A leaked trove of emails shows senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller (pictured July 2019) appearing to promote white supremacist views (Brendan Smialowski)
<p>Washington (AFP) – Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump’s most radical advisors, is known for his unswerving defense of a resolutely anti-immigrant policy.</p><p>But a recently leaked trove of emails also shows him appearing to promote white supremacist views — prompting 25 Jewish members of Congress to demand his dismissal.</p><p>In a letter dated Friday, the lawmakers — all Democrats — wrote, "As Jewish members of Congress, we are calling on you to immediately relieve White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller of all government responsibilities and dismiss him from your administration."</p><p>They added, "His documented support for white nationalist and virulently anti-immigrant tropes is wholly unacceptable." </p><p>More than 100 Democratic members of Congress had issued a similar plea after the emails were published last month by a non-profit association that monitors hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center. </p><p>In all, the SPLC obtained more than 900 emails sent in 2015 and 2016 by Miller to editors at the far-right Breitbart news website. </p><p>In the messages — whose authenticity Miller has not denied — he notably shares links to far-right websites and asserts a causal connection between immigrants and violence. </p><p>He urges the Breitbart editors to call attention to "The Camp of the Saints," a 1973 dystopian novel by French author Jean Raspail popular in far-right white nationalist circles.</p><p>It paints a dark story of mass migration from the Third World leading to the destruction of Western civilization. </p><p>Raspail’s thesis is reminiscent of the so-called Great Replacement theory popular among the far-right: that the white European population is being steadily replaced by darker-skinned non-European immigrants.</p><p>"I was horrified by those emails and the content, but unfortunately I was not surprised," Kim Schrier, a Democrat from Washington state who was among the 25 signatories of the most recent protest letter, told NPR radio. </p><p>"I don’t think any of us was surprised to hear that so much of the rhetoric" from Miller "was rooted in anti-Semitic, white nationalist rhetoric."</p><p>The fact that Miller himself is Jewish changes nothing, Schrier added.</p><p>"His behavior can still be white nationalist and anti-Semitic," the congresswoman said. "It is hate-speak, and it is wrong, no matter who it comes from."</p><p>Miller was an architect of the presidential decree barring nationals of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the US — one of the most controversial episodes of the Trump presidency. </p><p>For that and other reasons — including his equating of white nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, with anti-racist demonstrators — Trump has been accused of racism and xenophobia, charges he has categorically rejected.</p><p></p><p>- ‘Proud to be American’ -</p><p></p><p>Miller appears to have taken the controversy in stride. On Fox News, the president’s favorite TV network, Miller insisted that the emails simply provided proof of his patriotism.</p><p>"There’s nothing wrong in any of my emails… unless being proud to be American and standing up for American citizens is a crime."</p><p>Attempting to turn the tables, he suggested that the Democrats’ calls for his dismissal aimed merely to "cover up the fact that there is… this vein of anti-Semitism that pulses through the Democratic Party."</p><p>But Democratic lawmakers are not the only ones denouncing Miller’s views. </p><p>Last year, the rabbi of the California synagogue where Miller’s family once worshiped, Neil Comess-Daniels, sharply criticized the Miller-influenced policy of separating migrant children from their families at the border with Mexico.</p><p>"From the Jewish perspective, the parent-child relationship is sacrosanct," he said in a sermon quoted by American news media. "Disrupting it is cruel. Mr Miller, the policy you helped to conceive and put into practice is cruel."</p><p>Katie McHugh, the former Breitbart journalist who released Miller’s emails, went even further.</p><p>Describing herself in a CNN interview as a repentant former white nationalist, she said that Miller is "a white supremacist, I would say, because I believe his ideology is one of domination and control over people of color."</p><p>When the emails were published in November, the White House came to Miller’s defense.</p><p>A presidential spokesman, Hogan Gidley, asked why "so many on the left consistently attack Jewish members of this administration."</p><p></p>

Disclaimer: Validity of the above story is for 7 Days from original date of publishing. Source: AFP.