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CNN
02-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Trump's pick to lead whistleblower office shared 9/11 truther video
The man President Donald Trump wants to put in charge of protecting whistleblowers – and rooting out government corruption – is a 30-year-old lawyer with barely a year of government experience and a history of racist invective, conspiratorial rants, and affinity for a well-known White nationalist and Holocaust denier. Paul Ingrassia, whom Trump nominated in late May to lead the Office of Special Counsel, brands himself as 'President Trump's favorite writer' after Trump shared his comments close to 100 times last year on social media. Admitted to the bar only last summer, Ingrassia, 30, held a brief White House internship during Trump's first term. This year, Ingrassia first worked as a White House liaison at the Justice Department before reportedly being pushed out and reassigned to the Department of Homeland Security, where he helps with staffing the agency. Now, Ingrassia is up for a much bigger job leading the approximately 110-person OSC. Created after the Watergate scandal, the office has for nearly 50 years been the US government's one-stop shop for whistleblowers and alleged ethics violations. The five-year term for the job is structured to span multiple administrations, designed specifically to operate independently from the White House. It also requires Senate confirmation. Ingrassia has yet to be scheduled for a confirmation hearing, leaving US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to continue serving in the role in an acting capacity. Ingrassia would mark a sharp departure from previous heads of the OSC, a role designed to be politically independent and protect whistleblowers from retaliation. Rather than a long record of managerial or prosecutorial experience, typical of those who previously held the job, Ingrassia brings a fervent loyalty to Trump and a lengthy record of inflammatory statements, only a small portion of which have been previously reported. CNN's KFile reviewed hundreds of Ingrassia's comments between 2019 and 2024, including his social media, his appearances on far-right podcasts, and archived conversations from X Spaces, a livestreamed audio chat room that allows users to host or join real-time discussions. Last year, on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ingrassia shared a video of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claiming the US government planned the attacks or let them happen, with Jones boasting in his tweet, 'I've been exposing 9/11 since before it even happened.' Ingrassia had defended Jones several months earlier, writing, 'WE ALL STAND WITH ALEX JONES!!' in June 2024. He was commenting on a video of Jones crying on his broadcast over fears that his InfoWars media platform could be shut down due to $1.5 billion in judgments against Jones for spreading false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax. Ingrassia and his podcast's X account have also shared comments from notorious White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Ingrassia has argued publicly that 'straight White men' are the most intelligent demographic group and should be prioritized in education. He once co-hosted a podcast that called for martial law and secession after Trump's 2020 defeat if all legal efforts failed. On the night of January 6, 2021, the podcast account also posted a quote from President John F. Kennedy, reading, 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, (will) make violent revolution inevitable.' Ingrassia, a longtime defender of January 6 participants, was later present for the release of convicted January 6 rioters after Trump commuted their sentences. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security dismissed CNN's reporting as an 'attempted smear campaign' but did not respond to a detailed list of questions or refute any of the documented comments or associations. A DHS spokesperson said Ingrassia 'has served President Trump and Secretary Noem exceptionally well at the Department of Homeland Security and will continue to do so as the next head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.' The White House also provided a statement of support for Ingrassia, and DHS sent a statement from an unnamed senior administration official saying, 'He has the support of many Jewish groups, and has been a steadfast advocate for Jewish causes and personnel thus far during his time working for the Trump administration.' When CNN requested a list of names of the 'many Jewish groups' referenced, the spokesperson replied with two names, The Holocaust Council - which does not appear to have a website - and Mort Klein, of the Zionist Organization of America. As early as 2019, when he was 24, Ingrassia positioned himself as a tenacious pro-Trump commentator online, slowly building a following by lobbing insults at Trump's Republican rivals and parroting many of the president's grievances. After graduating from Cornell Law School in 2022, Ingrassia mostly worked with conservative organizations and as a law clerk at The McBride Law Firm, best known for representing January 6 defendants. Ingrassia contributed as a writer for the conspiracy blog Gateway Pundit, twice served as a fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute, and served on the Board of Advisors for the New York Young Republican Club. He was also communications director for the conservative National Constitutional Law Union – which bills itself as a counter to the ACLU. Ingrassia is perhaps best known for his Substack, which was repeatedly shared by Trump on his Truth Social platform. A review of Trump's Truth Social account found that he mentioned Ingrassia close to 100 times in 2024. Ingrassia wrote glowingly about the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year, but stopped writing on his Substack shortly after CNN's KFile revealed he shared a post arguing for martial law to keep Trump in office back in 2020. On X, formerly known as Twitter, Ingrassia built his brand as a partisan bomb-thrower, attacking Trump's political rivals often in crude, inflammatory, and racially charged terms in the last two years. Ingrassia referred to former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley as an 'insufferable bitch,' mocking her full name in racially-charged taunts. He wrote a well-publicized blog post falsely alleging that Haley could not serve as president or vice president because her parents were not US citizens at the time of her birth. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was also a frequent target. Ingrassia branded him with nicknames like 'DeSatan,' 'DeMeatball,' and 'Dehomo.' He also went after DeSantis' wife, Casey, and his spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, calling them both 'harlots.' He reposted a tweet that said Kamala Harris should 'seek a kitchen job, not POTUS.' He mocked Harris' campaign appearances, writing, 'Sounds like she decided to be black again!' On X, Ingrassia was a frequent contributor to Spaces, a live audio chatroom. In one conversation in March 2023 on education, Ingrassia said education reform should prioritize straight White men. 'You'd be focused on getting – maximizing – getting your top students and focusing on elevating the high IQ section of your demographics. So, you know, basically young men, straight White men, in particular, would have to be the focus,' said Ingrassia. CNN has also found that Ingrassia has deeper ties than previously known to white nationalist figure and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. He blasted the decision to ban Fuentes from the platform X and argued to reinstate him in an April 2023 Substack post titled 'Free Nick Fuentes.' Just a week earlier, Ingrassia was a participant in a 24-hour X Space hosted by the antisemitic anonymous account Chief Trumpster that advertised an interview with Fuentes. Speaking before Fuentes went on an anti-Israel rant, Ingrassia attacked the conservative organization Turning Point USA, which itself is a frequent target of criticism from Fuentes and his organization, the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), for being what they called too pro-Israel and insufficiently pro-White. In June 2024, Ingrassia was photographed in attendance at a rally in support of Fuentes in Detroit by The Intercept's Amanda Moore, who tracks the far-right via her Substack 'The Turtle Diaries.' Fuentes was in Detroit for the annual America First Political Action Conference, which holds its conference at the same time as Turning Point USA's conference, which Ingrassia's Twitter feed shows he attended. Ingrassia disputed to The Intercept and NPR in May that his attendance at the rally was intentional. 'I had no knowledge of who organized the event, observed for 5-10 minutes, then left,' he told NPR. Footage reviewed and obtained by CNN shows he was there listening to speakers ahead of Fuentes' arrival and shows him moving to the front to see Fuentes as he enters, appearing to smile. Ingrassia later can be seen leaving the rally with a woman after several minutes. And less than a day earlier, Ingrassia was defending Fuentes on his public X account after the White nationalist was denied entry to TPUSA's conference –- calling Fuentes being kicked out of the event 'not good' and an 'awful decision' in tweets. There is also evidence that Ingrassia agreed with some of the critiques of Turning Point USA and possibly the group's support of Israel. In the April 2023 Twitter Space that advertised the interview with Fuentes, Ingrassia criticized TPUSA for not being 'based' enough –- a slang term often used to signal agreement or approval for right-wing ideas – and claimed the organization was ineffective at winning elections. There is also a history of anti-Israel sentiment in posts from Ingrassia's podcast, 'Right on Point,' that mirrored anti-Israel rhetoric on the far-right. On December 22, 2020, the podcast's now-deleted Twitter account posted, 'Stop shilling for Israel, @GOP,' and criticized US foreign aid with a tweet falsely stating, 'The $500 trillion to Israel adds salt to the wound,' according to a review of deleted tweets obtained by CNN. The account also commented on three tweets from Fuentes regarding alleged fraud in the 2020 election and tweeted at him twice. One of the tweets from the podcast quote tweeted Fuentes' writing of the need to 'destroy the GOP' to make a true 'America First' party in December. The account added in a comment that it was time for Trump to declare martial law to secure his reelection.
