In 2018, Darren Beattie was fired as a White House speechwriter after it was discovered that he attended a conference with white supremacist speakers. Now, President Donald Trump has nominated Beattie to serve on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, a group that identifies and preserves cemeteries and historic buildings in Europe, including those used to slaughter Jews during the Holocaust.
Beattie was originally fired after CNN revealed that he had attended the H.L. Mencken Club in 2016 and appeared on a panel with Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigrant site VDare, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as a “hate website.”
If appointed, Beattie would serve on the commission for three years, well into the administration of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
“It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials in Europe,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a pro-Jewish group. “We urge the administration to rescind his appointment immediately.”
In his own defense, Beattie has said that he himself didn’t speak about race at the panel and that the conference has iced out white supremacists.
“The ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats,” Beattie said in a recent statement. “As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader, Jonathan Greenblatt.”