo of Fairfax next to an article about his campaign.
Watson also confided in a friend after seeing that Fairfax was running for office. Watson, who now lives in Maryland, did so after she received an email from a college friend in 2016 urging former Duke students to support the campaign of “our good friend Justin.”
Watson replied: “Justin raped me in college and I don’t want to hear anything about him. Please, please remove me from any future emails about him please. Thank you!”
Watson’s lawyer said the circumstances of the alleged assault in 2000 were similar to what Tyson had described happening four years later, but declined to provide further details.
“At this time, Ms. Watson is reluctantly coming forward out of a strong sense of civic duty and her belief that those seeking or serving in public office should be of the highest character,” Smith said, according to the written statement. “She has no interest in becoming a media personality or reliving the trauma that has greatly affected her life. Similarly, she is not seeking any financial damages.”
Smith added that Watson also hopes Fairfax will resign his elected position.
Carliss Chatman, a Washington & Lee Law School professor who graduated from Duke in 2001, said she has remained friends with Fairfax and hosted a political fundraiser for him. She remembers Watson from parties but didn’t think Watson and Fairfax ran in the same social circles and was surprised that the statement from Watson’s attorneys had described them as friends.
“It doesn’t feel plausible at all,” she said of Watson’s allegations.
The accusations against Fairfax have rocked an administration that was already struggling amid calls for the resignation of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over a racist photo that appeared on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. Fairfax would be in line to become governor if Northam resigned.
Following news of a second accuser against Fairfax, Democratic state lawmakers in Virginia issued a call for Fairfax to resign, as did the Virginia Black Legislative Caucus. Several members of the state’s congressional delegation, both black and white, also said Fairfax, who is black, can no longer serve in the office.
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Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace and reporter Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina, contributed to this report. Kunzelman reported from College Park, Maryland, and Suderman from Richmond, Virginia.
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Follow AP investigative reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck , Kunzelman at http://twitter.com/Kunzelman75 and Suderman at http://twitter.com/AlanSuderman
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Contact the AP’s investigative team with tips about this or other matters: https://www.ap.org/tips
Michael Biesecker, Michael Kunzelman And Alan Suderman, The Associated Press
Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.
The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.
“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.
She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”
North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.
Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.
These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.
A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.
This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.
“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”
Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.
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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal
From Conservative Party Communications
“Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.
“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?
“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?
“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”
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