The Congressional Jewish Caucus demanded that Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, address remarks by his press secretary that the lawmakers said are antisemitic.
The House members aimed their fire at Kingsley Wilson, whose comments before she joined the Trump administration and ascended to the top press job at the Pentagon have drawn fire from members of Congress.
“These remarks are not isolated or ambiguous and have long been associated with violence and hate,” the lawmakers wrote to Hegseth on Tuesday.
“Their presence boldly and unrepentantly plastered in the public record of a senior department official raises serious questions about the department’s commitment to opposing extremism and antisemitism,’ the lawmakers said.
A Pentagon spokesperson wouldn’t comment on the letter from the lawmakers. The spokesperson, who declined to be named, told JNS, “As with all congressional correspondence, we will respond directly to the author of the letter.”
The lawmakers quoted Wilson as saying that Leo Frank “raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl” and “tried to frame a black man for his crime.”
A Georgia mob convicted Frank, who was Jewish, and lynched him in 1915, in a case that historians believe was fueled by antisemitism. Frank, who was killed at 31, later received a posthumous pardon.
The lawmakers also said that Wilson insisted that the Great Replacement Theory, which holds Jews are trying to replace white Christians with people of color and which the gunman who murdered Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 embraced, “isn’t a conspiracy” and “already happened.”
She also used the slogan, “Ausländer Raus,” which is banned in Germany because of its Nazi connections, per the lawmakers.
In the letter, the lawmakers called on Hegseth to answer whether these comments are acceptable under Pentagon standards, whether the secretary finds them acceptable and how the department has responded to antisemitic remarks in the past. (The Pentagon told JNS on June 17 that it was suspending and investigating a branch chief at the Joint Chiefs of Staff after JNS reported that the person had a history of antisemitic comments.)
Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Calif.) led the letter, which 20 other Jewish Democratic members of the caucus signed.
“We urge the department to affirm its responsibility to uphold the highest ethical standards,” the lawmakers wrote. “That includes an unambiguous commitment to confronting and unequivocally condemning antisemitism, especially within its own ranks, and ensuring that individuals who promote hate are quickly and appropriately held accountable.”
This wasn’t the first time that Wilson’s comments came under fire.
The American Jewish Committee told JNS in May that her remarks were disqualifying for the job, and in March, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) told Hegseth to fire her.
“Doing a basic search through her social media history, it is clear that her record is a minefield of antisemitic rhetoric, white nationalist conspiracies and pro-Kremlin propaganda, making her unfit for any position of public trust, let alone one at the high levels of the Pentagon press shop,” the pro-Israel congressman stated at the time.