Reuters
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US farm agency finds safety issues at top research site after whistleblower complaints
WASHINGTON, June 26 - The Department of Agriculture found significant safety issues at its top U.S. research facility in an investigation of 2023 whistleblower complaints about the state of the site, the Office of Special Counsel said in a letter sent to the White House. The Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., is the agency's flagship research site spanning nearly 7,000 acres (2,833 hectares) and houses labs studying climate change, invasive insects, animal genomics and more. Reuters exclusively reported in May 2023 that BARC workers had filed complaints that unsafe work conditions, ranging from broken fire alarms and ventilation systems to wild indoor temperature swings, were impeding research and endangering staff. Experts have warned that declining government investment in agricultural research threatens the U.S. position as a leading agricultural innovator. The investigation, ordered by the Office of Special Counsel in 2023, substantiated many of the whistleblower allegations and found "pervasive safety deficiencies," including excess grime, damaged flooring, mold and a lack of potable water, according to a letter sent from the OSC to President Donald Trump on Wednesday. The poor condition of the facility was caused by inadequate funding, understaffing, a lack of necessary tools and equipment and the absence of a maintenance plan, the letter said. The investigation did not find that the poor conditions were hindering research, the letter said. BARC workers told Reuters of incidents including a plumbing leak in 2022 that had ruined records and data and that issues such as inoperable fire alarms pulled staff time away from research to conduct fire patrols and other tasks. The agency has taken some corrective actions to address the issues, including hiring a new director for the facility and drafting a plan to move employees to fewer and more modernized buildings on the site, the letter said. Trump's administration has proposed to cut funds to USDA research agencies and the agency's research arm has lost hundreds of staff under efforts to shrink the cost and size of the federal government.
CNN
16-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Whistleblowers shun office that's supposed to protect them amid fears of Trump partisanship
The Office of Special Counsel has for nearly 50 years been the US government's one-stop shop for whistleblowers and alleged ethics violations, a federal watchdog created after Watergate with the lofty mandate 'to end government and political corruption.' Now it appears to be facing its biggest test yet, as insiders and independent watchdogs raise alarms that the historically nonpartisan agency has been 'captured' by loyalists from the very administration it's supposed to police. In their eyes, a difficult situation got even worse a few weeks ago when President Donald Trump nominated Paul Ingrassia to lead the agency. Ingrassia, a self-described 'true MAGA loyalist,' has embraced calls to crack down on the supposed anti-Trump 'deep state' within the federal workforce. Though Ingrassia will need to be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, his nomination has already fueled speculation that he'll transform the agency into a political tool to promote Trump's agenda and punish the president's enemies. In interviews with CNN, nearly a dozen former federal ethics officials, lawyers with pending cases at OSC, and outside experts said that changes have already pushed whistleblowers away from the agency and toward Congress, the press, or to inspectors general at federal agencies. Some are having second thoughts about coming forward in the first place. Tom Devine, a lawyer at the nonpartisan Government Accountability Project who has represented whistleblowers since the 1970s, told CNN that some of his clients are reluctant to move forward with allegations of wrongdoing and cover-ups at federal agencies because they're scared of what Trump loyalists at OSC might do. 'For years, the OSC has been our first option to help whistleblowers,' Devine said. 'If Ingrassia is confirmed, our mission will be reversed. Our duty will be to warn whistleblower about entrusting their rights to OSC because it would be an act of professional suicide.' Ingrassia declined to comment. OSC spokesman Corey Williams said in an email that, 'we do not share those concerns' that the agency will become a partisan tool under Ingrassia. The OSC safeguards the nonpartisan nature of the civil service by enforcing the Hatch Act, which bars political activity by federal employees, and investigates whistleblowers' claims about waste, fraud, or abuse — and also protects those whistleblowers from retaliation. The agency usually operates away from the spotlight, but there have been scandals over the years. Reagan's appointee was accused of politicizing the office, and George W Bush's was given a brief jail sentence after being