The Republican Party of Virginia sent explicit mailers detailing that Democratic state House candidate Susanna Gibson performed sex acts online with her husband for tips.
Gibson has been at the center of the scandal since the Washington Post first reported on Gibson’s past in September. Explicit screenshots from the site were later shared by the conservative publication Washington Free Beacon “for readers interested in the X-rated version.”
Gibson repeatedly criticized the circulation of the images, saying in a statement: “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”
Her lawyer, Daniel Watkins, has also argued that sharing images without consent “plainly violates Virginia’s revenge porn statute” and that they “are working closely with law enforcement to bring accountability to the wrongdoers.”
But now, explicit mailers have been directly sent to thousands of voters in the state’s 57th district, located outside of Richmond.
According to a report by WWBT, the Richmond-based NBC affiliate, envelopes for the mailers were sent by the Republican Party of Virginia and warn “explicit material enclosed,” and “Do not open if you are under the age of 18.”
The mailer itself featured “two pieces of paper with censored quotes and screenshots from Gibson’s public porn livestream,” per WWBT.
An image of the mailer shared by a user on Reddit featured quotes from the initial Washington Post report, as well as a Daily Wire story about the scandal. A screenshot from the site was included—though it cut off below her shoulders—and was placed next to a family photo (with the children’s images censored) captioned: “Susanna and David Gibson have two children.”
“The pictures themselves aren’t really explicit,” the Reddit poster wrote. “They’re just closeups of her face smiling normally in what looks like a bedroom and you can kinda see her shoulders. I think it’s more the message excerpts that are explicit, but the bad words are censored.”
Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Rich Anderson defended the decision to send the mailers in a statement to WWBT, saying that “Gibson’s campaign has falsely alleged that the videos of her publicly engaging in sexual activity on publicly accessible pornography websites were ‘leaked’ by Republicans.”
“In reality, the opposite is true. After revelation of her very public acts, polling now shows her to be 11 points behind her Republican opponent,” Anderson’s statement continued. “Additionally, her running mates, Schuyler VanValkenburg and Rodney Willett, have not condemned her actions. The mail piece corrects her false statements using already-published mainstream media news accounts and Gibson’s own public words as documented via her videos.”
In response to the mailers, Gibson’s campaign said in a statement that her opponent and the Virginia GOP “are trying to distract voters from their extreme agenda to ban abortion, defund schools, and allow violent criminals to access weapons of war,” later adding that “nothing will ever deter her commitment to our community.”
