A Florida Republican running for Congress sent out a fundraising email last week in which he said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) ought to be hanged.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that George Buck, who is aiming to unseat Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), had peddled in the email a baseless conspiracy theory alleging that Omar was secretly working on behalf of the Qatari government.
“We should hang these traitors where they stand,” he wrote, according to the Times.
The email also reportedly mentions Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Though Buck initially denied responsibility for the email, telling the Times that he would “never talk like that,” his signature was reportedly written at the end of the letter.
On the same day later on, the Republican released another statement to the Times that reportedly seemed to double down on the letter.
“Anyone who commits treason against the United States should be tried to the full extent of the law,” he wrote in what the Times described as a “lengthy” email.
The rhetoric invoked in Buck’s letter mirrors that of Danielle Stella, Omar’s GOP challenger who was permanently suspended on Twitter last week after posting a series of tweets suggesting the Muslim congresswoman ought to be hanged based on the same bogus conspiracy theory Buck pushed in his letter.
Buck was also a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program, though the link to his profile on the Young Guns website appears to be broken.
NRCC National Press Secretary Michael McAdams told TPM the Florida Republican is no longer part of the program.
“[House Minority Leader Kevin] McCarthy made the decision to remove him and Chairman [Tom] Emmer agrees,” McAdams said.
“The fact that those who make these violent threats very publicly without hesitation reaffirms just how much white supremacy has spread within the @NRCC,” tweeted Tlaib. “They are raising money on a call to hang a Black Muslim member of Congress and too many are silent.”
This story has been updated to include a comment from the NRCC.
