Revealed: J.D. Vance's texts with infamous Holocaust-denying internet troll

The Washington Post on Wednesday published a lengthy story dissecting years' worth of text messages between Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Charles C. Johnson, an infamous right-wing troll who has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for past remarks denying the Holocaust.

A thorough review of the messages found that Vance would at times push back against some of Johnson's most outlandish accusations, but that he also felt comfortable seeking out Johnson's opinion on various issues.

Both Johnson and Vance shared a mutual contempt for the nation of Ukraine and its efforts to lobby the United States for military assistance in its years-long war against Russia.

“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine,” Vance told Johnson last year during a time when Ukraine was running low on ammunition. “Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. B------- about F16s.”

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A spokesperson for Vance told the Post that the senator and Johnson were not close and he insisted the two men did not share the same politics.

“Chuck Johnson spam texted J.D. Vance,” said the spokesman. “J.D. usually ignored him, but occasionally responded to push back against things he said.”

While it's true that Vance did push back against Johnson at times, there were also times when he reached out to Johnson unprompted, notes the Post.

"Occasionally, Vance took the initiative with Johnson, reaching out last fall to ridicule the mental state of a pro-Ukraine activist," the paper reports. "In a nod to Johnson’s purported work for the U.S. government, Vance suggested he should 'have the spooks up the doses of Xanax among the rank and file,' an insinuation that Washington was engineering popular support for Ukraine. The following month, he asked for Johnson’s take on a former intelligence official’s claims that the U.S. government had evidence of alien spacecraft."