‘If expressing a desire to see your political opponent and his children murdered isn’t cause enough to lose one’s law license in D.C — what is?’
The nonprofit Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) has filed a second bar complaint against Virginia Democrats’ 2025 attorney general nominee Jay Jones over the texting scandal revealed earlier this month by National Review — this time, in Washington, D.C., where he briefly served as an assistant attorney general years before returning to private practice and then Virginia politics.
After filing a complaint with the Virginia State Bar last week, CASA now is requesting that the Office of Disciplinary Counsel on D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility “immediately investigate and revoke Jones’ law license to protect District residents and all Americans,” according to a copy of the October 14 complaint authored by CASA director James Fitzpatrick and first shared with National Review. “If expressing a desire to see your political opponent and his children murdered isn’t cause enough to lose one’s law license in D.C — what is?”
According to Jones’s LinkedIn page, the attorney general nominee and former house delegate worked in the Office of the Attorney General’s consumer protection bureau from March 2022 t0 January 2023, during which he served on the team that litigated the district’s successful lawsuit against gun-kit manufacturer Polymer80. The district’s bar membership directory shows that Jones was admitted to the D.C. bar on December 22, 2022, and that he is currently active and in good standing.
Fitzpatrick raises concern in CASA’s October 14 complaint that in his 2022 text thread — in which he fantasized about shooting former Virginia Republican Speaker Todd Gilbert and expressed violent rhetoric about his family — Jones violated the D.C. Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct.
The D.C. bar complaint adds another wrinkle to the race ahead of this week’s October 16 debate in Richmond, Va., where Jones and incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares are set to square off face-to-face for the first and only time before Election Day. Jones has not publicly questioned the veracity of the text messages or phone call conversation reported by NR and has since apologized.
The Jones campaign declined to comment for this story.
Correction: The debate will be held in Richmond, not Norfolk. We regret the error.