Benjamin Cole isn’t just Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.)’s senior adviser for policy and communications. Based on Facebook screenshots posted by ThinkProgress, he’s also a horrifically racist man.
The liberal blog acquired screenshots from Cole’s Facebook page that show him referring to African-American residents of his Washington, D.C., neighborhood as “animals” and “hood rats” and describing neighborhood incidents with the hashtag “#gentrifytoday.”
ThinkProgress
ThinkProgress
According to ThinkProgress, Cole had removed his posts by Wednesday, Feb. 4, a day before the story ran online. The site has posted several other screenshots besides the ones above, including one from a video that Cole posted of a woman breaking a glass bottle “to use as a weapon.”
Neither Cole nor anyone else in Rep. Schock’s office has commented on ThinkProgress’ story. The Illinois Republican legislator was already having a bad week after the Washington Post revealed his office’s elaborate and expensive Downton Abbey-themed decorations.
Republican congressmen have a sad history of employing staffers with deeply bigoted beliefs. In 2013, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) fired a staffer named Jack Hunter after it emerged that Hunter used to host a racist radio show in the persona of a Confederate firebrand called “the Southern Avenger.” It took Sen. Paul two weeks to make that decision.
Benjamin Cole used to have a Twitter account, but he deleted it sometime on Thursday.
Update 2:25pm CT, Feb. 5: Politico’s Jake Sherman reports that Cole has resigned.
SCOOP Ben Cole, a sr adviser to @aaronschock, resigned after @BuzzFeedAndrew & @thinkprogress found controversial posts on his Facebook page
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 5, 2015
Update 11:11pm CT, Feb. 5: Updated story to reflect Cole deleting his Twitter account.
Photo via dogs & music/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)
