Category: Virginia
The $40 Million Mulligan
Virginia Tech made headlines by hiring James Franklin as its next football coach because nothing screams “fresh start” like picking…
Democrat ex-lawmaker who heckled Trump convicted in COVID fraud scheme
A leftist former lawmaker was sentenced last month after being convicted of fraudulently obtaining a COVID-19 relief loan.
Ibraheem Samirah, a former Democratic Virginia state delegate, made headlines in 2019 for interrupting President Donald Trump’s Jamestown speech, holding up a sign that read, “Deport hate” and “reunite my family.”
‘The defendant was stealing federal tax dollars at the same time he was deciding how to spend Virginia tax dollars.’
Samirah, 34, was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $88,000 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, according to a Tuesday report from the Washington Post.
Prosecutors argued that the former lawmaker received an $83,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan in May 2020 for his dental practice in Fairfax County. He applied in August 2021 to have the loan forgiven, which would require the PPP funds to have been used for payroll, rent, or mortgage payments.
Samirah claimed that the loan would be used to pay four workers at his practice. However, court documents revealed that his business had no payroll employees. Additionally, it had no active financial account to disburse payroll funds until a few days before applying for the loan.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Samirah allegedly fabricated payroll and tax records to secure the loan. The funds were distributed through bank accounts belonging to the supposed employees and then transferred into Samirah’s own account, according to prosecutors.
“The defendant was stealing federal tax dollars at the same time he was deciding how to spend Virginia tax dollars,” prosecutors wrote.
Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Samirah told the Post that he had a “mistaken understanding of the PPP loan process,” which he claimed was “weaponized by Donald Trump’s Justice Department.”
He told the news outlet that he intended to use the cash to hire workers to market his business; however, on the loan application, he claimed that the funds would go to existing employees. He explained that he changed his mind about hiring new workers after realizing the pandemic would be prolonged. Instead, he spent the money on dental equipment and office furnishings, which were not authorized uses of the funds.
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Preserving the Roadless Rule Means Preserving Virginia
My hometown of Flint Hill, Virginia, has been blessed with forests that make it ideal for a rustic lifestyle, which…
Halloween Came a Few Days Late for Republicans
Democrats hit the trifecta. It’s worse than that. Atop winning the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia and Gracie Mansion…
Progressive wins VA race despite admitted indifference to ‘sexually explicit material’ in schools
Democrat Virginia state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi was elected to serve as Virginia’s lieutenant governor Tuesday night, defeating Republican strategist and radio host John Reid.
Hashmi won the election with 53.4% of the vote, while Reid garnered 46.3%, according to the Associated Press. Of the three major Virginia elections, this is the second race called in favor of the Democrats.
Polls had Reid and Hashmi polling neck and neck.
Although the race was projected to be neck and neck into election night, Hashmi pulled ahead by over 145,000 votes.
RELATED: Democrat holds a healthy lead for Virginia governor, but one scandal could throw downballot races
Photo by Max Posner for the Washington Post/Getty Images
Throughout the election cycle, Virginia Democrats were plagued with scandals related to violent and extreme rhetoric. Attorney General candidate Jay Jones infamously fantasized about murdering his political opponents, and Hashmi was on the record tolerating explicit content in children’s classrooms.
“One of my concerns is violence. We seem to focus on sexually explicit material,” Hashmi said in a video obtained by Blaze News. “I don’t really care about that.”
“We teach the books that other people try to ban,” Hashmi said.
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Despite this, polls had Reid and Hashmi polling neck and neck.
Reid spent his time on the campaign trail focusing on the economy, lowering taxes, and slashing regulations, as well as defending law enforcement. Reid repeatedly called out Hashmi’s progressive track record.
Hashmi made abortion access a core value for her campaign despite Virginia’s lenient laws that allow abortion up to the third trimester. Hashmi also campaigned on tightening gun restrictions, as well as pitching herself as the anti-Trump candidate.
Although these social issues are not a priority for most of the state’s voters, Virginians ultimately cast their ballots in Hashmi’s favor.
