The National Republican Congressional Committee released a new ad on Monday hitting Virginia Democratic candidate LuAnn Bennett for lying about her daily commute.
The Washington Free Beacon reported in January that Bennett, who is running to unseat Rep. Barbara Comstock (R.) in Virginia’s 10th district, claims to live on a farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, more than 50 miles from her Washington office. Bennett told the Washington Post that she moved from Delaplane, Va. to McLean, Va., and that she had an apartment for nights that she worked late.
The NRCC ad says that if Bennett did live on the farm, then the commute would take over an hour. But the Free Beacon reported that Bennett owns a $1.35 million condo in the Ritz-Carlton located less than a mile from her Georgetown office.
Bennett posted on Facebook in April 2014 that she had moved to Washington, D.C., but the post has since been deleted.
The NRCC counted how many times Bennett would have to commute from her Ritz-Carlton condo to her office in the same time that it would take her to travel from the farm in Fauquier County to the office.
Bennett could make the commute from the hotel to Georgetown 22 times to equal the amount of time it would take to commute from her farm in Virginia to the same destination.
In a letter to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, the nonprofit Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust wrote that Bennett lived in her Washington condo long enough to be legally classified as a resident but avoided paying taxes.
"Are VA-10 voters really supposed to believe that Lyin’ LuAnne made this commute twice daily," the ad says, referring to the commute from Fauquier County to Georgetown.