Then, just two hours later, a woman came forward to describe in detail her accusation that Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax had sexually assaulted her in 2004, an accusation he denies.
The back-to-back revelations threw the Capitol here into a state of uncertainty about who would lead Virginia, coming less than one week after the disclosure of a racist photograph on the yearbook page of Gov. Ralph Northam led to demands for his resignation.
The turmoil here has prompted scholars and strategists to scour the Virginia Constitution’s provisions on succession to the governor. Fairfax is next in line, followed by Herring. If all three men were to resign without immediate replacements, Kirk Cox, the Republican House speaker, would become governor.
“That I have contributed to the pain Virginians have felt this week is the greatest shame I have ever felt,” Herring said in a statement, while acknowledging his ability to remain as attorney general was in doubt.
By Herring’s account, he and friends “dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup” for a party, and it was a one-time occurrence.
Although Herring, who attributed his decision to imitate a black person to “ignorance and glib attitudes,” resigned as co-chairman of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, he left open the question of whether he would stay in his state office.
Herring’s admission came on the same day that Fairfax, the second African-American elected to statewide office in Virginia, confronted an altogether different allegation that, after shadowing him throughout the week, was openly detailed for the first time by his accuser, Vanessa C. Tyson.
Tyson wrote Fairfax “forcefully pushed my head towards his crotch” and forced her to perform oral sex. “I never gave any form of consent,” she said.
Fairfax, in a statement released shortly before Tyson detailed her version of events, described their interaction as “a consensual encounter.” Later in the day, in a more spare and conciliatory statement, he said: “I take this situation very seriously and continue to believe Dr. Tyson should be treated with respect. But I cannot agree to a description of events that simply is not true.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.