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Thief Takes McAuliffe's Car, Leaves His Book

McAuliffe disappointed he 'didn't think to grab a few copies'

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe / Wikimedia Commons
September 24, 2019

Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe's car was stolen in Washington, D.C., while he was eating lunch on Monday, but when the car was recovered he was disappointed to find that the thief wasn't interested in reading his book.

McAuliffe parked his Ford Explorer in Northwest D.C. around 1 p.m. and returned an hour later to find that it had vanished, according to the Washington Post.

D.C. police found the car parked and unoccupied less than a mile away from where McAuliffe had originally parked it. McAuliffe thanked the police on Twitter.

"Thank you to the DC Police. Quite a day. Went in for lunch ... came out and car was stolen," McAuliffe wrote. "@DCPoliceDept was right on it. Car recovered immediately. Thank you for a job well done."

The former governor had been on his way to an event to promote his book, Beyond Charlottesville: Taking a Stand Against Nationalism, which discusses the details of the violent 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va. His car was filled with many copies of his book, but none of them were stolen.

McAuliffe spokesman Jake Rubenstein told the Post that McAuliffe was not upset about the theft, but was disappointed that whoever moved his car "didn't think to grab a few copies" of his book.

A tweet from the former governor's Monday night event showed that McAuliffe had at least 48 copies of the book in his car.

Beyond Charlottesville is described as "the definitive account of an infamous chapter in our history, seared indelibly into memory" and was released in February, when many people expected that McAuliffe would mount a run for the presidency.

He said in April that he would have the "funnest campaign" and would not apologize for being a successful white male if he ran, but ultimately decided not to do so.