The citizens of West Chester deserve the truth.
We gave Ada Nestor the benefit of the doubt that she would provide it.
Instead, in a shocking breach of trust, she and her running mate Stacey Whomsley have attempted to mislead voters.
In late April, upon finding evidence that Ms. Nestor has a years-long history of blatantly bigoted statements, near-delusional conspiracy theories, and proud participation in the dangerous web of conspiracy theories known as QAnon, our first action was to contact her directly. We privately and directly asked Ms. Nestor to address whether the troubling content did in fact belong to her. If it did, we urged her to resign her candidacy.
She ignored us.
We sent the same concerns to Ms. Nestor’s running mate Stacey Whomsley and their endorsers, the Republican Committee of Chester County and Keeping Kids in School PAC. We urged them to review their partnerships with Ms. Nestor and join our call for accountability.
They ignored us.
With time continuing to pass and early voting already underway, we published our letter to Ms. Nestor and her endorsers on a Facebook page. We redacted her name and identifying information. Not wishing to associate Stacey Whomsley’s campaign with this offensive and inflammatory content, we redacted her name as well.
They continued to ignore us.
Having expended all options to preserve Ms. Nestor’s and Ms. Whomsley’s opportunity to independently take accountability, we finally published our full, unredacted letter along with a sample of the troubling content. We did not take this action lightly. All of the information we presented, then and now, has been legally obtained and is publicly verifiable. Because Ms. Nestor publicly and voluntarily identified herself in her social media profiles, publishing this information is not doxing, which is the act of revealing previously private information.
It was only at this point that Ms. Nestor finally issued a public response. In a statement on her campaign website, Ms. Nestor claimed to be “Setting the Record Straight.”
Attempts to Mislead Voters
It is critical for all voters to review the details of Ms. Nestor’s statement, because it is here that she has attempted to mislead and deceive voters. Using vague, imprecise language, she creates the illusion of a denial without ever denying anything. Here is what she said:
“The Twitter handle in question is not a privately used page, and it is not my personal page. I do not own the page. There have been many members of the page who posted research articles and followers who critiqued what was posted.
I will state again that I am not a member of Qanon or any other subversive organization. I have no idea how one joins Qanon or if they even have meetings.”
It is important to understand that Ms. Nestor is a prolific and savvy social media user who has been active on numerous platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Gab, Parler, WeGo.Social, Discord, QuodVerum, Blogspot, Reddit, and more. Her Twitter follower count has exceeded 8,600. She is a published writer and “citizen journalist” for the far-right platform New Right Network. There is no doubt that Ms. Nestor is capable of providing voters with a forthright and accurate explanation. Her attempt to “set the record straight” is anything but. Namely:
By failing to specify exactly which Twitter handle she is referencing, and with her vague use of the term “page”, Ms. Nestor dodges the question. As we will explore in detail below, there is no doubt that Twitter handle @AnonymousAda was used personally by Ada Nestor. Ms. Nestor never directly denies this.
With the statement that there are “many members of the page who posted research articles,” Ms. Nestor implies that she is not responsible for the content under her account. It is unclear whether Ms. Nestor’s reference to “members of the page” is intended to describe content she reposted from other authors, or whether she is saying that she shared her account credentials and authorized others to post as her and under her likeness. The former would imply she hopes voters don’t understand how social media works. The latter would be a shockingly irresponsible action for a candidate whose official platform claims she will “teach internet safety not only to the students, but to the parents.”
Ms. Nestor says, “I do not own the page.” We all know Ms. Nestor does not own Twitter or any other social media platform. That does not mean she is not accountable for what she posts online.
Ms. Nestor says she is not a member of QAnon, acknowledging that it is a subversive organization. She says, “I have no idea how one joins QAnon or if they even have meetings.” Here again, Ms. Nestor seems to be hoping that her audience does not understand enough about QAnon to catch the deflection. In reality, Ms. Nestor’s years-long history of posting, analyzing, researching, and contributing to QAnon conspiracy theories demonstrates that she has been deeply involved in QAnon. She has proudly tweeted that “QAnon is real,” and that QAnon is “the only cult that brainwashes you to think for yourself.” On July 3, 2020, she Tweeted about a QAnon oath, saying she was “sworn in” by a veteran while standing under a flag. Anyone who is familiar with QAnon understands there is no formalized membership process, but Ms. Nestor seems to have come as close as possible.
Around the time Ms. Nestor released her "Setting the Record Straight" statement, she published a corresponding Facebook post from her official campaign account. On that post, her running mate Stacey Whomsley participated in comments and made it clear that not only would she not be denouncing Ms. Nestor’s offensive and dangerous views, she would actively participate in the attempt to mislead voters about Ms. Nestor’s responsibility for the troubling content.
Chastising constituents who have raised questions or pointed out Ms. Nestor’s problematic history, she went on attack, accusing them of “hiding in the shadows”, “undermin[ing] our democratic republic”, “strip[ping] voters of their right to make an informed choice”, and participating in “collective actions of hate”. Ms. Whomsley described Ms. Nestor’s years-long history of bigoted and disturbing content as “becom[ing] a student of history along with a large group of people who are the actual contributors to ‘Anonymous’ Ada.”
