Texas Republican Rep. Van Taylor may still be running for reelection today if not for a 25-year-old aspiring investigative journalist who interviewed the former “ISIS bride” who dished on his affair and alleged he paid hush money to cover it up.
But before news of the affair broke, prompting him to end his reelection bid rather than slog through another 12 weeks of campaigning in a primary runoff, the second-term Plano-area congressman was already in deep political trouble in his Republican-leaning district thanks to a product inventor determined to get him out of office — starting with forcing him into a primary runoff in the first place.
Thousands of signs reading “Van Taylor betrayed us” appeared in the district. Door-knockers had gone to 40,000 Republican primary voters’ homes arguing against him. Anti-Taylor pamphlets were handed out to those attending his town halls. In a campaign called “RINO RECKONING,” run by the Defeating Communism PAC, around half a million dollars were poured into opposing Taylor.
TEXAS CONGRESSMAN APOLOGIZES FOR AFFAIR WITH ‘FIRST LADY OF ISIS’ AND ENDS CAMPAIGN
Materials from the operation pointed to Taylor’s FreedomWorks scorecard, dinged him for not doing more to defund vaccine mandates, and slammed him for voting in favor of creating the bipartisan Jan. 6 commission (which later failed in the Senate, prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to create the Jan. 6 House select committee).
But the motivation and source behind the campaign and its donors were much wonkier. Inventor Josh Malone, a major funder of the operation who is originally from Taylor’s Plano-area district, went after the second-term congressman after he refused to back a bill to endorse patent reform legislation.
Malone invented and obtained a patent for Bunch O Balloons, a product that easily fills and seals water balloons and saw viral success. But a copycat soon infringed on his patent, and then, the patent office took the copycat’s side. After a lengthy legal battle, Malone won the lawsuit and now advocates a bill to reform the system called the Restoring America’s Leadership in Innovation Act, led by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie — and runs down those who refuse to join or work against it.
The inventor spent years trying to get Taylor to sign on to the legislation before he said he would not sponsor the bill but that maybe he would vote for it.
“He suggested I was overstating the situation, that it wasn’t corrupt. He realized that specialized courts are a good thing, which, to that, I took that as to say he doesn’t believe in the Seventh Amendment to trial by jury,” Malone told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “He thinks he’s entitled to a third term and probably 10 or 20 terms. He won’t do his job, and so, that’s when I said, ‘OK, then, if you won’t do it, then I’ll have to go elect someone who will.’”
The operation proved to be effective, despite Taylor spending another half-million dollars on his campaign from the start of the year until Feb. 9.
Paul Morinville, another patent reform advocate working with Malone on the RINO Reckoning campaign, said that their internal polling showed Van Taylor around 48% support — enough to force him into a primary runoff against one of his primary challengers, which included former Collin County judge Keith Self and businesswoman Suzanne Harp. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, spent more than $155,000 in the final weeks of the race to try to rescue Taylor.
Then the “ISIS bride” story hit.
Tania Joya, whose first husband converted to Islam and moved himself and Joya to Syria to fight for the Islamic State, dished on an affair she had with Taylor and accused him of offering hush money, including paying her mortgage, to keep quiet about it. The two met through an anti-extremism program she was working on in the district.
The Sunday before Texas’s Tuesday congressional primary, fringe conservative website National File posted audio of an interview with Joya and a screenshot of a salacious text from Taylor to Joya. Breitbart followed up with a story on Monday in which Joya alleged that Taylor sent her $5,000 to help pay her credit card bill in exchange for deleting text messages that would have revealed the affair.
Joya wanted the story to come out. She messaged Harp, one of Taylor’s primary opponents, about the affair.
But the story might not have gotten out before primary Election Day were it not for Taylor McCray, a 25-year-old aspiring investigative journalist from Liberty, Texas, who interviewed Joya about the affair. Her voice is heard in the interview that National File published. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, she said she quit her job in 2020 in order to pursue a career in politics and journalism.
“Exposing corruption is necessary to drain the swamp,” McCray said. “I applaud [Joya’s] bravery and respect the hell out of her. I am praying for Van Taylor and his family.”
McCray, who is a supporter of Harp’s but did not work for her, had started getting information about Joya from multiple sources. Stressing that Harp did not direct her to do so as some outlets have reported, she tracked down Joya on her own and interviewed her on the Friday before the primary. Harp, whom McCray said just wanted to focus on her own campaign, did not respond to a request for comment.
McCray sent the audio and other information to multiple local and national outlets. An outside political operative whom she shared the information with, she suspects, sent it to National File — a move that frustrated McCray, who said she wanted a more reputable outlet to break the news. After the Breitbart story broke, she got connected with more journalists, including this reporter.
The news sent a shock through Texas and Capitol Hill. The salacious details tore apart the “family man” image that he campaigned on. Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney at Texas Values Action, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that his group “removed Congressman Taylor from our endorsement list after we confirmed the news of his extramarital affair.”
Staff members in Taylor’s Washington office started searching for other jobs, with multiple individuals sending resumes to other Republican offices as early as Tuesday afternoon.
Malone, the inventor, didn’t believe the story at first. Neither did Morinville of the RINO Reckoning campaign, who told his team not to send the National File story around, but then sent the Breitbart article at 10 p.m. the night before primary Election Day.
Malone and Morinville maintain that it was their work, not the 11th-hour affair story, that helped put Taylor just under the 50% mark, forcing him to a runoff against Self. There wasn’t enough time for it to get through to voters. About 60% of the vote was cast early, they said.
But news of the affair certainly helped.
“It’s almost like God’s mercy to expose this now. Otherwise, it could have just festered for decades … and then he would have been compromised, you know?” Malone said.
It’s unknown whether Taylor would have stayed in the race, despite news of the affair, if he had gotten over the 50% mark and avoided a runoff. The Republican nominee is almost certain to win the heavily right-leaning district. But it is definitely what forced him to drop his reelection bid.
“I had an affair, it was wrong, and it was the greatest failure of my life,” Taylor wrote in an email to supporters Wednesday, the Dallas Morning News reported. “I want to apologize for the pain I have caused with my indiscretion, most of all to my wife Anne and our three daughters. For months, Anne and I have been working to repair the scars left by my actions. I am unworthy, but eternally thankful for her love and forgiveness.”
For both the patent reform operators and the aspiring corruption-exposer, Taylor’s downfall is a warning to other politicians.
“If I come across corruption or swampy politics, I am going to expose it because I don’t have an allegiance to anyone except God,” McCray said.
One of the next targets of an operation may be California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, Morinville said, whom he has previously targeted over his position on patent reform.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I hate politics. The very, very, very, very last thing in the world I would have ever chosen to do was go to Washington and get involved in public policy and then to get involved in campaigns,” Malone said. “But I don’t know what else we can do except expose these people and participate in sending people to Washington that have integrity and character and a commitment to get intellectual property and civil justice policy right.”
Taylor’s campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment, and his office declined to comment. Joya declined an interview.
