Josh Malone funded a super PAC that spent over $400,000 working to defeat the Plano congressman, who got forced into a primary runoff and then admitted to an affair and ended his campaign.
Josh Malone, a Plano inventor who worked behind the scenes in taking down U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, stands for a portrait at the U.S. Capitol on April 7, 2022., our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
On its face, Taylor failed to win his primary outright after weathering months of attacks from fellow Republicans over his vote for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, and in the closing weeks, a super PAC came out of nowhere to press the offensive to the tune of over $400,000. The final blow came two days before the primary when it was reported that Taylor had an extramarital affair.
The Harvard-educated Iraq veteran and former state lawmaker easily ascended to Congress in 2018 and successfully fended off national Democrats as they tried to flip the seat two years later. But his 3rd Congressional District in the Dallas suburbs was made redder in redistricting last year, creating fertile territory for primary challengers.
The legal fight was all-consuming. Malone had grown up in Texas, studied engineering at Colorado School of Mines and lived in the Plano area since the mid-1990s. But in 2019, he moved his family to Northern Virginia to be closer to the litigation — and Congress.to pay nearly $31 million to Malone and Zuru. Malone got his patent back along the way.
“It just hit me, like, what is this guy doing here?” Malone said. Whether it was Cornyn or Taylor, he added, “They’re not taking us seriously, so we gotta go get involved and elect people who will.”Back home, Taylor was facing the prospect of a competitive primary, fueled by his vote for the Jan. 6 commission.
Media inquiries with the group led to Paul Morinville, a Georgetown man who was serving as RINO Reckoning’s executive director — and also had awith patent law. He said in a February interview that RINO Reckoning was strictly an anti-Taylor effort and not working on behalf of any particular challenger. He declined to comment on who was funding it but made one thing clear: They were not playing around.
Defeating Communism PAC did not disclose its expenditures in the primary until the weekend before the primary. The total: $436,000, a hefty sum to unload in a congressional primary in a little over a month.McCray, the volunteer for Harp’s campaign, said a woman named Tania Joya messaged Harp on Facebook in the closing days of the primary, sharing purported evidence of her affair with Taylor. Joya seemed motivated by the family-man image that Taylor was projecting in his reelection campaign.
Malone said he had no role in the story and was blindsided by it. He said he was out putting up road signs when he learned about it and “didn’t think it was credible — thought it was absurd.” McCray said she understood people had reason to be skeptical of the affair story given its timing, but she thought voters needed to know and considered it a “national security issue” due to Joya’s past jihadist ties. McCray also said she considers herself a conservative and did not think her side holds itself accountable enough.“I personally don’t believe he would’ve done it had he won outright,” she said.
Malone acknowledged it would not have made political sense to campaign against Taylor on patent issues. But he said he views those issues as similar to the ones that actually came up in the primary because they all fit into a narrative that Taylor “sold out to corporate interests and the establishment.”
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