The attorney general candidate has repeatedly had his commitment to law and order called into question
Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones (D.) launched a canvassing event Sunday alongside Swing Left, an activist group that has pushed bail funds that have freed violent criminals and has called for “divesting resources away from policing.”
“Great to stand alongside @swingleft and @yasminradjy at a canvass launch in Newport News,” Jones posted to X. “With just three days until the election, Virginians are ready to get out the vote and flip the AG’s office blue!”
Swing Left boasts a million-member grassroots network that has poured more than $140 million into Democratic campaigns, organizations, and voting efforts and has contacted more than 50 million voters since 2017. But on June 5, 2020, shortly after Black Lives Matter rioters began wreaking havoc across the country in the days following George Floyd’s death, Swing Left paused its electoral work “to protect Black lives from police brutality and systemic racism.”
The organization launched a racial justice resource webpage, which remains live, that promotes the policy platform for the Movement for Black Lives, noting that it calls for reparations and “divesting resources away from policing.” Swing Left’s webpage also calls on users to “donate to a bail fund” to “help combat racial and economic disparities in the bail system and defend protesters’ freedom, regardless of their wealth.” It links to a website of Community Justice Exchange, a project of the George Soros-funded Tides Center, that lists bail funds by state.
The list includes the Northwest Community Bail Fund, which is led by a convicted murderer who bashed a man’s skull with a hammer. It’s also helped release people like Michael Sendejo, who was freed while facing fourth-degree assault and second-degree robbery charges. He used his freedom to stab a man 18 times and was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon. The group freed Kylan Houle twice in one month, with charges including unlawful firearm possession—then he broke into the home of Damon Allen, a father of six, and shot him several times before executing him.
Closer to home for Jones, the list of bail funds promoted by Swing Left also includes several Virginia groups, such as the Tidewater Solidarity Bail Fund, which describes itself as “an abolitionist community bail fund.” It also once linked to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a group that secured release for murderers, rapists, and other violent offenders—and received a donation from Jones’s wife Mavis in May 2020—but it’s since been removed.
Jones’s commitment to law and order has repeatedly been called into question in the final stretch of his race to become Virginia’s next top cop. Last month, texts surfaced showing him fantasizing about putting “two bullets to the head” of a GOP lawmaker and the death of that lawmaker’s children. He also mused about whether police officers would “stop shooting people” if “a few of them died.”
Jones was also convicted of reckless driving in 2022 after police found him driving 116 miles per hour on a highway and was ordered to pay a $1,500 fine and serve 1,000 community service hours. An investigation was launched last month after it was revealed he spent 500 of those hours volunteering for his own PAC—the rest were spent serving the Virginia chapter of the NAACP. Completing that many hours within the 2023 calendar year, as he attested, would be difficult given he was working at a law firm full-time and was traveling the state campaigning for fellow Democrats throughout the year.
Jones’s polling numbers have taken a nosedive as the scandals piled on. His considerable lead had evaporated with recent surveys showing he trails his Republican opponent, incumbent Jason Miyares, though two polls conducted last week show him once again taking the lead.
Heading Sunday’s canvass was Swing Left executive director Yasmin Radjy, a former Biden Treasury official tagged in Jones’s post. On her Instagram story, Radjy explained the urgency: “Who wins this race will determine whether or not VA is able to fight back in the courts against Trump’s most dangerous actions.”
The event drew dozens of out-of-state volunteers, including students from Columbia University College Democrats, who bused in from New York to knock doors for Jones and the full Democratic ticket. The students featured Jones prominently in social media posts.
Swing Left and the Jones campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
