John Gray is running for Chairman of the Prince William County Supervisors. For those unaware of the area, Prince William County is the first and largest majority-minority locality in our state. It is majority non-white, and nearly 1-in-4 people who live here are immigrants.
Such diversity is probably why Gray thought it prudent to pay $30 to get a “professional” social media scrub service to go through his accounts and clean anything out that might be deemed offensive. Unfortunately for him, nothing on the internet is ever truly gone, and now the Washington Post is reporting on it all, and he finds himself:
Explaining why, in 2016, he tweeted the falsehood that Islam sanctions domestic abuse; why he wrote “a funny tweet” that same year that said African Americans would stop “rioting” and take a knee if someone played the national anthem; and why, in 2017, he called former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson “a moron” for wishing Indians a happy Diwali.
This is the same man who celebrates controversial anti-immigrant policies in our county, such as one which allowed the police to stop anyone under suspicion of being in violation of immigration law, and a still-in-effect 287(g) agreement with ICE which allows our sheriffs to detain suspected undocumented immigrants in our county jail.
This is also the same man that… well, take a look at his campaign website (which he also tried to scrub):
The best part? Instead of apologizing and acknowledging the damage and division caused by his words, Gray doubled down and scapegoated in usual Trumpian fashion. The Washington Post also reports:
Gray owned up to some of the tweets, adding that a few of the more offensive ones — including crude comments about Hillary Clinton — were posted to his Twitter account by a campaign consultant whom he has since fired.
…and…
Gray was less apologetic about some of the other deleted tweets, including one in 2017 that said the “bong and dildo holders” who tried to impeach Trump would be met with “300 million weapons and an estimated 2 billion rounds of ammo” in the conservative uprising that would be sure to follow.
…and then there’s this gem…
He also defended a 2016 tweet about Muslim men and domestic abuse, posted in reply to a Washington Post article that included an account of domestic abuse suffered by the wife of Omar Mateen, the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay bar in Orlando in 2016.
“Well, what did you expect? Being Islamic you knew he had the right to beat you,” Gray posted. Gray said the comment was based on his understanding of Sharia law.
John Gray is unfit to hold any elected office, let alone the most powerful position in a county of nearly half-million people. So please make sure everyone you know who lives in Prince William County knows there’s an election this year, and that the only choice for Chairperson is Democrat Ann Wheeler.
You can donate to Ann’s campaign here.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
