Clinton and Sanders Supporters Behind Hoax Charlottesville White Supremacists, Says Congressman - Newsweek

A violent neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month was nothing more than “a total hoax” orchestrated by liberals who supported Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, according to a hard-right Republican Congressman.

“It’s all baloney,” Representative Dana Rohrabacher told The San Francisco Chronicle of the rally where police said a car driven by a white supremacist injured 19 and killed counter protester Heather Heyer.

“It was left-wingers who were manipulating them in order to have this confrontation,” Rohrabacher said Thursday, in an effort to “put our president on the spot.”

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Republican U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher has said Democrats were at the heart of planning the August white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

The California House Rep’s claims are just the latest in a tit-for-tat fight between the Congressman and Democratic Party.

The Unite the Right rally held August 12 was attended by avowed white nationalist Richard Spencer, who helped lead a torchlit rally around a statue of Confederate army general Robert E. Lee in central Charlottesville the night before. Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin of the website The Daily Stormer also promoted and defended the event online.

Read more: Racism in America: Should the U.S. Get Rid of All Confederate Monuments?

White supremacist Christopher Cantwell turned himself in to police at the end of August after finding he was wanted on two counts of illegal use of tear gas and other gases. Hundreds of photos and videos on social media attest to the fact the event was attended by neo-Nazis, members of the KKK, and alt-right—a cross-over group of white nationalists and conspiracy theorists.

Yet that’s all bunk according to Rohrabacher, who pinned the events on a former “Hillary and Bernie supporter” who got Civil War re-enactors together to protect the statue of Lee, which faces a proposal in Charlottesville’s city council to be moved.

“It was a setup for these dumb Civil War re-enactors,” Rohrabacher said of the Charlottesville rally.

All this, the Congressman claims, was a ruse to box Trump in over the issue of racism in America. On the day of the rally, and at a press conference at Trump Tower a couple of days later, the president said blame for the violence fell “on both sides.” His response damaged his approval ratings among Republicans who saw Trump’s statements as divisive.

Rohrabacher’s claims are “disturbing,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said Thursday. The group works to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives.

Both Rohrabacher’s claims and the DCCC’s response are the latest in a feud between the hard-right Congressman and Democrats who see him as a major Republican problem.

“Embattled Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, now apparently a person of interest to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, has no business chairing the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee that oversees Russia,” said DCCC Spokesman Tyler Law at the end of August.

Law called for Rohrabacher to be stripped of his post chairing the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, which handles issues covering Russia-U.S. relations. The issue is particularly sensitive after American intelligence agencies issued reports earlier this year that Moscow directed a campaign to sway the election toward Trump.

Rohrabacher told The Chronicle these findings are “total bull” and the reports are “full of weasel words.”

The Democrats went after the Congressman after congressional sources told CNN the Senate Intelligence Committee is considering calling Rohrabacher to answer questions after he met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London in August. During his meeting Rohrabacher was flanked by Chuck Johnson, the operator of conspiracy theorist website GotNews.com, who has ties to alt-right conspiracy theorists.

Wikileaks released emails American intelligence agencies said with "high confidence" were stolen by Russian intelligence from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Rohrabacher said he wants to debrief President Trump on what Assange told him.

According to Rohrabacher, Assange insisted he was not behind the leak of Democratic National Committee emails last year.

Republican Committee on Foreign Affairs Chair Ed Royce’s failure to strip Rohrabacher of his position shows he is “unwilling to put country before party and unserious about the need to stop Russia from meddling in our elections,” Democrats said.

“The DCCC, obviously embarrassed by the DNC’s antics last year, does not know how to think strategically about foreign affairs and has descended to the guilt-by-association tactics reminiscent of America’s Red Scares,” Rohrabacher’s spokesman Ken Grubbs told Newsweek in an email last month. "It compounds its own embarrassment."

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