found to be involved in an illegal cover-up. The office made waves during Trump's first term when it recommended that he fire his advisor Kellyanne Conway for campaigning from the White House, and when it later rebuked Cabinet members for appearing at the 2020 Republican convention. It also ruffled the Biden White House at times, calling out some top aides for their political activity. A hallmark of recent OSC leaders has been a willingness to buck the party line. These rebukes against top Trump officials came when OSC was run by a Trump-appointed Republican, and the Biden-era rebukes came under a Biden-appointed Democrat. But a few weeks into his second term, Trump fired the Senate-confirmed agency leader, Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee. Under federal law, Dellinger's term didn't expire until 2029, and he could only be dismissed for cause, which Trump did not provide. (Dellinger mounted a brief and unsuccessful lawsuit to get his job back.) With Dellinger gone, Trump allies at OSC unwound his efforts to reinstate thousands of probationary federal employees that were fired in February as part of the Trump administration's mass layoffs. They also loosened longstanding guidelines and started allowing federal workers to wear campaign gear – like MAGA hats – while on the job. A former federal ethics official said the current turmoil has already damaged the OSC's independence, because 'even if the president appoints someone very credible and qualified, they can now be fired on a whim.' 'The office is a shell of its former self,' the former federal ethics official told CNN in an interview. A second former federal ethics official said OSC 'is already a paper tiger.' Into this, new fears were injected last month when Trump nominated Ingrassia to be the new head of the office. Though the president praised Ingrassia as a 'highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar,' critics say they doubt the 30-year-old was fit for the job. Federal law requires the leader of OSC to be an attorney who, 'by demonstrated ability, background, training, or experience, is especially qualified to carry out the functions of the position.' Ingrassia graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022. An election denier, Ingrassia hosted a far-right podcast and wrote articles for the right-wing conspiracy website Gateway Pundit, often drawing reposts from Trump himself. 'It is hard to see how someone can argue that a nominee who graduated law school just three years ago and has never worked in this area of the law, is anything other than patently unqualified,' said David Kligerman of Whistleblower Aid, a nonpartisan organization that represents whistleblowers at OSC and other agencies. An avid social media user, Ingrassia posted on X that at the OSC, he 'will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch.' 'Alarm bells are ringing off the hook, not just for the next four years, but this is setting us back 50 years,' said Donald Sherman, the top lawyer for the liberal-leaning watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'Even if his credentials weren't so glaringly unfit for this role, his extreme partisanship would be disqualifying on its own.' White House spokesman Harrison Fields praised Ingrassia's service in the Trump administration and said he'll continue to be an ally. 'The eleventh-hour smear campaign will not deter the President from supporting (Ingrassia's) nomination, and the administration continues to have full confidence in his ability to advance the President's agenda,' Fields told CNN in an email last week. Despite the Trump administration's confidence in OSC, some whistleblowers are already shunning the office. Devine, the accountability lawyer, told CNN that clients of his who say they have witnessed a public health cover-up at the Environmental Protection Agency, and wrongdoing at the Department of Homeland Security on handling child trafficking are reluctant to move forward with their reports because of concerns about the Trump loyalists at OSC. Other lawyers who spoke to CNN said they are suggesting that whistleblowers go to inspectors general instead. That's where former Trump administration official Miles Taylor filed his recent complaints. Taylor claims Trump stripped him of a security clearance and ordered the Justice Department to investigate him as punishment for his anonymous anti-Trump op-ed in 2018 and for campaigning against him in 2020 and 2024. 'Traditional avenues for government whistleblowers to raise concerns have become dangerous,' Taylor told CNN, adding that it's now challenging to discern 'who is friend or foe' at federal agencies. A Democratic congressional source familiar with the matter told CNN they've seen an uptick of whistleblowers coming forward to Congress, compared to the previous session. Rep. Stephen Lynch, the acting top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said, 'if whistleblowers do not feel comfortable reporting wrongdoing to another one of Trump's cronies, our doors are always open.'
