Virginia’s embattled lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, warned his fellow lawmakers Sunday that impeaching him from office would perpetuate the state’s sordid history of racist lynching.
“I’ve heard much about anti-lynching on the floor of this very Senate, where people were not given any due process whatsoever, and we rue that,” Fairfax said in a surprise floor speech Sunday, referring to a recent bill expressing “profound regret” for historical lynchings in the state.
“And we talk about hundreds, at least 100 terror lynchings that have happened in the Commonwealth of Virginia under those very same auspices. And yet we stand here in a rush to judgment with nothing but accusations and no facts and we decide that we are willing to do the same thing,” Fairfax said of his own travails.
Fairfax made repeated reference to his Christian faith and said he’s confident he won’t be removed from office because “God is good and the truth is on my side.”
“I trust in my God,” he said later, “I trust in the fairness of each one of you I trust in your good hearts and this is much bigger than me I can assure you much bigger than me.”
“I am very hopeful and I believe very firmly that we will get to a better place and ride some better angels of our nature,” he continued. “And should anyone decide that they desire to see a downfall of me, or the Constitution, or of victims, or of anyone else, I would just ask that you look and reflect and think about who you are, think about who we are, and think about who we want to be and I promise you if we do that we will end up in the right place.”
Republicans in Virginia’s General Assembly said they would like to hold a public hearing with Fairfax and his two accusers. Fairfax has already refused to participate.