"Virginia is for lovers," but, following Governor-elect Spanberger's recent law enforcement pick, apparently not for Catholics. Already controversial regarding law enforcement bias, Spanberger removed all doubt by tapping as her top cop the agent responsible for the FBI's infamous anti-Catholic memo. Despite running as a moderate Democrat just over a month ago, she couldn't even wait until inauguration to drop the façade.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger brings law enforcement controversy with her when she becomes Virginia's next governor this January. This is because the attorney general who will take office with her is none other than Jay Jones, the candidate who made national headlines by texting he wanted to give "two bullets to the head" of a Republican opponent. Jones gathered yet more notoriety from a reckless driving charge; then came questions that he fudged serving his resulting 1,000 hours of community service, half with his own PAC.
Spanberger earned a role in Jones' shocking behavior by refusing to acknowledge the obvious—that Jones was unqualified to be attorney general—and demanding he drop out of the race.
This is the baggage that Spanberger brings with her into office. Evidently, this was not enough for her.
Spanberger took her sin of law enforcement bias omission to one of commission when she nominated Stanley Meador, former head of the FBI's Richmond field office, to be Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security.
In 2023, the Richmond field office produced the infamous memo that called for the surveillance of Catholics. It did so because the extreme-left Southern Poverty Law Center had placed "radical traditional Catholic hate groups" in the same category as the Ku Klux Klan.
After the appalling memo was leaked, the FBI rushed to rescind it, with then-FBI Director Christopher Wray testifying that the memo was "a single product by a single field office, which, as soon as I found out about it, I was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems." That "single field office" was Richmond's, and Stanley Meador headed it.
While the head of the FBI ran away from responsibility for the Richmond field office's breathtaking memo, Spanberger ran to it—or at least to the person with ultimate responsibility for it.
Aside from the memo's abhorrent position on Catholics, which should have been disqualifying enough for someone as closely associated with it as Meador, Spanberger's choice of Meador was grossly stupid politically. Saddled with the liability of Jones as her attorney general, Spanberger was already compromised regarding impartiality when it came to law enforcement in Virginia.
Spanberger's priority should have been to do everything with her own law enforcement picks to assuage concerns of bias. Instead, Spanberger not only legitimized the concern of bias but compounded it by picking Meador. Just as Spanberger did by embracing Meador, she ran toward the perception that her administration would be biased in law enforcement.
Poor judgment is an understatement here. She takes office with an attorney general who wishes death to his political opponents. She makes her top law enforcement pick someone who headed the office that produced the memo to target Catholics—apparently farming out its decision to do so to an extremist leftist organization.
Is Spanberger saying that she could not find anyone—anyone else—qualified to be Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security? What other religious group would Spanberger be so insensitive to as to pick someone who had been a party to calling for its official surveillance? What other groups will she be so insensitive to during her term as governor?
Or is Spanberger saying even more? Is she saying that she does not even care about the reprehensible targeting and the appearance of bias? Or worst of all, is she saying that she chose Meador specifically to make a political statement? Is this a finger (of the middle variety) in the eye of her political opponents?
While not calling for Jones' withdrawal from the race was an act of omission—going to lengths to avoid calling for Jones to withdraw—picking Meador is an act of commission. This is not something that simply occurred outside her control. Spanberger's responsibility for this act is unavoidable. Just as it is also inexcusable.
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, "Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left," from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
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