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Jay Jones Claimed $500,000 Fundraising Haul Showed Grassroots ‘Momentum and Enthusiasm.’ It Actually Came From a Single Dem PAC.
Jay Jones boasted that the $500,000 he raked in just 24 hours after his Oct. 16 debate was “a clear sign of momentum and enthusiasm”—but that funding can be attributed entirely to a single political action committee centered on electing Democratic attorney general candidates like himself.
The post Jay Jones Claimed $500,000 Fundraising Haul Showed Grassroots ‘Momentum and Enthusiasm.’ It Actually Came From a Single Dem PAC. appeared first on .
Horror-costumed trio banged on home’s front door late at night and ‘threatened to kill us,’ woman says. Then cops intervened.
A trio dressed in Halloween horror costumes were caught on doorbell video banging on the front door of a Northern Virginia home late at night and threatening those inside earlier this month.
“It’s either you coming out or we coming in!” one voice can be heard on the video, WUSA-TV reported, adding that another shouted, “Open the door!”
‘My heart dropped when they said that they were gonna take a chair and break down the door.’
A woman named Shayla — who told the station she was staying with her mother in her Alexandria home — added that “they kept, like, knocking on the door. The knocks would get harder and harder.”
Shayla told WUSA she called 911 and warned the group that police were on the way, but she said that didn’t deter them, and they continued shouting and trying to force their way in.
Worse still, Shayla told the station the trio “threatened to kill us.”
Plus, she added to WUSA that when they couldn’t get in through the front door, they moved to the back of the house.
“This whole thing they broke down, as you can tell,” Shayla explained to the station in the aftermath as she showed damage to the backyard fence.
“They hopped up on here and went through there,” she added to WUSA as she showed a now-damaged screen-in back porch.
Shayla also told the station that the intruders still ramped things up: “They were just hitting the window. My heart dropped when they said that they were gonna take a chair and break down the door. That is just too much.”
She added to WUSA that “they tried to enter into the home.” Shayla explained to the station that other factors made the ordeal worse, especially for her mother: “My dad recently just died, so it’s just, like, I’m just glad I was there. But now [my mother’s] in fear. She don’t wanna stay there by herself.”
Fortunately, the ordeal ended after 10 minutes, as she remarked what could have happened — to the intruders.
“It could have been bad,” Shayla told WUSA. “Our Second Amendment right was not used and could have been, like being very transparent.”
She added a message to the perps, the station said: “The time frame alone, 10 o’clock at night to knock on someone’s door in costume is never OK. Halloween, not Halloween, it’s never OK.”
By Oct. 17, police said they were investigating the case as an attempted burglary.
“This is a very serious matter,” Alexandria Police Chief Tarrick McGuire said in a news conference, WUSA noted in a follow-up story. “They began to make threatening and alarming comments to the family … specifically, they said, ‘If you do not come out, we will come in,’ and also threatened to do bodily harm, stating that they would ultimately kill them.”
Well, police eventually got to the bottom of it — and considering what could have happened, the revelations were disturbing to say the least.
It turns out relatives of the victims in the home were responsible and had been recording video of what they called a prank, WRC-TV reported.
McGuire in a Monday update told WRC that the prank “could have been deadly,” especially considering that one of the victims called her brother for help prior to calling police — and he arrived with a gun.
What’s more, McGuire added to the station that several officers dedicated over 100 hours to the investigation.
Several tips from the community led to the suspects — and a female relative confessed, saying that she, her two teenage sons, and a teen nephew approached the home as two adults and a child stood in the background recording video, McGuire noted to WRC.
In the end, the victims didn’t press charges, and neither will police, the chief added to the station — with the following caveat: “This will hopefully be a learning experience for this family.”
McGuire added to WRC that the adults were guilty of a “moral failure” since they “were engaging in this behavior but also encouraging this behavior.”
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Masked Trio Escapes Charges After Allegedly Terrorizing Family Members’ Home
‘it represents a moral failure’
