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Former President Barack Obama is under fire for “tone deaf” and “clueless” comment about Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin.
Obama condemned Youngkin for focusing on hot-button education issues during the campaign, dismissing those issues as unserious and “fake outrage.”
In Loudoun County, Virginia, there are serious allegations against school superintendent Scott Ziegler and the school board for allegedly covering up a report that a male student allegedly assaulted a female student in a girls’ bathroom.
The allegation comes amid controversial transgender school bathroom accommodations in the county.
The 15-year-old boy was later found guilty of the sexual assault in the girls’ bathroom. The charges included one felony count of forcible sodomy and one felony count of forcible fellatio.
Chief Judge Pamela Brooks ruled, “I found the facts sufficient to support the charges.” The boy, who was 14 years old at the time, texted the victim to ask her to meet him in the girls’ bathroom.
He threw her to the floor and forced himself upon her, according to The Washington Post. “He flipped me over,” the victim told the court, according to the Post. “I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me,” she continued.
While campaigning for Democrat Terry McAuliffe, Obama said, “We don’t have time to be wasting on these phony trumped-up culture wars, this fake outrage that right-wing media peddles to juice their ratings.”
Obama accused Youngkin of avoiding “serious problems that affect serious people” and suggested that outrage over the actions of school boards is unjustified.
Parents did not take kindly to Obama’s remarks. More via Fox News:
Parents did not take kindly to Obama’s remarks.
“That is the most tone-deaf statement I have ever heard,” Brandon Michon, a frustrated father of three in Loudoun County, Virginia, told Fox News on Sunday.
“First and foremost, everything that has come up with the cover-up in Loudoun County has to do with a sexual assault on girls. To say that this is trumped-up as a political thing is laughable.”
Michon referenced allegations that Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler and the school board covered up the report that a male student in a skirt allegedly assaulted a female student in a girls’ bathroom – while the board was considering a controversial transgender rule…
A bombshell email last week revealed that Ziegler had notified the board about the assault about a month before he publicly declared that he had no record of bathroom assaults. Prosecutors confirmed that the same young man who stands accused in that May incident also stands accused of sexual assault in an October incident in another school.
Parents have demanded the resignations of Ziegler and the board, and Youngkin has joined them in those demands.
Wayne Byard, a spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools, told Fox News that the school district “reported the alleged sexual assault on May 28 at Stone Bridge High School to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office immediately.” Byard noted that the superintendent notified the school board of the alleged assault on May 28, but because “the nature of the incident was still under investigation,” the report “could not be released to the general public” at the time. The Oct. 6 incident “was reported to the Sheriff’s Office immediately,” as well.
“In the current politically charged atmosphere, a lot of claims and demands have been made. The focus of the superintendent and School Board remains the education of Loudoun County’s 81,000 students,” Byard added.