Jewish groups condemn deputy Pentagon press secretary over X post
The American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned deputy Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson over social media posts they described as antisemitic.
“Anyone who posts antisemitic conspiracy theories lifted right out of the neo-Nazi playbook should not be in public office,” the American Jewish Committee wrote in a Wednesday post on the social platform X.
“Kingsley Wilson, newly appointed @DepPressSecDOD, is clearly unfit for her role,” they added.
The comments from the committee and ADL come after Wilson criticized the ADL for their decision to condemn the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who the ADL says was falsely convicted for the murder of a 13-year-old in 1913.
“Leo Frank raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl. He also tried to frame a Black man for his crime,” Wilson wrote in August of last year.
“The ADL turned off the comments because they want to gaslight you,” she continued.
The organization did not respond to her comments publicly but did condemn her post as a “false conspiracy theory,” urging her to retract the remarks.
“We are deeply disturbed that any public official would parrot these hateful and false conspiracy theories and we hope Kingsley Wilson will immediately retract her remarks,” the ADL said in a statement to Jewish Insider when asked about her posts.
The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to The Hill’s requests for comment.
Wilson has denounced the Pentagon’s decision to send troops to Lebanon in an effort to ease tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, and she blasted the Biden administration for their financial support of Ukraine in their war against Russia. She has also urged the U.S. to stay out of “foreign ethnic conflicts.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have disapproved of Wilson’s rhetoric online.
“I’m not gonna tell them who to hire, but I do know that Trump doesn’t believe any of the things she’s talking about, and I’ll leave it up to them to determine if they think she’s the right spokesperson,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Politico.
“If what you say about these posts are true, then she’s completely off-script with President Trump,” he continued.
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.) described Wilson’s words as “historical revisionism.”
“Kingsley Wilson, the Deputy Press Secretary for the Department of Defense, is shamefully attempting to delegitimize Kosovo, which has been the single greatest American ally in the Western Balkans,” Torres wrote on X.
“No amount of historical revisionism can change the fundamental fact that Kosovo is and will always be an independent democracy.”
Read more at The Hill
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