Virginia GOP Candidate Demands Opponent Stop Using ‘Fake Family’ Photo In Ads

WASHINGTON — Virginia GOP congressional candidate Derrick Anderson has issued a warning to his Democratic opponent, Eugene Vindman, over campaign ads accusing Anderson of trying to pass off someone else’s wife and three daughters as his own family.
Anderson, who is unmarried and has no children, made national headlines in September after The New York Times discovered his campaign was using footage of him posing with the woman and children in what could easily be mistaken for a family photo shoot, except it turned out to be a friend’s family.
One video featuring Anderson with the woman and girls was shared on Anderson’s YouTube channel and posted on a website paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee. In another video his campaign filmed for a possible ad and that was posted on the NRCC-run website, Anderson is shown sitting around a dining room table with the same woman and girls.
On Thursday, Anderson used that footage of him sitting with the woman and her daughters in a new campaign ad focused on abortion. They appear around the 20-second mark.
His campaign told HuffPost in September that this footage was simply Anderson appearing in “a normal campaign video with female supporters and their kids.”
But in the final days of this election cycle, Vindman and Democratic groups are running a barrage of campaign ads accusing Anderson, who reportedly lives with his dog and is engaged, of trying to give voters the impression that he’s a family man. And on Monday, Anderson’s campaign responded with an official-sounding letter declaring that Vindman and local TV stations don’t have the right to air images of the family seen in Anderson’s videos.
HuffPost obtained a copy of the letter, which identifies this family as Ashley Cremisio and her three daughters. It notes that Cremisio’s lawyer sent a separate cease-and-desist letter to House Majority PAC, a Democratic political action committee running ads against Anderson.
“This letter is to serve as written notice to your station that Vindman for Congress did not obtain the permission of Mrs. Cremisio to use her image or the permission of Mr. or Mrs. Cremisio on behalf of her three minor daughters, to use their images in their advertisement,” read the letter.
“Furthermore, Mr. and Mrs. Cremisio would never have granted Vindman for Congress permission to do so given the manufactured and false narrative around the image,” it said. “In light of this unauthorized use, we are writing to request that your station remove this advertisement from your airwaves immediately to prevent further harm and distress to Mrs. Cremisio and her daughters.”
Here’s a copy of the letter, signed by a campaign adviser:
The ads hitting Anderson over his “fake family” range from serious to comical.
A Vindman ad called “What Is Real” flashes an image of Anderson with this family as ominous narration says the Republican candidate “got caught lying again, faking a family.”
And in one hilarious ad paid for by House Majority PAC, an Anderson look-alike arrives home from work to hang out with cardboard cutouts of the family.
“Ready, sweetie?” says the Anderson look-alike, tossing a Frisbee at a cutout of one of the girls and watching as the disc falls to the ground. This ad, called “Fake,” warns that the Republican candidate is trying to fool people about lots of things, including his extreme views against abortion.
Vindman has made protecting abortion rights a central issue in his campaign. Anderson, by contrast, celebrated the Supreme Court overturning the Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide, and has said he supports leaving women’s access to reproductive health care up to individual states to decide.
The problem with the Anderson campaign’s demands is that the images of him with the woman and children are still publicly available on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s so-called red box website, where campaigns publish materials available for super PACs to pick up and use in ads.
In other words, Anderson is claiming Vindman and Democratic political groups can’t use these images in political ads at the same the NRCC is making them available for use in ads.
Anderson’s campaign said in a Thursday statement that Vindman is unfairly using the woman and children to “lie” to voters about who they are.
“Vindman’s been using a mother and her underage daughters in our district to lie to voters for weeks, and he’s arguing legal technicalities to far-left media outlets? That’s very telling, and very gross,” read the statement. “He’s ginning up false attacks to avoid talking about lying about his military background, his shady business dealings, and his support for open borders, higher costs, and far-left party politics.”
The campaign also emphasized that Anderson has never claimed that the woman and children were his family, and that their images were never used in any pro-Anderson campaign ads (except Anderson’s latest ad about abortion uses this footage of him with this woman and her daughters, and he previously shared the footage of him with this family on his YouTube channel).
Anderson’s campaign did not respond to a question about why Vindman wouldn’t have permission to use images of this family in his political ads when the NRCC is still making them available for use in political ads.
Vindman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the demands from Anderson’s campaign.
Beyond his ads, Vindman has been making cracks about Anderson’s “fake family” on the campaign trail. At a recent rally in the Virginian town of Dumfries, he reportedly brought up his “real wife” and “real kids” to laughs in the crowd.
Vindman’s name might sound familiar. His twin brother, retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, made international headlines in 2019 when he testified during then-President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry hearings about his shady dealings with Ukraine. Both Vindmans were whistleblowers amid those hearings, and Trump ended up firing both of them from their government jobs.
Anderson has aligned himself with Trump, who endorsed him Wednesday.
“Derrick is America First all the way, and he is running against a weak and pathetic Democrat named Yevgeny ‘Eugene’ Vindman who, along with [California Democratic Rep.] Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff and others, lied to push the Ukraine Impeachment Hoax, a continuation of the greatest and most dangerous Political WITCH HUNT in the History of our Country!” Trump wrote on social media.
“Derrick Anderson has my Complete and Total Endorsement – HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!” he said.
Anderson and Vindman are running to represent Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. Both are new to politics, both are lawyers and both have military backgrounds: Anderson is a former Green Beret who completed five deployments, while Vindman is a former Army colonel who served for 25 years.
They’re competing for the seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is running for governor. It’s a tight race: The Cook Political Report ranks this seat as a “Democrat Toss Up.” Vindman is leading by 2 points in the most recent poll in this district, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correctly characterize the letter sent by Anderson’s campaign.