Sydney Morning Herald
04-06-2025
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump says he's stamping out antisemitism. Online, he's fanning the flames
In the Oval Office one day last week, President Donald Trump renewed his no-holds-barred attack on the nation's oldest university. 'They're totally antisemitic at Harvard,' he declared. Just 10 hours later, he posted an image of himself striding down a street with the caption, 'He's on a mission from God and nothing can stop what is coming.' Shown in the shadows, watching with approval, was a cartoon figure commonly seen as an antisemitic symbol. The appearance of the figure, the alt-right mascot Pepe the Frog, was the latest example of Trump's extensive history of amplifying white supremacist figures and symbols, even as he now presents himself as a champion for Jewish students oppressed by what he says is a wave of hatred on American college campuses. As a younger man, Trump kept a book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in a cabinet by his bed, according to his first wife. During his first term as president, he expressed admiration for some aspects of the Nazi fuhrer's leadership, according to his chief White House aide at the time. In the past few years, he has dined at his Florida estate with a Holocaust denier, while his New Jersey golf club has hosted events at which a Nazi sympathiser spoke. Since reclaiming the White House, Trump has brought into his orbit and his administration people with records of advancing antisemitic tropes, including a spokesperson at the Pentagon. His vice president, secretary of state and top financial backer have offered support to a far-right German political party that has played down atrocities committed by the Nazis. And just last week, Trump picked a former right-wing podcaster who has defended a prominent white supremacist to head the Office of Special Counsel. Even some prominent critics of Harvard University's handling of antisemitism on its campus find Trump to be an unpalatable and unconvincing ally. In their view, his real motivations in using the power of the federal government to crush Harvard, seen by the political right as a bastion of America's liberal, multicultural order, have little to do with concern about a hostile environment for Jewish students. 'It is hard to see this as anything other than pretextual,' said Lawrence Summers, a former president of Harvard who has accused his university of being slow to denounce antisemitism and faulted its awarding of an honorary degree last week to Elaine Kim, an Israel boycott supporter. 'There are valid grounds [for] challenging Harvard's approach', he added, 'but it is hard to imagine a less credible challenger than President Trump.' He noted top Trump officials' embrace of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, the far-right party classified by the country's intelligence service last month as an extremist organisation for trivialising the Holocaust and reviving Nazi slogans. And he argued that Trump's order barring international students from Harvard would hurt Israeli students more than anything Harvard had done. 'Normalising conspiracy theories' Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a nonprofit group that promotes an inclusive American democracy, said that 'if this administration were serious about countering antisemitism, it would not be appointing antisemitic extremists to senior positions,' and 'it would not be normalising antisemitic conspiracy theories that have fuelled attacks on Jews and others.' The White House rejected criticism of the president's past comments or appointments. 'President Trump has done more than any other president in modern history to stop antisemitic violence and hold corrupt institutions, like Harvard, accountable for allowing anti-American radicalism to escalate,' said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson. Trump has long insisted that he is 'the least antisemitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life', often pointing to his own family as evidence. His daughter Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew and descendant of Holocaust survivors, and the couple are raising their children in the Jewish tradition. 'My father-in-law is not an antisemite,' Kushner said during Trump's first presidential campaign. The president's supporters argue that Trump has a strong record of support for Israel. They cite his decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, his recognition of Israeli authority over the Golan Heights, his support for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and his push for Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. 'Trump, based on some of the people he has met with, is an imperfect carrier of an antisemitic message,' said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for president George W. Bush who sits on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. 'But the actions he has taken and the language he has used to protect the Jewish community are second to none. He is a fierce and strong voice on the side of America's Jewish citizenry.' Last week, Trump named Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency fighting corruption and partisan politics in the federal workforce. Ingrassia has praised white supremacist Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, as 'a real dissident of authoritarianism' and lamented the arrest of Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a Nazi sympathiser who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Ingrassia told public broadcaster NPR last month that he denounces hateful remarks and denied being 'some sort of extremist'. Particularly striking last week was the president's social media post of a manufactured noir image of himself marching down a darkened city street 'on a mission from God'. To the side was Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, has been adopted by alt-right antisemites as a symbol of white supremacy. Loading It is not clear if Trump noticed the Pepe the Frog image in the shadows of the illustration, which was originally posted by a follower of Fuentes. The White House did not respond to a question about why he shared the image or express regret about sharing a post with an antisemitic symbol. Trump has expressed an interest in Hitler. In a 1990 interview, he said he had a copy of Mein Kampf, though his first wife, Ivana Trump, said it was actually My New Order, a collection of Hitler speeches. As president, Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, recalled that Trump said during his first term that 'Hitler did a lot of good things', like bolstering Germany's economy, and complained that American military officers were not loyal enough to him. 