(AFP) – The US State Department said Wednesday that a former Donald Trump aide named to a top job despite having ties to white supremacists and spreading conspiracy theories about the 2021 Capitol insurrection will hold the post only temporarily.
Darren Beattie, an influential figure in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and founder of the right-wing “Revolver News” site, has been named acting under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. The role is responsible for developing the public image of American diplomacy around the world.
Revolver News has repeatedly pushed the idea that the FBI spurred on the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters. Beattie will hold the State Department job only in an acting capacity, Rubio said Wednesday during a visit to Central America. “We have a nominee for that position who will be the permanent person who runs that division,” Rubio told reporters.
Beattie worked as a speechwriter for Trump during his first term but left the administration in 2018 after US media revealed he had attended a conference two years earlier where white supremacists were present. Reports of his latest appointment have sparked outrage among many, particularly over an October 4, 2024 post on X, in which he wrote: “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
America’s top diplomat said Beattie has been hired for now because he is committed to ending what Rubio called anti-US censorship programs being operated out of the State Department. Rubio said “elements in the State Department are being used to censor American voices.”
© 2024 AFP
