DOD deputy press secretary has history of tweets with racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories
Kingsley Wilson's social media attracted attention earlier this week when people started resurfacing posts she shared on X in 2023 and 2024, in which she used a talking point widely repeated by antisemitic advocates: that Leo Frank, a Jewish man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl and then lynched by a Georgia mob in 1915, but posthumously pardoned decades later, was in fact guilty. Frank is widely believed to have been falsely accused and unjustly convicted. His case led to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League.
'White supremacists and other antisemites have long used conspiracy theories about the Leo Frank case to cast doubt on the circumstances of the antisemitic lynching of Leo Frank,' the ADL wrote in a statement Wednesday.
'We're deeply disturbed that any public official would parrot these hateful and false conspiracy theories, and we hope Kingsley Wilson will immediately retract her remarks.'
Wilson also has expressed opposition to U.S. military intervention abroad, posting days after the war in Gaza started, 'My future children will not die in foreign ethnic conflicts a world away.' In July, she called NATO 'nothing more than an international HR department.'
She specifically opposed American military support for Israel. At the end of 2024, Wilson wrote, "Why is the U.S. military defending Israel & Ukraine's border but not our own?", and in 2023, replied to an X post by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett: 'Fight your own wars. America First.'
Wilson and the Department of Defense did not immediately reply to NBC News' requests for comment on Wilson's past posts, or whether they represent the views of the Pentagon.
Wilson has also railed against U.S. funding for Ukraine, describing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an 'entitled midget,' and asking, 'Why should American taxpayers help defend Ukraine?' She has also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling his 'encyclopedic knowledge of his people's history beyond impressive.'
On her X account, Wilson has shown support for Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party, mentioning it multiple times along with a German phrase that translates to 'foreigners out.'
She has previously declared 'Make Kosovo Serbia again,' despite Kosovo being officially recognized as an independent state by the U.S. in the years after the two Balkan countries fought a war in the 1990s. Russia does not recognize Kosovo's independence.
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres from New York responded to Wilson's post last week, writing on X that she's 'shamefully attempting to delegitimize Kosovo.'
A significant number of Wilson's past posts on X peddle discredited conspiracy theories, including that Haitians living in the U.S. are 'eating cats' and 'dirt,' as well as the "great replacement theory," the racist belief that ethnic white groups and their culture are being 'replaced' by nonwhite immigrant groups in Western countries.
On Thanksgiving in 2022, she wrote, 'REMINDER: the Native Americans were anything but peaceful before the arrival of white Europeans.'
Wilson has also repeatedly tweeted variations of the sentiment that 'White, Christian males are the most demonized group in modern America,' and argued that women should not be allowed to work as police officers or Secret Service agents. She has also called transgender people 'corrupted souls,' and responded 'not all heroes wear capes' to a man being arrested for vandalizing a LGBTQ pride mural.
The 26-year-old Wilson is the daughter of right-wing commentator and former Trump adviser Steve Cortes. Since graduating high school, she has mixed with conservative politicians and media personalities, snapping photos with Sen. Ted Cruz and appearing on episodes of right-wing commentator Tim Pool's podcast. She worked for the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America and Gettr, the social media platform founded by former Trump aide Jason Miller.
Wilson backed former Rep. Matt Gaetz's nomination for attorney general and traveled with him and his wife Ginger to El Salvador in November. Ginger Gaetz called her 'one of the most articulate voices in politics.'
Some of her past posts have slammed Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In February of last year, Wilson posted on X: 'Republicans are a joke. Only the Executive can save us. Trump 2024.'
