Artur Davis and his wife, Tara Johnson Davis
Former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis used three different accounts and spent more than $2,100 at Ashley Madison, documents from the hacked extramarital-affair Web site show.The Web site gotnews.com, led by publisher Charles C. Johnson, broke the story about Davis as an Ashley Madison customer on August 21. The site produced additional evidence in a pair of followup articles (see here and here), which drew denials from Davis spokespersons.
Davis, at first, claimed his name appeared at Ashley Madison because someone stole his credit cards. He later said the information came from operatives for the campaign of Todd Strange, against whom he was running for mayor of Montgomery. He eventually stated: "I have never been a customer of the Ashley Madison site."
Our research shows that Davis is flat-out lying about that. (See summary of his Ashley Madison activity at the end of this post.)
Data shows that the first Davis account was created on May 10, 2011, at SNR Dentons, the Washington, D.C. law firm where he went to work after Ron Sparks trounced him in the Alabama Democratic primary for governor in 2010. A payment in July 2015 was made from the Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado, where Davis was speaking to a Republican group, after having switched parties.
The party switch didn't work out so well for Davis. After he moved to Virginia and became a Republican, there seemed to be little interest in his legal and political skills. He returned to his hometown, only to have Strange thump him in the race for mayor of Montgomery. Now, Davis wants to "return to his Democrats roots," which has drawn mostly yawns (or outrage) from party leaders, who remember that Davis alienated his liberal base in 2010 in order to side with the Business Council of Alabama and other conservative groups.
In fall 2007, Davis looked like a bright star on the Democratic horizon. He served on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and played a starring role when the committee investigated Bush-administration abuses of the justice system in late October of that year. Davis showed signs of being interested in addressing the firings of U.S. attorneys and unlawful political prosecutions, including the highly publicized case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
With his calm demeanor and smooth speaking style, Davis was seen by some as the "Obama of the South." It looked like Davis might prove to be a hero for those who believe in actual justice, the rule of law, and constitutional protections. But Davis let all of that slide, indicating he never was seriously interested in the issues to begin with. He gave up a safe Congressional seat to run a disastrous campaign for Alabama governor, and his political star has been in free fall ever since.
Now the Ashley Madison debacle reveals Davis to be both a cheater and a liar. Data shows that he had three accounts at the site and paid to have all of them deleted. But they still showed up when the site was hacked, and information was placed at the dark Web for public examination.
Under "What Turns Me On," Davis wrote the following:
What Turns Me On: Aggressive/Take Charge Nature, Confidence, Discretion/Secrecy, Imagination, A professional/well groomed, Stylish/Classy, Long Hair, Not Possessive, Good Communicator
Open To: Conventional Sex, Sex Talk, Extended Foreplay/Teasing, Good With Hands, Kissing, Sensual Massage, Someone Who Can Teach Me
Perhaps, Davis deserves credit for one thing: Unlike other prominent Ashley Madison clients we've outed from Alabama--Bradley Arant lawyer Rob Campbell and al.com reporter Charles J. Dean--Davis does not claim to be single. Under relationship status, Davis describes himself as:
Attached Male Seeking Females
Davis, however, earns demerits for his description of his physical appearance. After stating that he is 5'10" and 160 pounds, Davis says his physique is:
Shapley Toned
Aside from the spelling problem here (we assume Davis means "shapely"), when have you ever heard a man describe himself as "shapely"?
We will leave that question for another day, but for now, this much seems clear: Artur Davis' political career, thanks to a series of self-inflicted wounds, is in a shambles. Now that he's been outed in the Ashley Madison scandal as a cheater and liar, that career should be over--with no hope for resuscitation.
Readers are missing out on a real treat if they don't click on the Artur Davis summary below. Members of our Legal Schnauzer Computer Forensics and Accuracy Research Team (C-FART) have outdone themselves with this one. It is awesome, if we do say so ourselves. And it unmasks a prominent Ashley Madison customer in a way that, to our knowledge, no other news organization has done.
That's also true of our summaries for Rob Campbell and Charles J. Dean, which hackers have removed multiple times from the document-storage site Scribd. But the Davis summary is filled with all kinds of special flourishes that should make it must reading, especially for anyone who has suspected that Artur Davis is a fraud and a truly creepy guy.
Ashley Madison summary--Artur Davis by Roger Shuler
