The firm, New Jersey-based Smith Mullin, said Watson was “not seeking any financial damages,” and said her attorneys had notified Fairfax through his lawyers “that Ms. Watson hopes he will resign from public office.” The latest accusation deepened a political crisis in Virginia that began with the revelation last Friday that Northam’s medical school yearbook page contained a racist photo, followed by admissions from Northam and the state’s attorney general, Mark Herring, that each had darkened their faces to imitate black performers in separate incidents during the 1980s. Should all three men be forced to resign, Democrats would lose the governorship to the state’s Republican speaker of the House of Delegates, who is third in the line of succession, after Fairfax and Herring.
