As Virginia voters cast their votes for the state’s next attorney general, they face a clear choice between principled leadership and blatant disregard for a legal system they’ll be tasked with enforcing.
Earlier this month, a text message conversation from 2022 was revealed between Jay Jones—then a recently resigned Virginia state delegate and now Democrat nominee for Virginia Attorney General—and Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner. What should have been a moment for reflection, following the death of a colleague, instead became an opportunity for Jones to fantasize about political violence. “Three people, two bullets,” he texted Coyner. “Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot,” referring to then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican. Then:
Gilbert gets two bullets to the head
Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time
It doesn’t get less shocking the more times you read it.
And Jones didn’t stop there. In a subsequent phone call between Jones and Coyner, in his meager attempt to explain himself, he doubled down, expressing that inflicting personal pain was the only way to get policy makers to make real policy changes. At one point he went as far as to wish that Gilbert’s children would die in their mother’s arms.
Let that sink in.
Jay Jones, the person that Democrats believe is best suited to be Virginia’s next attorney general, fantasized about murdering a political foe and wished death upon his young children. Because of these text messages, Jones could not pass a background check to work in the office of the attorney general or other state prosecutors.
Even Democrats condemned Jones. His own running mate, gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, expressed her “disgust” with the texts. Current Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat, called the messages “harmful, reckless, and wrong.” Yet despite the widespread condemnation, Spanberger and Democratic leaders couldn’t muster the courage to call for Jones to withdraw from the race. Political expediency, it seems, trumps ethics.
2022, it turns out, was quite the year for Jay Jones. Soon after the violent text messages went public, questions emerged about how Jones completed his court-ordered community service following a January 2022 reckless driving conviction. Jones was clocked driving 116 miles per hour in a 70-mph zone in New Kent County—a jaw-dropping 46 miles over the speed limit. For context, other defendants in New Kent County caught driving at slower speeds than Jones received jail sentences and license suspensions. But aspiring Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones? He got a sweetheart deal: a $1,500 fine and 1,000 hours of community service.
More troubling than Jones’ slap on the wrist is his understanding of community service. Community service is supposed to be about giving back to the community—picking up trash along highways, serving meals at shelters, genuinely selfless work that benefits others, often at a cost to those performing the service. Yet court records show Jones claimed to have completed 500 “community service” hours in 2023 with his own political action committee, Meet Our Moment—a PAC dedicated to training Democrats to run for office. Social media posts show him crisscrossing Virginia throughout 2023 campaigning for Democratic candidates. Was this political activity counted as “community service?” It certainly appears so.
The other 500 hours were purportedly served with the Virginia NAACP. Here it gets even more interesting. In 2023, Jones was working as a senior associate at Hogan Lovells, where he was involved in a high-profile lawsuit against Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration over voting rights. The client? The Virginia NAACP. Jones’ salary that year would have been approximately $435,000, with a potential bonus of $115,000.
In short, Jones claims he performed 500 hours of “community service” for an organization that he was simultaneously representing as a highly compensated attorney at one of the nation’s most prestigious law firms. Even giving Jones maximum benefit of the doubt on his bonus structure, he was being paid handsomely—a base salary of $435,000—while ostensibly performing court-ordered community service suing Republicans on voting rights claims.
The math alone should raise eyebrows. To complete 1,000 hours of community service in a single calendar year while working full-time at a major law firm and campaigning across Virginia requires dedicating roughly 20 hours every single week to this “service.” When exactly did Jones sleep?
The questions became serious enough that New Kent County Commonwealth’s Attorney Scott Renick opened a criminal investigation into Jones’ community service claims. A special prosecutor is currently investigating whether Jones misled the court.
Think about the audacity here. Jones was given an extraordinarily lenient sentence for reckless driving, an overtly unlawful act, that endangered lives. Rather than humbly accepting that gift and genuinely serving his community, he appears to have used court-ordered community service as an opportunity to advance his political career and pad his legal resume—all while drawing a six-figure salary. If these allegations are true, Jones didn’t just fail to learn from his mistakes; he exploited the justice system for personal and political gain.
And he expects Virginians to trust him to uphold their state’s laws.
By stark contrast, the man who currently occupies the office, Jason Miyares, has been an exemplary attorney general. As Virginia’s first Latino elected to statewide office, he has made history while making Virginia safer. Under his leadership, murder rates have dropped by 30%. Through Operation Ceasefire (officially Ceasefire Virginia), he has taken repeat violent offenders off the streets, achieving a nearly 100% conviction rate and over 470 years of combined federal prison time for gun-wielding criminals. His “One Pill Can Kill” campaign has helped drive down fentanyl deaths at a time when the opioid crisis continues to devastate communities across America. He has secured over $1 billion in settlements from pharmaceutical companies that fueled the opioid epidemic, holding them accountable for their role in this national tragedy. And he has stood firm on parental rights and common-sense policies in our schools, pushing back against the Left’s radical agenda. These are the achievements of a serious prosecutor who understands that the attorney general’s first duty is protecting the people of Virginia.
Miyares asserted in his call for Jones to withdraw from the race, “The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement office of Virginia. Virginians deserve an Attorney General whose integrity is beyond question.” This is undoubtedly correct. And as top Virginia Democrats who likely know better fail to call on Jones to withdraw, they are leaving voters to draw the starkest contrasts in the attorney general race.
So on one side, there is Jason Miyares—someone with prosecutorial experience who has dedicated his career to public safety, who has delivered measurable results in fighting crime and the opioid epidemic. On the other side, there is Jay Jones—a man whose violent rhetoric, reckless behavior, and apparent efforts to game the justice system demonstrate a fundamental unfitness for public office.
It would be the political understatement of the year to say that Miyares is the better choice. The attorney general’s record would make his re-election an easy recommendation in any event. But in this election, his opponent is not remotely fit to hold Virginia’s top law enforcement position.