President Donald Trump is set to hire a conservative journalist who was fired as a White House speechwriter during his first term, according to ABC News.
Darren Beattie was let go in 2018 after it was discovered that he had spoken at a conference linked to white nationalists, The Washington Post reported at the time.
Beattie, who has made unproven claims about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, could become acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State Department as early as Monday.
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On Donald Trump Jr.’s Triggered With Don Jr. podcast last month, Beattie claimed that the FBI has knowledge about pipe bombs left in congressional offices and accused former President Joe Biden of misleading the public and organizing a cover-up of Jan. 6.
On Beattie’s news website, Revolver News, recent stories allege that the D.C. plane crash was intentionally manufactured and that former President Barack Obama rigged court cases.
The former Trump staffer’s new post in the administration is a key role that oversees the State Department’s “overall public outreach and press strategies,” ABC News report.
Beattie was previously rehired by Trump late in his first term after his earlier firing. He was appointed to serve a three-year term starting in November 2020 as part of a task force responsible for preserving sites linked to the Holocaust.
The Anti-Defamation League said at the time that it was “absolutely outrageous” that Beattie was appointed to the position as “someone who has consorted with racists.”
“The ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats,” Beattie told The New York Times in response. “As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader, Jonathan Greenblatt.”
Beattie had already previously struck back against accusations he “consorted with racists.”
In a statement to The Washington Post in 2018, Beattie defended his appearance at a conference in 2018 alongside Peter Brimelow, an American-British writer who published articles by “those who aim to defend the interests of whites” on his website VDare.com.
“In 2016 I attended the Mencken conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled ‘The Intelligentsia and the Right.’ I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely.”
“It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent. I have no further comment.”
