Long history of supporting Hill’s opponents.

Reporter on Katie Hill scandal promotes GOP candidates for her seat

The RedState writer who published a nude picture of the congresswoman has a long history of supporting Hill’s opponents.

By MICHAEL CALDERONE

Shortly after Rep. Katie Hill announced her resignation from Congress on Sunday night, the RedState reporter who published damaging allegations involving the Democratic rising star, along with a nude photo, was urging support for Republican candidates to win the seat.

“If you want to help us flip @KatieHill4CA's former #CA25 seat BACK to RED, please learn more about Mike Garcia and contribute to his campaign” tweeted Jennifer Van Laar, a deputy managing editor at RedState.

Later, Van Laar suggested that she’d back former Congressman Steve Knight if he decided to run for the seat he lost to Hill in 2018. “He has integrity, cares about the individual, and is a policy wonk,” wrote Van Laar, who noted working for Knight’s 2014 campaign. “I'd be #TeamKnight again in a heartbeat.”

Van Laar’s views, like RedState’s leanings, are no secret: She’s worked in Republican politics and the site is conservative, as is its owner, Salem Media Group. But Van Laar’s shift from reporting on Hill, and publishing what some have deemed “revenge porn,” to promoting Republicans for Hill’s old job is a blurring of roles that would be unacceptable in mainstream newsrooms.

In the days leading up to the 2018 election, Van Laar wrote an op-ed on why she supported Knight in his race against Hill, and in July, she praised a Republican who at the time was planning to run against Hill in 2020. “Hanging out with our future Congresswoman Suzette Valladares today!” she wrote, along with hashtags such as “#runsuzetterun” and #savecalifornia.”

Van Laar did not respond to a Twitter direct message request to discuss her coverage. Multiple representatives from Townhall Media, which oversees RedState, did not respond to phone and email requests.

Hill’s swift political downfall highlights the way in which allegations and images that might not meet the bar for publication in traditional newsrooms, the one-time media gatekeepers, can find a wide audience online and spark a scandal covered by mainstream reporters.

Hill, who is bisexual, admitted last week to having an “inappropriate” relationship with a female campaign staffer, but has denied having a sexual relationship with legislative director Graham Kelly, the latter of which would violate House ethics rules and became the subject of an investigation.

Hill’s estranged husband, Kenny Heslep, accused her having a relationship with Kelly, as RedState’s Miranda Morales wrote on Oct 10. Just over a week later, Van Laar reported that Hill had been in a long-term “throuple” relationship with her husband and the female campaign staffer, in a piece which included a photo of a naked Hill brushing the hair of a woman whose face is intentionally blurred.

The photo, which spread online and on social media, dramatically increased pressure on Hill, who said she decided to resign so that “the good people who supported me will no longer be subjected to the pain inflicted by my abusive husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives who seem to happily provide a platform to a monster who is driving a smear campaign built around cyber exploitation.”

While many Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, endorsed her decision to leave Congress on the grounds of having had a relationship with a campaign staffer, some others depicted her as a victim of cyber-bullying by RedState and her estranged husband.

Brianna Wu, a video game developer who lost a bid for Congress in 2018 and is running again in 2020, tweeted Monday that conservative outlets that published private photos of Hill “enabled her ex-husband's abuse.”

“Hill was exploited by her abusive ex-husband who used nude photos of her to smear her,” Wu added. “No one would argue that it's proper to have a consensual relationship w/ a subordinate. That doesn't change the fact that Hill is a victim of revenge porn.”

Lawfare managing editor Quinta Jurecic wrote that the Hill photograph on RedState appeared to be “the first instance in which a politically aligned publication — or, indeed, any publication — has released nonconsensual pornography depicting a politician of the opposing party affiliation.” And that, she wrote, “is an ugly line to have crossed.”

In her RedState piece that included the photograph, Van Laar justified sharing this “information obtained from multiple confidential sources” because Hill was now a member of Congress.

“It is this writer’s view that events that occur within a marriage or affairs that lead to its demise should be kept between the parties involved and are not the business of the general public,” Van Laar wrote. “When those events or affairs occur within one of the parties’ workplace, though, and that workplace is the United States Congress, the public should know about them as they determine that elected official’s fitness to serve.”

Van Laar noted that RedState didn’t publish other “intimate photographs of the women.”

The Oct. 18 piece also included text messages posted on Heslep’s now-deleted Facebook account in which he is purportedly speaking to a friend about Hill having a relationship with Kelly, the former finance director who worked as Hill’s legislative director in Congress.

Hill denied having an improper relationship with Kelly to POLITICO on Oct. 22 and said her “abusive husband seems determined to try to humiliate me.”

"I am disgusted that my opponents would seek to exploit such a private matter for political gain,” she said. “This coordinated effort to try to destroy me and people close to me is despicable and will not succeed.”

Hill said she notified the Capitol Police to investigate how “intimate photos of me and another individual were published by Republican operatives on the internet without my consent." Hill later threatened legal action against The Daily Mail, which published the same photo of Hill and the staffer, albeit without the woman’s face blurred, along with others, including one in which Hill is nude and holding a bong.

The Daily Mail also suggested Hill had a tattoo representing Nazi imagery, a claim her lawyers described as “false and defamatory.”

On Oct. 24, RedState’s Joe Cunningham accused news outlets of either ignoring his site’s reporting or spinning coverage in defense of Hill.

“It is because of that hostility to places like RedState, where we do not hide our partisan lean, that actual, real journalism can so often get ignored or butchered,” Cunningham wrote. “It is journalistic malpractice to pretend that the story Jen broke is anything other than how she has covered it.”

POLITICO first reported Sunday night that Hill planned to resign, which she later announced in a letter, saying it was “the best thing for my constituents, my community and our country.”

Pelosi responded with a statement saying, “Congresswoman Katie Hill came to Congress with a powerful commitment to her community and a bright vision for the future, and has made a great contribution as a leader of the Freshman Class.”

"She has acknowledged errors in judgment that made her continued service as a Member untenable," Pelosi continued. "We must ensure a climate of integrity and dignity in the Congress, and in all workplaces.”