AbbyGate, Virginia, not Kabul

The AbbyGate Series #2: The receipts show Spanberger’s inner circle drafted, edited, and approved the smear—then hid behind the party letterhead while claiming she was “not usually” involved.

ABBYGATE #2: BY WALTER CURT

New depositions blow a hole in Abigail Spanberger’s “I didn’t know” defense. Her communications director, Connor Joseph, admits he and campaign manager Sam Signori edited the November 3, 2022 release; press secretary Justin Chermol says the campaign manager approved it before the Democratic Party of Virginia pushed it out; and DPV’s own motion to quash leans on Joseph’s hedge that Spanberger was “not usually” involved—except on “very important” statements. Five days before the election, accusing an Army veteran of attacking police qualifies.

This wasn’t the party freelancing; it was a Spanberger war-room product run through the DPV masthead. If she didn’t know, that’s incompetence. If she did, the denial is a dodge. Either way, Virginians deserve answers. And here’s what that workflow actually looks like. Spanberger and the Democratic Party of Virginia are still trying to wish this scandal away, but the paper trail won’t cooperate.

Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic Party of Virginia are still trying to wish this scandal away, but the paper trail won’t cooperate. In court, DPV’s lawyers argued Spanberger’s deposition isn’t “relevant” because she was “not usually” involved in approving statements—translation: trust us, the candidate had nothing to do with the messaging that went out at the climax of her own campaign. Nice try. The sworn record now shows a clean, linear chain: the communications director edited the release, the campaign manager approved it, and the release was laundered through the party to look “official.” Every rung of that ladder exists inside Spanberger’s shop. That’s not plausible deniability; that’s a workflow.

Start with their own filing. The DPV motion leans on a selective line from Communications Director Connor Joseph: Spanberger did not “usually” review press releases—unless it was “a very important statement,” in which case “you would want to try to get [her] approved on that.” That legal hedge is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Five days before an election, a release accusing an Army veteran of “attacking the U.S. Capitol” isn’t routine boilerplate; it’s the definition of a “very important statement.” The defense just told you the standard by which the candidate would be looped in.

Now the mechanics. Under oath, Joseph admits the editing lane ran through him and the campaign manager. Not staff assistants, not interns—the top of comms and the boss of the operation. That means the language, tone, and thrust of the release were shaped at the highest level of the campaign. When the message is sharpened by the comms chief and the manager, it is the campaign’s message, full stop. The idea that the candidate had no awareness while her two most senior operators were engineering the blast is political fiction.

Next, approval authority. Press Secretary Justin Chermol testifies that before anything went to the Democratic Party of Virginia, the campaign manager had to sign off. That matters because the trick here was branding: draft it in the Spanberger war room, then push it out under the party masthead to give it institutional weight and to shield the candidate if it backfires. The approval gate wasn’t at DPV; it was inside the Spanberger campaign. That’s not a rogue party aide freelancing. That’s command and control.

And who sat at that gate? “Sam Signori.” Name, rank, responsibility. Signori is the one Chermol and Joseph cite as the approver. Combine these receipts and the picture is simple enough for anyone outside the Beltway fog machine: Joseph and Signori edited and approved the release; the campaign green-lit the handoff to the party; and the party blasted it out days before voting. The candidate’s inner circle executed the operation. The idea that the principal “didn’t know” is the weakest alibi in politics—especially given Joseph’s own standard that the candidate would be pulled in on “very important” statements.

Let’s say the quiet part plainly: every word of that release was vetted by Spanberger’s inner circle. The chain of custody runs from draft to edit to approval to publication—without leaving the campaign’s hallways. If you believe the candidate was totally oblivious while her comms director and campaign manager were engineering the loudest attack of the race, you probably believe the Boston Tea Party was a supply-chain accident. The campaign can argue “not usually” until the cows come home; this wasn’t “usually.” It was the final-week kill shot at a military veteran, deliberately routed through the DPV label and blasted to the press.

Which brings us to accountability. DPV’s motion to quash basically pleads, “Nothing to see here—because we say so.” That’s not how the law works, not how campaigns work, and certainly not how trust works. Voters don’t hire a governor so she can hide behind a committee memo when her own lieutenants run a smear through the party printer. If this were an honest mistake, you wouldn’t see the frantic effort to keep Spanberger out of the chair for a simple deposition. If the facts favored her, they’d rush to put her under oath and close the book.

So here are the options. Either the campaign’s top two operators ran a major defamation hit in the red zone without their candidate’s knowledge—which would be an indictment of her leadership—or they ran it with her knowledge, which makes the sworn denials and the motion to hide her testimony look like exactly what they are: a political firewall, not a legal argument. Pick your poison. Both taste like contempt for the voters.

Virginians deserve better than lawyer tricks and semantic dodgeball. They deserve straight answers: who drafted the language, who inserted the links, who approved the final cut, and when the candidate was briefed. Produce the G Suite logs. Answer the written questions without word games. And if the Spanberger camp keeps stonewalling, we’ll keep publishing receipts. AbbyGate isn’t going anywhere—and neither are the images stamped with their own testimony.

Stay tuned. We’re just getting started.

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