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Over 80 members of the House of Representatives have now called on White House senior adviser Stephen Miller to resign after leaked emails published this week showed his affinity for white nationalism.
HuffPost contacted the office of every House member and asked whether Miller should resign. All told, over 80 representatives, all Democrats, have said he should.
“Hell yes,” responded Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.).
“I feel pretty secure in my belief that flaming white nationalists should have no place in the White House, the halls of Congress or anywhere, for that matter,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).
“A person with his hateful beliefs should not be making decisions at the highest levels of our government,” said Mark Takano (D-Calif.). “He should resign, and if he doesn’t, he should be fired.”
The widespread calls for Miller’s resignation echoed demands Thursday by leaders of the Black Congressional Progressive Caucus, Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, and the Asian Pacific American Caucus.
“As documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Stephen Miller has embedded himself in white nationalist doctrine for years, including promoting racist propaganda from fringe sites like VDARE and InfoWars,” the Democratic caucus leaders said in a joint statement calling for Miller’s resignation.
“And as the chief architect of the Muslim Ban and cruel family separation policies, Stephen Miller has spent the last three years turning his bigotry into policy – with President Trump’s blessing.”
He should resign, and if he doesn’t, he should be fired.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
On Tuesday, the civil rights advocacy organization Southern Poverty Law Center published the first of a series of bombshell reports analyzing 900 emails Miller sent to former Breitbart writer Katie McHugh in 2015 and 2016. They show Miller, working at the time for then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), attempting to shape Breitbart’s political coverage, namely regarding stories related to race and immigration.
In some emails, Miller informed Breitbart of stories published by white supremacist website VDARE and racist conspiracy theory website InfoWars — and then suggested how Breitbart might promote them.
In another email, Miller recommended that Breitbart write about the deeply racist 1970s French novel “Camp of Saints,” which depicts brown immigrants — including Indians who “eat feces” — descending upon Europe like a plague, killing people and raping women. The novel is a favorite among neo-Nazis and other assorted fascists.
In all 900 emails, SPLC reporter Michael Hayden noted he was “unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.”
Miller went on to work for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign before being selected as a senior adviser in the White House, where he’s often credited with crafting the administration’s cruel immigration policies.
“Stephen Miller, Trump’s architect of mass human rights abuses at the border (including child separation & detention camps w/ child fatalities) has been exposed as a bonafide white nationalist,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted on Tuesday. “He’s still at the White House shaping US immigration policy. Miller must resign. Now.”
“Each day we allow a white nationalist to be in charge of US immigration policy is a day where thousands of children & families lives are in danger,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in another tweet. “This year alone, under Miller’s direction, the US has put almost 70,000 children in custody.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted: “As I said earlier this year: Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. And now we have the emails to prove it. This type of racism and hatred has no place in our government. Miller needs to step down. Now.”
The White House did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the calls for Miller to resign or whether the president might fire Miller.
“Unfortunately, we know that President Trump, who said that there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, welcomes his racist views to help sow hate and division in America,” Takano told HuffPost.
In a statement to Axios, White House spokesperson Stephanie Grisham called the Southern Poverty Law Center “an utterly-discredited, long-debunked far-left smear organization.”
“They libel, slander, and defame conservatives for a living,” said Grisham, providing no evidence that the SPLC’s story about Miller is false.
Another White House official anonymously attempted to accuse the SPLC of anti-Semitism.
“This is clearly a form of anti-Semitism to levy these attacks against Jewish staffer,” the unnamed official told Axios.
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who thinks Miller should resign, noted in a statement to HuffPost that the White House adviser “is damn lucky that there wasn’t someone like him in charge at Ellis Island when his great-grandfather sought refuge in this country after fleeing Eastern Europe to escape persecution by the Nazis.”
“Having someone like him in a powerful position at the White House sends a very bad message to Americans and the world,” Wilson said.
Here’s the list of congresspeople who have called for Miller’s resignation so far:
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.)
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)
Rep. Raúl Manuel Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.)
Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.)
Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.)
Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.)
Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.)
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.)
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.)
Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.)
Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.)
Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.)
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.)
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.)
Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.)
Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.)
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.)
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.)
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.)
Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Fla.)
Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.)
Rep. Jesús G. García (D-Ill.)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.)
Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.)
Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)
Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.)
Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.)
Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.)
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.)
Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.)
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.)
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)
Rep. David Price (D-N.C.)
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.)
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.)
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.)
Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.)
Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.)
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Nydia Margarita Velázquez (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio)
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.)
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)
Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.)
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas)
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas)
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas)
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas)
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas)
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)
Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.)
This story has been updated to note that additional lawmakers have called on Miller to resign.
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