'Why can't you be like the German generals?' the president asked, meaning those who reported to Hitler, according to Kelly, a retired Marine general. Trump has denied making those comments or reading Mein Kampf. During his first campaign for president in 2016, Trump was slow to renounce support from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, and posted an image using a Star of David to accuse Hillary Clinton of being corrupted by money. After winning, Trump disturbed many of his own advisers when he said there were 'very fine people on both sides' of a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-bearing marchers chanted, 'Jews will not replace us,' though Trump also denounced neo-Nazis at the time. After leaving office, Trump had dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022 with Fuentes, who attended the Charlottesville rally, and rap star Kanye West, who goes by the name Ye and has repeatedly made antisemitic statements. Fuentes has compared himself to Hitler and expressed hope for 'a total Aryan victory,' while West said shortly after visiting Mar-a-Lago that 'I like Hitler' and that 'Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities'. Trump said he did not know West was bringing Fuentes to dinner, but did not denounce him after learning of his past. Twice last summer, Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, hosted speeches by Hale-Cusanelli, who has posed for pictures looking like Hitler and has said that 'Hitler should have finished the job', according to federal prosecutors. Hale-Cusanelli, who was sentenced to four years in prison for his involvement in the assault on the Capitol before Trump pardoned the attackers, was described in court papers as a 'white supremacist and Nazi sympathiser' who compared Jews to a 'plague of locusts'. The Trump campaign said at the time that Trump did not attend the Bedminster events and was not aware of Hale-Cusanelli or his comments. Hale-Cusanelli has denied being a Nazi sympathiser. Now that he is back in office, Trump has not seen allegations of extremism as disqualifying, even as he accosts Harvard for it. Loading His newly promoted Defence Department press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, has echoed antisemitic extremists who have asserted that Leo Frank, a Jewish man lynched in Georgia in 1915 on what historians have called false charges of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl, really was guilty. She has also endorsed the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory that white Christians are being intentionally supplanted. Ed Martin, who had been chosen by Trump to be the US attorney for Washington, ran into Republican opposition in part because he had hosted Hale-Cusanelli on his podcast, calling him 'an extraordinary man' and giving him an award. In a futile effort to salvage his nomination, Martin apologised and denounced Hale-Cusanelli's comments.
The Age
04-06-2025
- General
- The Age
Trump says he's stamping out antisemitism. Online, he's fanning the flames
In the Oval Office one day last week, President Donald Trump renewed his no-holds-barred attack on the nation's oldest university. 'They're totally antisemitic at Harvard,' he declared. Just 10 hours later, he posted an image of himself striding down a street with the caption, 'He's on a mission from God and nothing can stop what is coming.' Shown in the shadows, watching with approval, was a cartoon figure commonly seen as an antisemitic symbol. The appearance of the figure, the alt-right mascot Pepe the Frog, was the latest example of Trump's extensive history of amplifying white supremacist figures and symbols, even as he now presents himself as a champion for Jewish students oppressed by what he says is a wave of hatred on American college campuses. As a younger man, Trump kept a book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in a cabinet by his bed, according to his first wife. During his first term as president, he expressed admiration for some aspects of the Nazi fuhrer's leadership, according to his chief White House aide at the time. In the past few years, he has dined at his Florida estate with a Holocaust denier, while his New Jersey golf club has hosted events at which a Nazi sympathiser spoke. Since reclaiming the White House, Trump has brought into his orbit and his administration people with records of advancing antisemitic tropes, including a spokesperson at the Pentagon. His vice president, secretary of state and top financial backer have offered support to a far-right German political party that has played down atrocities committed by the Nazis. And just last week, Trump picked a former right-wing podcaster who has defended a prominent white supremacist to head the Office of Special Counsel. Even some prominent critics of Harvard University's handling of antisemitism on its campus find Trump to be an unpalatable and unconvincing ally. In their view, his real motivations in using the power of the federal government to crush Harvard, seen by the political right as a bastion of America's liberal, multicultural order, have little to do with concern about a hostile environment for Jewish students. 'It is hard to see this as anything other than pretextual,' said Lawrence Summers, a former president of Harvard who has accused his university of being slow to denounce antisemitism and faulted its awarding of an honorary degree last week to Elaine Kim, an Israel boycott supporter. 'There are valid grounds [for] challenging Harvard's approach', he added, 'but it is hard to imagine a less credible challenger than President Trump.' He noted top Trump officials' embrace of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, the far-right party classified by the country's intelligence service last month as an extremist organisation for trivialising the Holocaust and reviving Nazi slogans. And he argued that Trump's order barring international students from Harvard would hurt Israeli students more than anything Harvard had done. 