A foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump
Donald John TrumpKobach agrees to recuse himself from vote counting in Kansas GOP primary NFL players kneel during national anthem before first preseason game Schiff blasts GOP for Russia probe conduct: 'That's how you obstruct an investigation, not how you conduct one' MORE is facing allegations of anti-Semitism, according to a new report.
Joseph Schmitz was accused of boasting about firing Jews and downplaying the Holocaust while serving as inspector general for the Department of Defense (DOD), McClatchy reported Thursday. Two separate complaints against Schmitz alleged anti-Semitic comments.
“His summary of his tenure’s achievement [is] reported as '...I fired the Jews,’” wrote Meyer, a former official in the Pentagon inspector general’s office whose complaint was obtained by McClatchy.
“In his final days, he allegedly lectured Mr. Crane on the details of concentration camps and how the ovens were too small to kill six million Jews,” Meyer added while detailing Schmitz’s alleged remarks to John Crane.
McClatchy said Meyer’s complaint is before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and describes incidents occurring a decade ago.
A federal official with knowledge of the incident told McClatchy that Crane testified under oath about the remarks Schmitz allegedly made.
Crane, a former assistant DOD inspector general, resigned in 2013 when he learned he was going to be fired after an administrative inquiry. He filed a whistleblower disclosure saying retaliation forced him out, McClatchy reported. That disclosure is still before the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates such complaints.
Schmitz on Tuesday said he has never made anti-Semitic remarks and blamed Crane as the source of “completely false and defamatory” rumors about him.
“I do not recall ever even hearing of any ‘allegations of anti-Semitism against [me],’ which would be preposterously false and defamatory because, among other reason(s), I am quite proud of the Jewish heritage of my wife of 38 years.”
Schmitz told McClatchy his wife is “ethnically Jewish” because of her maternal grandmother.
David Tenenbaum, an Army engineer at the Tank Automotive Command (TACOM) in Warren, Mich., also alleges anti-Semitism from Schmitz in a letter this week to Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine, according to McClatchy.
Tenenbaum claims current and former Pentagon officials helped create an anti-Semitic culture within the military that left him vulnerable.
“The anti-Semitic environment began under a prior inspector general, Mr. Joseph Schmitz,” the letter from Tenenbaum’s lawyer, Mayer Morganroth of Birmingham, Mich., states.
Morganroth’s letter echoes allegations Schmitz made anti-Semitic comments, citing a “sworn statement” from an unnamed source knowledgeable of the Tenenbaum case.
Trump announced Schmitz as one of five foreign policy advisers in March despite controversy surrounding his tenure at the Pentagon.
Schmitz was accused of stonewalling congressional investigations during former President George W. Bush’s administration. He was cleared of the allegations before resigning his post in September 2005.
