Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

GOP nominee demanded execution of Trump foes in newly uncovered posts

alternet.org · 4h · first reportShare

In early August, GOP voters in Michigan's 8th Congressional District defied President Donald Trump when they nominated retired General Motors engineer Thomas Smith over the Trump-backed Amir Hassan. The nomination drew increased scrutiny of Smith's background, and according to CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, the Flint, Michigan-based business owner has a long history of making extreme statements . Kaczynski, in a KFile report for CNN, explains, "A Republican congressional nominee in a closely divided Michigan district deleted social media accounts containing thousands of posts that include a yearslong pattern of inflammatory and conspiratorial rhetoric — including amplifying a post that appeared to raise the possibility of the death penalty for political opponents of President Donald Trump … A CNN KFile review of some 13,000 archived posts from Smith's now-deleted accounts uncovered a substantially broader pattern of far-right rhetoric than previously reported, including repeated accusations o