Elections have consequences. Sometimes it takes a while to see the results new elected officials can accomplish as they ease their way into office. In the case of the Republican takeover of Virginia, there has been no breaking in period.
Governor Glenn Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, and Attorney General Jason Miyares have hit the ground running with bold actions to fulfill campaign promises and reverse the actions of their Democratic predecessors. The latest is Miyares, who has fired a lawyer for the University of Virginia who took a leave of absence from his role at the school to lead the congressional investigation into the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Virginia Democrats, naturally, objected to the move.
Reports the New York Times:
The top staff investigator on the House committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has been fired by the state’s new Republican attorney general from his position as the top lawyer for the University of Virginia, from which he was on leave while working on the congressional inquiry.The office of the Virginia attorney general, Jason S. Miyares, said the firing of the investigator, Timothy J. Heaphy, was not related to the Jan. 6 investigation, but the move prompted an outcry from Democrats in the state, who accused him of taking the highly unusual action as a partisan move to further former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to undermine the committee’s work.
In a series of statements, Victoria LaCivitas, the spokesperson for Miyares, explained the rationale behind firing Heaphy from his job at UVA. Again from the NYT:
In two statements released on Sunday, the attorney general’s office said the firing was unrelated to the Jan. 6 inquiry. In the first, to The Associated Press, Ms. LaCivita said that Mr. Heaphy had been a “controversial” hire and that the “decision was made after reviewing the legal decisions made over the last couple of years.”
“The attorney general wants the university counsel to return to giving legal advice based on law, and not the philosophy of a university,” she added.In a subsequent statement, Ms. LaCivita said: “It is common practice for an incoming administration to appoint new staff that share the philosophical and legal approach of the attorney general. Every counsel serves at the pleasure of the attorney general.”One top Virginia Republican said that Mr. Heaphy had angered some Republicans in the state by acting too independently in his job at the university and for his role in the university’s decision in 2020 to allow a student to post a highly critical sign about the school on their door. Mr. Heaphy had privately made the case to the school’s president that while the profanity on the sign was offensive, removing it would have infringed upon the student’s First Amendment rights.
The article casually noted that Heaphy donated to the Clinton and Biden campaigns, and served as a United States attorney. appointed by President Obama. Also, Heaphy “is married to the daughter of Eric K. Shinseki, the retired chief of staff of the Army who served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of veterans affairs.”
In other words, Heaphy is a partisan appointee who was relieved of his state duties when the opposing party took over.
Democrats routinely conduct such firings when they take office, replacing appointees throughout the bureaucracy with folks who more closely align with the perspective of the newly elected official. When Republicans do so, however, it’s “highly unusual,” “payback,” and a “partisan move.” Clearly, Youngkin, Sears, Miyares, and the rest of the newly elected Republicans have a vision for cleaning up Virginia’s bureaucracy and reversing a decade-plus slide into radical leftism, over the howls of the Democrats.
Jeff Reynolds is the author of the book, “Behind the Curtain: Inside the Network of Progressive Billionaires and Their Campaign to Undermine Democracy,” available at www.WhoOwnsTheDems.com. Jeff hosts a podcast at anchor.fm/BehindTheCurtain. You can follow him on Twitter @ChargerJeff, on Parler at @RealJeffReynolds, and on Gab at @RealJeffReynolds.
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