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
19 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Trump administration revokes security clearances of 37 current and former government officials
Many of the officials who were targeted left the government years ago after serving in both senior national security positions and lower-profile roles far from the public eye. Some worked on matters that have long infuriated Trump, like the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf. And several signaled their concerns about Trump by signing a critical letter in 2019 that was highlighted on social media last month by right-wing provocateur and close Trump ally Laura Loomer. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The action is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to wield the levers of government against perceived adversaries, and it reflects the president's continued distrust of career intelligence officials he has long seen as working against his interests. Advertisement The revocation of clearances has emerged as a go-to tactic for the administration, a strategy that critics say risks chilling dissenting voices from a national security community accustomed to drawing on a range of viewpoints before formulating an assessment. 'These are unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-settled, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action,' Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement. Advertisement He called it hypocritical for the administration to 'claim these individuals politicized or weaponized intelligence.' Gabbard on Tuesday defended the move, which she said had been directed by Trump. 'Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,' she wrote on X. 'Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.' The security clearance suspension comes amid a broader effort by Gabbard and other Trump administration officials to revisit the intelligence community's assessment on Russian election interference, including by declassifying a series of years-old documents meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of its findings. Multiple government investigations have reached the same conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in sweeping fashion, including through a hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails and a social media campaign aimed at sowing discord and swaying public opinion. But Trump has long resisted the assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in his favor, and his Justice Department has authorized a grand jury investigation that could bring fresh scrutiny to Obama-era officials. Security clearances are important not only for current government workers but also former ones whose private-sector jobs require them to retain access to sensitive information. Stripping clearances from such employees could make it hard for them to do their jobs. On his first day of office, Trump said he would revoke the security clearances of the more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a 'Russian information operation.' Advertisement He's also revoked the clearances of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, and he attempted to do the same for lawyers at a spate of prominent law firms but was rebuffed by federal judges. Some of those who were targeted in the latest action were part of Biden's national security team. Many only learned of the Gabbard action from news reports Tuesday, said two former government officials who were on the list. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity as they ponder whether to take legal action.
UPI
20 minutes ago
- UPI
Trump upset Smithsonian shows 'how bad slavery was'
Aug. 19 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump stepped up his criticisms of the Smithsonian on Tuesday, deriding the museums for its negative portrayal of slavery in American history. Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that he would direct his attorneys to "review" the Smithsonian in the same way his administration has sought to reshape colleges and universities. The post comes a week after the White House announced it was subjecting the influential museum consortium to an unprecedented examination of its materials, signaling it had become a focal point in Trump's efforts to transform cultural institutions. In his post, Trump wrote that museums all over the country are the "last remaining segment of 'woke.'" "The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been -- Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future," Trump wrote. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., reacted with a post on X, writing that if "Trump thinks slavery wasn't bad, he clearly needs to spend more time in a museum." Roughly 17 million people visited one of the Smithsonian's 21 museums and galleries last year. Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, who is the first African American to lead the institution and has held the position since 2019, has previously commented on the importance of acknowledging slavery's impact on American history. "I believe strongly that you cannot understand America without understanding slavery, that our notions of freedom, our notions of liberty are juxtaposed with our notions of enslavement," he said in an interview on Face the Nation in 2021. "And so I think that it's not about pointing blame, it's not about remembering difficult moments just to hurt." Last week, three White House aides wrote to Bunch in a letter notifying him the museum would be subject to a review to "ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions." The reshaping of the Smithsonian and its galleries and museums has been part the Trump administration's goal to remove left-leaning ideology from the federal government and cultural institutions. In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the Smithsonian to eliminate "divisive" and "anti-American ideology" from its museums, pointing to exhibits that "promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive." He also named himself chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, seemingly in opposition to its having hosted performances he disagreed with for promoting so-called woke ideology. The move prompted many performances and performers to cancel shows.
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
White House joins TikTok after delaying enforcement of sale-or-ban law
The White House launched a TikTok account on Tuesday amid uncertainty about the app's future, as another deadline approaches for its parent company, Bytedance, to sell to a US buyer or be banned in the United States. President Donald Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline of a sale-or-ban law passed under former President Joe Biden's administration, with the new deadline less than a month away on September 17. The latest delay in June kept the app accessible for its 170 million American users, despite the legislation that passed last year with bipartisan support over concerns that TikTok's Chinese ownership poses a US national security risk. And it came as both the United States and China sought leverage in tense trade talks. TikTok's ultimate fate in the US remains unclear, but the official White House account is a signal the app could be here to stay. The first post on the official White House TikTok account features video of Trump as he says, 'Every day, I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation. I am your voice.' The post's caption reads, 'America we are BACK! What's up TikTok?' As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, shortly after launching, the account had garnered more than 20,000 followers. This is the administration's first official TikTok account. Both Trump and Biden launched accounts during the 2024 presidential campaign, drawing scrutiny as the leaders had previously raised national security concerns with the app. TikTok doesn't operate in China, but the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction. The US government has said it's worried China could use its national security laws to access the significant amount of personal information that TikTok, like most social media applications, collects from its US users. The TikTok sale-or-ban law went into effect on January 19 after Biden signed it last year. TikTok briefly took itself offline, sparking outcry from creators, but quickly came back after Trump signed an order delaying the ban's enforcement by 75 days in one of the first acts of his second term. The president's June delay marked his third extension of the ban.
