Newsom wants House probe of young Republicans' offensive chat messages
by Allen Cone · UPIOct. 15 (UPI) -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday called for a congressional investigation of antisemitic and racist comments made in a Young Republicans group chat.
The 2,900 pages of messages posted on Telegram involved young Republicans in Arizona, Kansas, New York and Vermont, according to a Politico report, but did not include Californians.
One day after the report on messages praising Adolf Hitler and racial epithets from January to early August, Newsom formally requested in a letter that the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee open an investigation.
"Calling for gas chambers. Expressing love for Hitler. Endorsing rape. Using racist slurs. This is not a 'joke,' and it is not fringe," Newsom said in the letter addressed to James Comer, a committee chairman serving a Kentucky House district.
"These are leaders within Republican National Committee-linked groups. If Congress can investigate universities for failing to stop antisemitism, it must also investigate politicians' own allies who are openly celebrating it."
Newsom said some of the young Republicans have been "directly engaged in activities on college campuses -- making the need for a full investigation even more urgent."
The governor noted that the committee is investigating Harvard and other schools for allegedly not addressing antisemitism on campuses.
In the letter, Newsom blasted JD Vance for his "refusal to unequivocally condemn the messages.
Newsome warned that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Opportunity Commission "cannot be trusted to investigate conduct from groups politically aligned with the Vice President.
"The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys," Vance said Wednesday on The Charlie Kirk Show. "They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That's what kids do. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke -- telling a very offensive, stupid joke -- is cause to ruin their lives."
Some of the postings, though, reportedly were from middle-age participants.
Vance again on Wednesday condemned Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, a Democrat, for advocating for the hypothetical killing of Virginia's Republican then-House speaker and his children
On Tuesday, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party deactivated the Kansas Young Republicans organization. Kansas Young Republicans Vice Chairman William Hendrix was fired from a communications job in the office of Attorney General Kris Kobach, officials told the Kansas Reflector.
"The comments in the chat are inexcusable," Kobach said. "As soon as the office learned of those messages, Will Hendrix's employment was terminated."
Kansas state young GOP chairman Alex Dwyer also was involved in the chats.
Michael Bartels, a senior adviser in the U.S. Small Business Administration's general counsel office, participated in the chat but didn't say much in it. At the time, he was a member of New York's young Republicans.
Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M sociology professor, has studied racism for the last 60 years.
"The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating -- like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him -- it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public," he told Politico. "It's chilling, of course, because they will act on these views."