A firestorm of scandals embroiling Virginia’s governor and two fellow Democrats at the top of the state’s executive branch spread to the Republican leader of the state Senate on Thursday as U. S. President Donald Trump weighed in to stoke the political crisis.
RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) – A firestorm of scandals embroiling Virginia’s governor and two fellow Democrats at the top of the state’s executive branch spread to the Republican leader of the state Senate on Thursday as U. S. President Donald Trump weighed in to stoke the political crisis.
Trump, who has weathered a wide range of scandals involving himself and members of his administration, predicted the turmoil in Virginia would help flip the state back into the Republican column in the 2020 presidential elections.
“Democrats at the top are killing the Great State of Virginia,” the Republican president wrote on Twitter early on Thursday. “If the three failing pols were Republicans, far stronger action would be taken.”
Trump’s tweet came hours before state Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment acknowledged a media report that he was managing editor of a 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook awash with racist images and slurs.
The revelation echoed a controversy that first enmeshed the state’s top Democrat, Governor Ralph Northam, last Friday.
Northam, a former U. S. Army doctor who took office a year ago, has resisted mounting pressure to resign since a racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook page surfaced last week. He admitted to once having worn blackface that year to impersonate pop star Michael Jackson.
