❓WHAT HAPPENED: Disturbing text messages sent by the Democratic Party’s nominee for Virginia Attorney General, Jay Jones, have surfaced, raising grave questions about his temperament and judgment.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Jay Jones, Virginia Delegate Carrie Coyne, Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The politically violent messages were sent on August 8, 2022, and resurfaced on Friday, October 3, 2025.
💬KEY QUOTE: “I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.” — Jay Jones
🎯IMPACT: The messages reveal a brutal and violent side to Jones, likely turning off voters in a close race for Attorney General.
Disturbing text messages sent by the Democratic Party’s nominee for Virginia Attorney General, Jay Jones, have surfaced, raising grave questions about his temperament and judgment. The messages, sent on August 8, 2022, by Jones to Republican House Delegate Carrie Coyne, reveal a more violent and cruelly flipant side to Jones, who is challenging incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares (R).
Jones offers an unsolicited rant in the messages, trashing the centrist political legacy of long-time state lawmaker Joe Johnson Jr., who had recently passed away. Additionally, he rages about the “glowing” praise heaped on Johnson by Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, openly wondering what “that POS would say about me if I died.”
As the text messages continued, Jones’s language became more violent. In one, he wrote, “If those guys die before me, I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves” to “send them out awash in something.” In other messages, Jones challenges Coyne to a game of hypothetical murder, asking which two of three people she would opt to kill, and offering his own choice without solicitation.
“Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot. 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,” he wrote, prompting Coyne to reply: “Jay. Please stop.”
“It really bothers me when you talk about hurting people or wishing death on them. It isn’t ok. No matter who they are,” Coyne added, seemingly suggesting this wasn’t the first time Jones violently fantasized about physically harming others. However, Jones defended his violent thoughts, writing to Coyne: “I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
Speaking with the media this week, Coyne said she sent the violent texts to Speaker Gilert at the time. “On August 8, 2022, I had a text conversation with Jay Jones, what he said was not just disturbing but disqualifying for anyone who wants to seek public office,” Coyne said in a statement, adding: “Jay Jones wished violence on the children of a colleague and joked about shooting Todd Gilbert. It’s disgusting and unbecoming of any public official.”
Responding to the revelations, which could damage his thus far competitive bid for Virginia Attorney General, Jones said in a statement, “Like all people, I’ve sent text messages that I regret and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics.”
He then tried to blame the leaked messages on his opponent and President Donald J. Trump.
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