What a Corey Stewart staffer, a white nationalist Facebook discussion group and an alleged break-in have in common

By: Robert Zullo - July 19, 2018 9:32 pm

Here’s a weird one that broke Thursday:

Virginia GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart says Stephanie Saul, a New York Times reporter seeking an interview with Brian Landrum, a Stewart staffer, entered Landrum’s Woodbridge apartment uninvited, the Washington Post reported.

Landrum, who works part-time for Stewart’s campaign as well as for Prince William County, where Stewart is chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, was not at home when Saul arrived but said a houseguest discovered the reporter inside his apartment, the Post reported. Saul scribbled down a note to Landrum requesting an interview and quickly left, Landrum said.

A spokeswoman for the New York Times said that the houseguest answered the door and Saul left a note without entering the premises. Prince William police are investigating the incident.

Why does anyone want to interview Landrum?

A Facebook account with the name Brian M.H. Landrum was listed in a private discussion group in which Jason Kessler, the white nationalist who planned the deadly Unite the Right rally last year in Charlottesville and other alt-right activists discussed plans for a second rally, according to chat records that have surfaced in litigation between Kessler and the city, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports

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Robert Zullo

Robert spent 13 years as a reporter and editor at weekly and daily newspapers and was previously editor of the Virginia Mercury. He was a staff writer and managing editor at Worrall Community Newspapers in Union, N.J., before spending five years in south Louisiana covering hurricanes, oil spills and Good Friday crawfish boils as a reporter and city editor for the The Courier and the Daily Comet newspapers in Houma and Thibodaux. He covered Richmond city hall for the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 2012 to 2013 and worked as a general assignment and city hall reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 2013 to 2016. He returned to Richmond in 2016 to cover energy, environment and transportation for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Contact him at [email protected]