Ms. Whomsley ventured to speak on behalf of Ms. Nestor, saying:
“Neither Ada or I support QAnon. Let alone believe it is real. I would be less surprised if Santa Claus knocked on my door tomorrow than if you can find proof of QAnon existing – because what you are promoting is a conspiracy theory. Not truth. Conspiracy. Qanon is not real. We do not support it. And that is the truth.”
It is unclear whether Ms. Nestor authorized Ms. Whomsley to speak on her behalf, but is clear is that like her running mate, Ms. Whomsley seems to want voters to believe that Ms. Nestor either (A) is not responsible for her own social media accounts, or (B) that Ms. Nestor shared her account credentials and allowed others to post inflammatory content on her behalf. In either case, Ms. Nestor’s lack of judgement is clear. It is striking that Ms. Whomsley, in her attempt to deflect and mischaracterize, makes absolutely no attempt to denounce or even distance herself from Ms. Nestor’s blatantly bigoted statements and wild conspiracy theories.
The entire Facebook thread and Ms. Whomsley’s comments remain available here as of the publication of this article.
The “Setting the Record Straight” statement is not the only time Ms. Nestor has attempted to deceive the public about her controversial and questionable behavior. Facing questions from her constituents about her attendance at the January 6th Capitol Insurrection, Ms. Nestor published an article in Broad and Liberty in which she stated, “I did travel on a bus to Washington that day with my local prayer group, but I was not near the Capitol”. Yet, on January 6th, Ms. Nestor had tweeted a very different account, saying: “We are on our way out of DC. Left the Capital [sic] Building just in time. Please get out of the damn building.”
There doesn’t appear to be evidence that Ms. Nestor broke the law or participated in violence, so why would she publicly mischaracterize her participation in the events of January 6th to voters instead of providing an honest account?
After years of proudly and publicly affiliating with the QAnon movement, why would she attempt to mislead voters?
The Evidence that Ada Nestor is @AnonymousAda
It is understandable that individuals in our community want to believe Ms. Nestor. For well-meaning citizens in a tight-knit community, it is difficult to accept that a fellow citizen and parent seeking to be entrusted with oversight of our schools and tax dollars would be less than forthright, even when faced with difficult questions.
And yet, that is what Ms. Nestor has done. There is undeniable evidence that Ms. Nestor is responsible for @AnonymousAda despite her attempt to paint a different picture:
The Twitter account’s history and public metadata show it belongs to Ada Nestor.
Ms. Nestor publicly posted personal and identifying information over a period of years on Twitter and other forums.
Ms. Nestor used the profiles to promote her WCASD school board campaign and to solicit donations.
Ms. Nestor has never directly denied the accounts and content are hers.
The Twitter account’s history and metadata show it belongs to Ada Nestor:
Every Twitter account has a unique numeric ID that remains unchanged even if the user changes the “handle” or name associated with the account. The numeric identifier for profile @AnonymousAda is 18785984.
The Twitter profile information shows that this account was created in January 2009, originally with the handle @AdaMarie80 under name “Ada Nestor”. (Public records show that Ms. Nestor’s middle name is Marie and that she was born in 1980.)
At a later point, during or around 2018, the handle for Twitter account number 18785984 was changed to @AnonymousAda. Even after the change in handle, Ms. Nestor continued to publicly post personally identifying information and pictures, including direct references to her WCASD campaign.
For 12 years, this account has been used to post first-person, voluntarily identifying information under the likeness of Ms. Nestor.
The link between the current handle @AnonymousAda and the prior handle @AdaMarie80 is easily viewable by searching for tweets replying to @AdaMarie80, which show the old handle but are linked to the current handle @AnonymousAda, as shown below:
Ms. Nestor publicly posted personal and identifying information over a period of years on Twitter and other forums:
This publicly identifying information includes photos of herself, her family, her pets, her home, personal events, and conversations with friends and family. There is no question that Ms. Nestor personally used the account even after the handle was changed to @AnonymousAda. The gallery below shows a small sample of many personal, identifying posts (click each image to view the preserved copy on the Internet Archive):
Ms. Nestor used the profile(s) to promote her WCASD school board campaign and to solicit donations:
It is undeniable that Ms. Nestor used the same profiles under which she posted bigoted, QAnon conspiracy theory content to promote and fundraise for her WCASD campaign. The gallery below shows a few examples:
Ms. Nestor has never directly denied the account and content are hers:
Perhaps most importantly, Ada Nestor has never denounced the abhorrent and bigoted views expressed via the account. As detailed above, there has been no direct denial or denouncement from Ms. Nestor or her campaign.
Ms. Nestor’s and Ms. Whomsley’s attempts to mislead voters is a shocking breach of trust. It is an insult to the intelligence of our community and demonstrates that these candidates are willing to disregard the truth for their own political gain. We must not allow such candidates to obtain positions of authority, especially when the safety and education of our young children is at stake.
While Ms. Nestor and Ms. Whomsley have repeatedly failed to do the right thing, citizens of West Chester can still right their wrong:
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