November 3, 2022 News & Press Releases

Yesli Vega Celebrated Independence Day with January 6 Insurrectionist


by Democratic Party of Virginia

Vega Pledged to Seek Compensation, Release for January 6 Rioters

Richmond, VA  Donald Trump-endorsed Yesli Vega celebrated her July 4th with a notable insurrectionist who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

Thomas Speciale, a failed U.S. Senate candidate from Virginia and current Chairman for the Veterans for America First (formerly Vets for Trump), attacked the U.S. Capitol on the deadly day. Speciale even spoke with Russian TV on that day, screaming to the TV station as another insurrectionist slammed a pipe into a window of our nation’s Capitol, “It doesn’t belong to them - it belongs to us!” 

Vega and Speciale have a history of working together. In April 2022, Vega proudly accepted and touted her candidacy’s endorsement from Veterans for America First – the group Speciale chairs, writing in a Facebook post: “As an appointee of President Trump and a military spouse I saw first hand how President Trump transformed and brought accountability to the VA and employed an America First foreign policy that kept our brave men and women out of endless conflicts.” 

Since the endorsement, Speciale has been uniquely involved in the Vega campaign. He and his organization  – Veterans for America First – joined a Vega campaign event on September 21, 2022. Just days prior to that campaign event, Speciale wrote on Twitter that his text messages and Signals were subpoenaed by the January 6 committee – and he himself was interviewed: 

These new details of Vega’s ties to the insurrectionists who bloodied and beat law enforcement officers on that deadly day come after recent reporting that Vega pledged — if elected to Congress — to release and seek compensation for the insurrectionists. 

Vega has also previously stood in solidarity with the criminals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 — an attack instigated by former President Trump – and, like Trump, peddled the lie that the 2020 election was interfered with

Vega refused to answer whether Joe Biden was legitimately elected President in an interview with the Washington Post: 

[Vega] would not give a yes or no answer when pressed, taking issue with the question as something she said she believed did not matter to voters in her district, noting Jan. 6 was a long time ago. 

“Yesli Vega — an extremist widely known for spreading the lie that women who are raped cannot become pregnant— is an election-denier whose lies about the 2020 election are in the line with the extremists she has worked with most on the campaign trail, like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, and Ginni Thomas,” said Gianni Snidle, spokesperson for the DPVA. “Yesli Vega is a dangerous fraud who is only running to cater to the fringe of our politics, not actually serve and represent the people of Virginia.” 

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