Justin Fairfax aide who resigned after sex assault allegations speaks out

Virginian Pilot ^ | Apr 26, 2019 | By Katherine Hafner

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A woman who resigned as Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax's policy director in the days after two women accused him of sexual assault said on Thursday that she felt "brainwashed, betrayed and retraumatized" by the way he has handled the allegations against him.

At a Rally Against Rape event in Arlington's Gateway Park Thursday night, Adele McClure spoke for nearly 20 minutes. Her talk was streamed live on Facebook. She recounted how she was sexually assaulted at age 16 by someone she barely knew.

Then she "moved on and buried it deep," she said. "I have not thought about that, or those feelings, or that encounter, for 14 years. I suppressed them, and I pushed them deep down inside. And I convinced myself that it was my fault."

McClure said in an interview Friday that the speech "was one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life. There was still a part of me that wanted to protect (Fairfax). Down to the last minute, I almost scratched everything I was going to speak about (him).

"I just couldn't be silent anymore."

McClure, 30, is a Virginia Commonwealth University graduate who last year was recognized on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list for law and policy while serving as Fairfax's policy director. She worked on his 2013 and 2017 campaigns. Growing up she was often homeless and is now working on the issues of homelessness and eviction on a short-term basis for a state agency under the housing department.

In early February — amid other scandals in the Democratic administration involving Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring — Vanessa Tyson, a professor at Scripps College, said Fairfax sexually assaulted her in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Tyson described a forceful act where Fairfax held down her head to perform oral sex on him inside a hotel room.

Fairfax has vehemently denied all allegations against him. His spokeswoman said Friday the lieutenant governor would have a comment about McClure's comments later in the day.

At Thursday's rally, McClure said after Tyson's allegation, despite her doubts, "I convinced myself that my feelings didn't matter. I had to protect my boss, my friend, his feelings and his name, at all costs. I believed him." She said she also "wrote off my past experience with sexual assault as a personal bias."

But the more she heard Tyson's account, "her story began to sound too familiar to me, and I became ill at the attempts to discredit her, to attack her, to threaten her."

Then another woman, Meredith Watson, came forward, alleging Fairfax raped her in 2000 while they were students at Duke University.

"Reading and hearing about her story quickly put things into perspective," McClure said. "These were credible allegations that needed to be treated with the utmost seriousness. And so I quickly began to revisit and assess the actions that were coming from our office."

McClure, along with Fairfax's scheduler Julia Billingsley, resigned not long after. Billingsley was in attendance at Thursday's rally. So were a handful of state senators and delegates.

On Friday, McClure said after resigning she was depressed and it took time for her to process her feelings. Though she was reluctant to share her story, she "just couldn't stand the narrative coming out of his office" portraying Fairfax as a victim at the hands of black women.

"It's extremely hard and difficult to speak out and condemn the actions of someone you called a friend while also telling your own story for the first time."

She pondered what would happen if her own abuser were to win public office and she spoke out.

"How would I be treated? Would people attempt to label me as crazy? … Would my abuser use the power of their office, sitting atop of a dais, to condemn me as a modern day lynch mob? Would he shroud his response in religious righteousness, making me as an evil being in league with the devil?"

On the last day of February's legislative session, Fairfax had delivered a speech comparing himself to the victims of "terror lynchings" in the Jim Crow-era South.

"I've heard much about anti-lynching on the floor of this very Senate, where people were not given any due process whatsoever, and we rue that," Fairfax said. "And yet we stand here in a rush to judgment with nothing but accusations and no facts, and we decide that we are willing to do the same thing."

McClure said she fully believes in the concept of due process as a means for protecting someone's individual liberties.

"But let's be clear. Holding public office is not a fundamental right," she said. "Elected office is not the property of the officeholder, it's the property of the people. … It is not some kingly power meant to be used for personal protection."

Black women have too often been ignored and discredited, she added.

People say, "support black women — but not this black woman and not these black women," she said. "Not here, not now. … Not when it's politically inconvenient."

Virginia House Republicans have said it's the legislature's responsibility to let the women be heard, demanding hearings on the allegations against Fairfax. House Democrats have yet to schedule such a hearing and have said criminal investigations in Massachusetts and North Carolina — where Tyson and Watson, respectively, say the assaults occurred — should be conducted first. Fairfax said earlier this month he's asked prosecutors in those states to investigate the claims.

McClure said she's not ready to discuss details from her final weeks in the lieutenant governor's office but added that she decided

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These women are being ignored by the Dems. Is that smart on the Dems part ? Sure the women will vote Dem, for another woman who is not an incumbent. There is always some “family” squabbles where this is happening. The entrenched Dems have a target on their back by AOC clones. Keep Fairfax at what political cost ?

Adele McClure, Fairfax's former policy director.

[Robert DeLong]

Adele McClure

Advocate for people experiencing homelessness | 2019 @Forbes 30 Under 30 | Former: Policy Director to LG Fairfax

[PGR88]

“brainwashed, betrayed and retraumatized”

Is that some modern remake of the 1940 hit from Richard Rogers?

[Albion Wilde]

Black women have too often been ignored and discredited, she added. People say, "support black women — but not this black woman and not these black women," she said. "Not here, not now. … Not when it's politically inconvenient."

These are beautiful, motivated American women. They should not be treated this way. It's shameful.