In an ominous development for Justin Fairfax, the embattled lieutenant governor of Virginia, his two accusers are poised to testify against him publicly before the Virginia House Courts of Justice Committee.
Republicans have invited the two women, Meredith Watson and Vanessa Tyson. Republican Del. Rob Bell said he wanted them to appear before the panel — along with Fairfax — to give them a “chance to be heard.” Fairfax has already been denounced by many Democrats and placed on leave by his law firm.
Watson’s lawyer said that she would appear and indicated that Tyson will also testify. This sets up a dramatic public confrontation reminiscent of the explosive Supreme Court justice nomination hearings in which Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, outlined her claim that he had sexually assaulted her decades earlier.
Fairfax, 39, who is black, was a rising Democratic star. He has clung onto his post along with Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring after they both admitted to wearing blackface years before they sought political office.
“Meredith Watson is gratified that the Virginia General Assembly has announced their intention to hold hearings, and she looks forward to testifying at this forum,” Watson’s attorney Nancy Erika Smith said in a statement Friday. “It is our understanding that the hearing will be public and televised and that Ms. Watson, Dr. Tyson and Lt. Governor Fairfax will all testify under oath and be subject to the same rules and requirement, including our right to present witnesses and corroborators.”
Watson claims Fairfax raped her in 2000 when the two were students at Duke University.
She came forward after Tyson, a political science professor at Scripps College and visiting fellow at Stanford University, alleged Fairfax sexually assaulted her in 2004 at a Democratic convention in Boston. Although Tyson said the encounter was consensual at the start, she said Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him against her will.
Watson had urged the Virginia General Assembly to hold a public hearing on the matter, voicing her frustration with calls for an investigation rather than a hearing.
“Such ‘investigations’ are secret proceedings, out of the public eye, leaving victims vulnerable to selective leaks and smears. And we all know how such investigations end: with ‘inconclusive results,'” Watson wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post.
“My privacy has already been violated, yet I am still willing to testify publicly under oath,” she said. “Tyson has made the same offer. Our plea to the Virginia General Assembly to require the same of Fairfax has been met with inaction.”