'Normalising conspiracy theories' Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a nonprofit group that promotes an inclusive American democracy, said that 'if this administration were serious about countering antisemitism, it would not be appointing antisemitic extremists to senior positions,' and 'it would not be normalising antisemitic conspiracy theories that have fuelled attacks on Jews and others.' The White House rejected criticism of the president's past comments or appointments. 'President Trump has done more than any other president in modern history to stop antisemitic violence and hold corrupt institutions, like Harvard, accountable for allowing anti-American radicalism to escalate,' said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson. Trump has long insisted that he is 'the least antisemitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life', often pointing to his own family as evidence. His daughter Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew and descendant of Holocaust survivors, and the couple are raising their children in the Jewish tradition. 'My father-in-law is not an antisemite,' Kushner said during Trump's first presidential campaign. The president's supporters argue that Trump has a strong record of support for Israel. They cite his decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, his recognition of Israeli authority over the Golan Heights, his support for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and his push for Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. 'Trump, based on some of the people he has met with, is an imperfect carrier of an antisemitic message,' said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for president George W. Bush who sits on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. 'But the actions he has taken and the language he has used to protect the Jewish community are second to none. He is a fierce and strong voice on the side of America's Jewish citizenry.' Last week, Trump named Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency fighting corruption and partisan politics in the federal workforce. Ingrassia has praised white supremacist Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, as 'a real dissident of authoritarianism' and lamented the arrest of Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a Nazi sympathiser who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Ingrassia told public broadcaster NPR last month that he denounces hateful remarks and denied being 'some sort of extremist'. Particularly striking last week was the president's social media post of a manufactured noir image of himself marching down a darkened city street 'on a mission from God'. To the side was Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, has been adopted by alt-right antisemites as a symbol of white supremacy. Loading It is not clear if Trump noticed the Pepe the Frog image in the shadows of the illustration, which was originally posted by a follower of Fuentes. The White House did not respond to a question about why he shared the image or express regret about sharing a post with an antisemitic symbol. Trump has expressed an interest in Hitler. In a 1990 interview, he said he had a copy of Mein Kampf, though his first wife, Ivana Trump, said it was actually My New Order, a collection of Hitler speeches. As president, Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, recalled that Trump said during his first term that 'Hitler did a lot of good things', like bolstering Germany's economy, and complained that American military officers were not loyal enough to him. 'Why can't you be like the German generals?' the president asked, meaning those who reported to Hitler, according to Kelly, a retired Marine general. Trump has denied making those comments or reading Mein Kampf. During his first campaign for president in 2016, Trump was slow to renounce support from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, and posted an image using a Star of David to accuse Hillary Clinton of being corrupted by money. After winning, Trump disturbed many of his own advisers when he said there were 'very fine people on both sides' of a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-bearing marchers chanted, 'Jews will not replace us,' though Trump also denounced neo-Nazis at the time. After leaving office, Trump had dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022 with Fuentes, who attended the Charlottesville rally, and rap star Kanye West, who goes by the name Ye and has repeatedly made antisemitic statements. Fuentes has compared himself to Hitler and expressed hope for 'a total Aryan victory,' while West said shortly after visiting Mar-a-Lago that 'I like Hitler' and that 'Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities'. Trump said he did not know West was bringing Fuentes to dinner, but did not denounce him after learning of his past. Twice last summer, Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, hosted speeches by Hale-Cusanelli, who has posed for pictures looking like Hitler and has said that 'Hitler should have finished the job', according to federal prosecutors. Hale-Cusanelli, who was sentenced to four years in prison for his involvement in the assault on the Capitol before Trump pardoned the attackers, was described in court papers as a 'white supremacist and Nazi sympathiser' who compared Jews to a 'plague of locusts'. The Trump campaign said at the time that Trump did not attend the Bedminster events and was not aware of Hale-Cusanelli or his comments. Hale-Cusanelli has denied being a Nazi sympathiser. Now that he is back in office, Trump has not seen allegations of extremism as disqualifying, even as he accosts Harvard for it. Loading His newly promoted Defence Department press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, has echoed antisemitic extremists who have asserted that Leo Frank, a Jewish man lynched in Georgia in 1915 on what historians have called false charges of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl, really was guilty. She has also endorsed the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory that white Christians are being intentionally supplanted. Ed Martin, who had been chosen by Trump to be the US attorney for Washington, ran into Republican opposition in part because he had hosted Hale-Cusanelli on his podcast, calling him 'an extraordinary man' and giving him an award. In a futile effort to salvage his nomination, Martin apologised and denounced Hale-Cusanelli's comments.
