County GOP in Kentucky Posts Wildly Anti-Semitic Comments About Biden Nominee and ‘The Jewish Junta’ on Official Facebook Page
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
A Republican Party organization in Kentucky reacted to the Senate confirmation of Steve Dettelbach as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by calling it a win for “the Jewish junta.
Dettelbach’s confirmation was a contentious one. Republicans seized on comments he made as a Democratic candidate for Ohio attorney general in 2018. During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked about his past statements about wanting to ban assault weapons.
“When I was a candidate for office, I did talk about restrictions on assault weapons.,” Dettelbach told him. “I did not define the term. And I haven’t gone through the process of defining that term.”
The Senate confirmed him by a vote of 48-46 on Tuesday. On Friday, the Bracken County Republican Party posted a wildly anti-Semitic message on its Facebook page pointing out that Dettelbach is Jewish while also claiming, “The Jewish junta is getting stronger and more aggressive.” The post also took Republican Sens. Ben Sasse (NE) and Jim Risch (ID) to task for not voting, with the post referring to the latter as “Risich”:
A Jewish anti-gun activist, Steve Dettelbach, has just been made director of the ATF. The Jewish junta is getting stronger and more aggressive.
He won the nomination 48 to 46, thanks to two Republican Senators voting for him (Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio), as well as Ben Sasse (Nebraska) and Risich [sic] of Idaho not even showing up to vote — an obvious tactical choice since they don’t want to have to explain it to their heavily rural gun loving voters in the future.
Sasse and Risich [sic] could’ve caused a tie and forced Biden to have to send Kamala Harris to break it. Could’ve been a huge publicity moment for the GOP as midterms near, but they passed on it. It’s obvious they want to move on from having to defend gun owners.
The post was first reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal. The Bracken County GOP removed it after being contacted about it by a reporter from the paper.
“Earlier today, I was made aware of an inappropriate post on the Bracken County GOP Facebook page,” the GOP county chair wrote on Facebook. “That post does not represent the values of the Bracken County Republican Party. It was incredibly insensitive. We will investigate how this occurred and we commit to tighter oversight of our social media going forward.”
