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    • Matt Gaetz, Trump’s nominee for AG, has a history of anti-Semitic remarks
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    Matt Gaetz, Trump’s nominee for AG, has a history of anti-Semitic remarks

    Online Niel Posted on

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    President-elect Donald Trump nominated former rep. Matt Gaetza Florida firebrand who was investigated by the Department of Justice on allegations of sex trafficking and obstruction of justice, to lead the nation’s largest law enforcement agency as U.S. attorney general on Wednesday.

    The appointment faced fierce bipartisan criticism, not just because of the charges, which the DOJ eventually dropped, but also because of what many see as a history of anti-Jewish comments.

    “Rep. Matt Gaetz has a long history of peddling anti-Semitism,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a post on Xformerly known as Twitter. “He should not be appointed to any high office, much less one that oversees the impartial execution of our nation’s laws.”

    Gaetz criticized the ADL, which is an organization designed to stop “defamation of the Jewish people”, calling it “racist organization” after calling for Fox News to fire then-host Tucker Carlson for promoting “The grand theory of substitution”, a conspiracy that often suggests that Jews are trying to replace white people in Western countries with non-white immigrants.

    The former Florida congressman also said Carlson was right about the Replacement Theory.

    The American Jewish Committee urged Trump to “reconsider this nomination” and said the Senate had a “responsibility to reject it.”

    “Matt Gaetz’s history of problematic remarks — including perpetuating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories — should be disqualifying for anyone seeking to become America’s top law enforcement officer,” the organization said. posted on social media.

    USA TODAY has reached out to Trump and Gaetz for comment.

    Gaetz invokes an anti-Semitic claim

    In 2024, Gaetz voted against a bill called the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act,” which sought to address antisemitism on college campuses by codifying a definition of antisemitism that the Department of Education should use when investigating allegations of discrimination.

    Gaetz said anti-Semitism is “wrong” but disputed the bill’s definition.

    “The bill says the definition of anti-Semitism includes ‘contemporary examples of anti-Semitism’ identified by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). One such example includes: “…claims of the Jews who killed Jesus…” Gaetz said on social networks. “The Bible is clear. There is no myth or controversy about this. Therefore, I will not support this bill.”

    Historians and theologians have long denied the false claim that the Jews killed Jesus and is a antisemitic trope.

    Gaetz invites Holocaust denier to State of the Union

    In 2018, Gaetz invited Charles Johnson to the State of the Union. Johnson, a digital antagonist who was permanently banned from Twitter after asking for help to “take down” a Black Lives Matter activist, also denied the Holocaust in a Reddit Ask Me Anything.

    “I did not believe and have never believed the figure of six million,” Johnson said. “I think the Red Cross figure of 250,000 dead in typhus camps is more realistic.”

    Gaetz denied it that Johnson was a Holocaust denier or white supremacist and insisted that he did not know Johnson’s views before inviting him.

    Gaetz and George Soros

    In 2018, Gaetz suggested in a post on Twitter that George Soros could be behind the alleged caravans of migrants to the United States. Soros, a Jewish billionaire, is one frequent target of antisemitic tropes.

    In 2023, Gaetz repeatedly Pamela Nadell askeddirector of the Jewish Studies program at American University, before the House Judiciary Committee on whether criticizing Soros is anti-Semitic.

    Gaetz’s employees

    In 2019, Gaetz hired Darren Beattie, a former White House speechwriter who attended a 2016 conference attended by several white nationalists.

    Beattie left the White House in 2018 after CNN reported that he spoke at the 2016 HL Mencken Club Conference, which consistently includes famous white nationalists among its attendees.

    Beattie told CNN that his speech did not include “anything objectionable.”

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