Radical GOP members have attacked a woman's right to vote, called President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader,” and described former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “a terrorist with amnesia.” And these Republicans have all been elevated to positions with “less oversight, fewer checks and, in some cases, greater reach,” according to a CNN report.
The report focused on four major ‘fringe’ players: John Gibbs, Darren Beattie, retired Army Brigadier General Anthony Tata, and Leandro Rizzuto Jr.
Gibbs is a top policy official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. During Trump’s first administration, he was nominated to lead the Office of Personnel Management, but couldn’t pass the Senate.
Gibbs has previously claimed that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman participated in a satanic ritual and has left anti-feminist comments across the web, according to the report. His current position doesn't require a Senate confirmation.
Beattie is another player in the current Trump administration who also held a role in the first. He was fired as the Trump White House speechwriter in 2018 after reports he spoke at a conference alongside White nationalists, according to CNN.
Today, Beattie is the acting under secretary for public diplomacy at the State Department. And he's tasked with "helping shape US messaging abroad related to counterterrorism and violent extremism," according to CNN.
However, critics question this position because he’s posted racist and misogynistic messages on social media. CNN also added, Beattie has “attacked Black lawmakers and the Black Lives Matter movement, saying they needed to ‘learn their place’ and ‘take a knee to MAGA.’”
General Tata was nominated to the third-highest ranking official at the Pentagon in 2020. However, his nomination was withdrawn after CNN uncovered “his history of conspiratorial and inflammatory rhetoric.”
At the time, he was given the deputy under secretary for policy at the Pentagon, which does not require Senate confirmation.
Today, he needs to be confirmed by the Senate to become the Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness at the Defense Department.
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However, CNN’s writers are questioning his capability after they reported Tata called Obama a “terrorist leader” and called Islam the “most oppressive violent religion I know of.” CNN also reports that Tata has called Democratic politicians “violent extremists.”
Most jarringly, Tata has pushed a conspiracy theory that CIA director John Brennan tried to overthrow Trump. He’s also claimed it “might be a good time” for Brennan to commit suicide or become a “prison b----.”
Rizzuto Jr. is another conspiracy theorist and fringe GOP character. Trump nominated him to be the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States.
In this role, Rizzuto Jr. would represent U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. He was nominated in the first administration, but it never moved forward because he had previously told Cruz to “go back to Canada,” and called Hillary Clinton “a terrorist with amnesia.”
“In Trump’s first term, many of these figures were derailed precisely because they were seen as too unprofessional or conspiratorial – even by a Republican-controlled Senate,” CNN wrote.
They added, in Trump’s second term, they’re being welcomed back.