The "Camp Auschwitz" Apologist Is Upset About People "Tearing Things Up"

Don't ever forget whom Donald Trump holds up as patriots

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, CEO of

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and the expert on how disinformation is poisoning our politics. Nina has been personally targeted — both politically and physically — for exposing foreign and domestic disinformation. She is one of the most courageous public servants I have ever met. I am really looking forward to our discussion.

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Speaking of Disinformation

Remember Robert Keith Packer? He’s the guy who chose to wear a black hoodie with “Camp Auschwitz” emblazoned above a white Nazi SS skull when he stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Below that skull was the phrase “WORK BRINGS FREEDOM,” which is the English translation of “Arbeit macht frei,” the slogan affixed to the front gates of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.

(Photo: U.S. Department of Justice)

How about January 6th insurrectionist Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli, who has a penchant for sporting a Hitler mustache and who expressed some interesting views while serving as a Navy contractor? Here’s CNN:

Colleagues told Navy investigators that Hale-Cusanelli made near-daily comments against Jews, advocated for killing newborn babies with disabilities and had “issues with women,” according to court filings. Prosecutors said they found racist memes on his phone, including one with the n-word, one that compared Black people to animals, and one insulting George Floyd…

…Another naval officer recalled that Hale-Cusanelli said, “Hitler should have finished the job.”

Prosecutors also found evidence that they said proved Hale-Cusanelli’s extremist views after searching his phone. They found a video where he allegedly pushed the conspiracy theory that “the Jews did 9/11,” and another clip where he allegedly said, “I hate immigrants…intensely.”

As his first act of business upon regaining the White House, Donald Trump pardoned both Packer and Hale-Cusanelli — along with more than a thousand other insurrectionists, many of whom had prior criminal records ranging from child rape to domestic violence to assaulting police officers.

So my head nearly exploded when I heard Secretary of State Marco Rubio say this about Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University PhD student who was detained by federal agents in Somerville, Massachusetts, stripped of her student visa and shipped off to a detention facility in Louisiana:

"If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus -- we're not going to give you a visa.”

Öztürk is a fifth-year PhD student and Fulbright scholar, whose research focuses on how young adults can use social media positively. According to Tufts, the university was notified that her “visa was cancelled because she was a ‘non-immigrant status violator’ (citing 237 (a)(1)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act) and/or that the United States believed that her presence in the country would result in “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” (citing 237 (a)(4)(C)(i)).”

What “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” was Öztürk posing? Here is her alleged “crime":

Öztürk co-authored an op-ed urging Tufts to honor resolutions passed by the Community Union Senate to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, apologize for University President Sunil Kumar’s statements, disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”

I invite you to read the op-ed in full because it is so bland as to be almost timid. It does nothing more than urge the Tufts Administration to listen to its student government. That’s it. That’s as “radical” as it gets.

You don’t have to agree with Öztürk’s views to understand the absurdity of this situation. Like a Kafka protagonist, she must be sitting in that Louisiana detention facility wondering what she did to end up there. We should all be wondering the same thing.

Let’s put this in its proper context: a guy wearing a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt and another who believes “Hitler should have finished the job” — both of whom were tried by a jury of their peers for vandalizing the halls of Congress, harassing members of Congress, taking over the Capitol building and creating a ruckus (to say the least) — were given a full and unconditional pardon by Donald Trump. So were more than 1,500 others.

These insurrectionists are not just walking around free, though many of them were sentenced to prison terms. Now, Trump is openly discussing the idea of compensating them for trying to harm his former vice president, members of the legislative branch and Capitol police officers. Here’s Politico:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday floated the possibility of financial compensation for people who were prosecuted for taking part in the riot at the Capitol in 2021.

Speaking to Newsmax on Tuesday night, Trump said he had taken “care” of his supporters who attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss and added there is “talk” about compensating them.

Meanwhile, a PhD student who did nothing more than ask her university to honor resolutions passed by the student senate is, according to Rubio, involved in a movement that is so dangerous that she must be snatched off the street by plain-clothed federal agents, shoved into the back of an unmarked vehicle and sent to a federal detention facility thousands of miles from home.

If we are now locking people up for holding beliefs antithetical to this Administration’s worldview, what do we make of Trump’s decision to pardon, praise and possibly compensate men who walk around in Nazi-branded gear, spouting anti-semitic tropes, hoping to murder disabled newborns, comparing Black people to animals and wishing that Hitler had finished off every Jew on earth? Where is the grandiose speech from a cabinet official condemning them?

Do not turn away from this. And do not, for one moment, ever forget whom Donald Trump holds up as patriots, even as he locks up students for doing nothing more than exercising their right to free speech.

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Further Reading

Photo by NegiPho on Unsplash

NBC News: Jan. 6 rioter in 'Camp Auschwitz' hoodie sentenced to 75 days in prison

Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum: The Original Arbeit macht frei Inscription is Back in Place at the Auschwitz Gate

CNN: Navy probe finds contractor charged in Capitol insurrection was well-known Nazi sympathizer

NPR: Criminal records of Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump include rape, domestic violence

FoxNow: FULL REMARKS: Marco Rubio and Guyanese president hold joint presser

ABC News: Deportation halted for Tufts student whose visa Rubio says was revoked due to activism

Tufts University: University Declaration for Rümeysa Öztürk

Huffpost: Tufts University Student Detained By Federal Agents On Way To Break Ramadan Fast

The Tufts Daily: Op-ed: Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions

Politico: Trump floats possibility of compensation for Jan. 6 rioters