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Forbes
Forbes
Business
Rachel Sandler, Forbes Staff

White House Defends Advisor Over Leaked Emails, While Progressive Democrats Demand He Resign

Topline: As the White House defends him amid cries for his resignation by progressive Democrats, controversial Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller faced new scrutiny over emails he sent in 2015 and 2016, obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, that allegedly show him cozying up to white nationalist ideas and an anti-Muslim extremist.

  • The emails were leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center by Katie McHugh, a former Breitbart editor turned critic of the far right.

  • The emails were sent while Miller was an aide to then-Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and before Miller joined the Trump administration in 2016. 

  • While Miller has not commented on the report (and did not reply to a request from Forbes), White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham attacked the credibility of the Southern Poverty Law Center in a statement to Axios: “We have not seen the report. The SPLC, however, is an utterly-discredited, long-debunked far-left smear organization . . . . They libel, slander, and defame conservatives for a living. They are beneath public discussion.”

  • SPLC has been criticized by right-wing pundits for labeling organizations or people who they see as innocent as hate groups or racists.
  • Elizabeth Moore, a spokesperson for Breitbart, dismissed the report in a comment to the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying, “The SPLC claims to have three- to four-year-old emails, many previously reported on, involving an individual whom we fired years ago for a multitude of reasons, and you now have an even better idea why we fired her.”
  • McHugh was fired by Breitbart in June 2107 because of anti-Muslim tweets.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the emails show:

  • Miller sent McHugh links to articles on white nationalist, far-right or conspiracy-laden websites, including VDARE, American Renaissance, InfoWars and Resettlement Watch.

  • He focused his efforts trying to shape Breitbart stories about immigration and crime committed by non-white people. 

  • Miller recommended that McHugh read a book called Camp of the Saints, which is praised by white nationalists for fictionalizing the myth that white people are being “replaced” by non-white people. 
  • Miller decried Amazon’s decision to remove products with Confederate flags following the 2015 massacre at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, perpetrated by Dylann Roof (“Have you thought about going to Amazon and finding the commie flags and then doing a story on that?” Miller said, according to the emails).
  • Miller wanted McHugh to focus on the race of the shooter who killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in 2015 after he was found to have espoused alt-right beliefs, asking her to emphasize he was “mixed race” and born in England. 
  • Miller conveyed to McHugh that he was discussing story ideas with notorious anti-Muslim pundit Pamela Geller. 
  • Miller praised legislation passed by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924 that limited immigration and completely barred migrants from Asia. 

Key background: Miller was appointed as a senior advisor to Trump after he was elected in 2016 and has since sought to quietly influence the president’s immigration policy. He is behind Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, which he has fervently defended and which led to the separation of families at the U.S./Mexico border and the travel ban against people from some Muslim-majority countries. He has previously denied that he holds racist views, after promoting policies against both illegal and legal immigration. “It is a scurrilous and scandalous lie born of a complete and total lack of understanding of the harms done by uncontrolled migration to people of all backgrounds,” Miller told the Washington Post in August, when asked to respond to those accusing him of being racist. 

Chief critics: Some progressive Democrats, including Representatives Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are calling for Miller to step down. 

“This type of racism and hatred has no place in our government. Miller needs to step down. Now,” Omar tweeted.

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