Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s spokesperson mistakenly looped in on Thursday Fox News reporter Tyler O’Neil in what appeared to be an email meant for her own colleagues.
It appears that Christina Freundlich, the campaign’s spokeswoman, accidentally included the Fox reporter in an email to her associates, saying “Can we try to kill this,” Fox News reported. O’Neil was reportedly writing a story on McAuliffe’s campaign recently dishing out $53,680 for services from the Elias Law Group, which was founded by attorney Marc Elias.
EXCLUSIVE: Team @TerryMcAuliffe emails reveal effort to “kill this” @FoxNews story. The campaign did not take kindly to questions about @JonathanTurley‘s suggestion that hiring Marc Elias suggests McAuliffe might plan to challenge the election results.https://t.co/HVQyLT2ofQ
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 28, 2021
Shortly after O’Neil sent his email, he received a note from Freundlich calling to kill the story and to which she added, “To dispute the challenges of the election,” according to Fox News. The follow-up was seemingly meant as clarification for her colleagues.
Elias has a history of working with Democrats during closely contested elections and in the runup to the 2020 presidential election. As a former lawyer at the law firm Perkins Coie, Hillary Clinton hired him in 2016 to conduct research on Trump, which included Christopher Steele’s dossier, Fox reported. (EXCLUSIVE: Dossier Author Christopher Steele Had Previously Undisclosed Meetings With Lawyers For DNC, Clinton Campaign)
McAuliffe may be preparing to challenge any win by Republican Glenn Youngkin. He has given $53,680 to the Elias Law Group. McAuliffe does not appear disturbed by Elias’ highly controversial career or his possible exposure in the Durham investigation…https://t.co/Gb6YzAJmBo
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 28, 2021
After O’Neil’s story about her email was published, Freundlich responded in a tweet and said she thinks “it’s clear based on this story that we did in fact… kill the story.”
I think it’s clear based on this story that we did in fact…kill the story https://t.co/rRCEzAL0Kj
— Christina Freundlich (@christinafreund) October 29, 2021
McAuliffe has a history of claiming that elections were stolen. In 2018, McAuliffe affirmed a claim made by Stacy Abrams that “she would be governor of Georgia had the governor of Georgia not disenfranchised 1.4 million Georgia voters before the election,” according to Newsweek.
“They took the votes away,” McAuliffe reportedly said.
McAuliffe also claimed that the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen, however, he would go on to contradict his claims in an interview with a Virginia television station earlier in October of 2021, refusing to express whether he believed Bush had been “legitimately elected” back in 2000, according to Newsweek.
The McAuliffe campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.