SOUND THE ALARM: Rob Wittman’s Ad Can’t Pass a Fact-Check

In case you missed it, WWBT just fact-checked Rep. Rob Wittman’s attack ad on Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and the verdict is in: FALSE. Wittman’s ad claims that Taylor’s handling of the case put more babies at risk by allowing the abusing nurse, Erin Strotman, to return to work. According to the fact-check, that claim is simply not true: it was Henrico Doctors’ Hospital — not Shannon Taylor — that made the decision to let Strotman return to work in late 2024, months after she had first been placed on leave following unexplained fractures found on four premature babies in the summer of 2023. 

The criminal case against Strotman did not begin until her arrest in January 2025. The fact-check’s conclusion was direct: “we will rate this ad as false.”

Taylor’s own ad, featuring the father of one of the abused babies, rated TRUE: She secured a sentence six times tougher than state guidelines, and she helped pass a law closing a reporting loophole for hospitals. The fact-check follows a demand from that father, Dom, that Wittman pull the ad: “Our family’s trauma is not a game or a tool to be used by a politician.” Shannon Taylor got the conviction. 

Wittman is lying to voters about Shannon’s record and using the suffering of these families to play political games but the facts are clear. 

Watch the full segment here.