This guy worked for DHS. This is really bad stuff:
“Smith responded to a group dinner invitation whose host said his home would be ‘judenfrei,’ a German word used by the Nazis (…) to describe territory that had been ‘cleansed’ of Jews. Smith replied, ‘They don’t call it Freitag for nothing.”
Ian M. Smith, the former Department of Homeland Security policy analyst revealed on Tuesday to have connected with white supremacists in a low-key DC social scene, also attended senior level policy meetings in the White House with Stephen Miller and others, reports WaPo today in a follow-up piece to the Atlantic’s Tuesday report.
From the Washington Post:
The policy office Smith was assigned to was badly understaffed, with several vacant positions, former colleagues said. On repeat occasions, they said, Smith attended immigration meetings at the White House convened by senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller, attending at times in place of his supervisor, Michael Dougherty, the DHS assistant secretary for border, immigration and trade policy.
Smith did not provide significant input at these meetings, and attended primarily as a placeholder for his boss, according to one official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel matter.
Miller, Trump’s most influential adviser on immigration, is known for holding frequent meetings with DHS staff to discuss policy implementation and coordinate public messaging. Miller did not respond to requests for comment, and there is no indication he worked closely with Smith or was aware of his associations with white supremacists.
Former co-workers said Smith did not express extremist views on the job and mostly kept to himself while at work. “He’d done a lot of writing, and seemed like a quiet, thoughtful guy — a policy nerd,” said one ex-colleague.
“Smith would have had to pass a background check for his security clearance, which typically includes an in-person interview during which he would likely have been asked about any associations with extremist groups,” the WaPo reports.
Unfortunately, the craziest extremist group in America right now is headquartered in the White House by Donald J. Trump.