Trump's lawyer forwards email that 'validates' president's stance on Charlottesville
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An email forwarded by President Donald Trump's personal lawyer stated that there’s no difference between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and George Washington, and that the protest group Black Lives Matter has been infiltrated by terrorist organizations.
John Dowd forwarded the email to more than two dozen recipients, including a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security and staff at the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the Washington Times, the New York Times reports.
The email originally came from Jerome Almon, who reportedly runs several websites alleging government conspiracies including one in which the FBI has been infiltrated by Islamic terrorists.
Among the similarities of Lee and Washington outlined in the email were slave ownership and rebelling against a ruling government. Titled “Information that Validates President Trump on Charlottesville,” the email also advocated protecting monuments honoring Confederate soldiers, according to the Washington Post.
Dowd forwarded the email after after Trump stated that “both sides” were to blame for the violence Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a 32-year-old paralegal dead.
“You’re sticking your nose in my personal email? People send me things. I forward them,” Dowd told the New York Times in a phone interview, before hanging up.
The 76-year-old attorney told the Washington Post that he “shares a lot of things with people” and it was unfair to assume that he shared the views expressed in the email.
Almon told the New York Times that he sent Dowd the email last week, following up on a phone call where he claimed to have offered Dowd damaging information about former FBI investigator James B. Comey, who was fired by Trump on May 9.
Almon, who is black, told the newspaper that his email also stated that protesters should “go back to the ghettos and do raise their children and rebuild places like Detroit.”
