Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who for years has promoted and appeared with white nationalists, voted Thursday to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, citing... what he called “her sustained racism and anti-semitism.”
On that front, Gosar’s own record is unparalleled: In February 2021, he spoke at a political conference hosted by the white nationalist Nick Fuentes ― known today as the political adviser of the antisemitic rapper Ye. At the event, Gosar praised the crowd, telling them that “a nation without a people is not a nation.”
Fuentes, following Gosar, told his audience: “White people are done being bullied!”
The following day, Fuentes posted a picture to his Twitter account of him and Gosar getting coffee together. A few days later, Gosar tweeted a meme that included the motto of Fuentes’ white nationalist group.
Even after a public outcry, Gosar appeared at the same conference a year later, this time in a pre-recorded video. (He subsequently said the appearance was due to a miscommunication.) At that conference, Fuentes remarked: “Now, [the media is] going and saying, ‘Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler,’ as if that isn’t a good thing.”
Following the event, Gosar claimed he was done “dealing with Nick.” But he wasn’t: In September, he tweeted a link to a documentary about Fuentes, with a comment about “the persecution against Christians and Conservatives by the Biden Regime.” He eventually deleted the tweet.
In an email to constituents Thursday explaining his vote to boot Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Gosar falsely said the congresswoman “has expressed a deep hatred for Jewish people and Israel.”
“Representative Omar has pursued a reckless and fundamentally anti-American agenda while in the United States House of Representatives,” Gosar wrote. “She regularly engages with racists, supports and condones racism, and champions anti-American sentiments.”
Gosar’s email, and the Republican resolution he voted on to expel Omar from the committee, cited a handful of tweets and comments from the congresswoman, such as a tweet in which she said U.S. politicians’ support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins baby.” (Omar later apologized for the remark.) Gosar also cited a public appearance in which Omar said, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” comparing pro-Israel lobbying efforts to those of the National Rifle Association and the fossil fuel industry.
Gosar’s ties to white nationalists go back years. In 2019, he was following explicit white nationalists on his personal Twitter page ― accounts with names like @TradNatWife88 (“88” is a common white nationalist code for “Heil Hitler”). One account that Gosar followed published tweets like “We need a leader who can rile the masses of Whites with their eye’s [sic] closed,” and “Wherever there’s n[******] they’ll be n[******].”
More recently, Gosar has tweeted (and then deleted) support for former President Donald Trump’s call for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution. He has also tweeted a video of an animated version of himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Despite that behavior, Republicans, led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have restored Gosar to committee assignments after Democrats in the previous House majority voted to kick him off various committees.
Gosar’s office didn’t respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.