Ever since President Donald Trump nominated 36-year-old Brett Talley to a federal district court, it’s been a string of bad news.
He’s reportedly never tried a single case, the American Bar Association unanimously rated him unqualified to serve as a federal court judge, he did not disclose on congressional documents that he’s married to a White House lawyer, and he enjoyed hunting ghosts.
Now, BuzzFeed reports that Talley has written Islamaphobic messages and vitriolic comments on the Sandy Hook shooting on an Alabama Crimson Tide fan message board.
As BuzzFeed notes, Talley, who currently works in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, self-identified himself as BamainBoston on the TideFans.com message board. In 2015, BamainBoston wrote that mainstream Islam preaches the “murder of nonbelievers.”
A few years earlier, when discussing the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, BamainBoston wrote, “My solution would be to stop being a society of pansies and man up.”
BamainBoston went on to write, “We shouldn’t depend on the government to protect us. We should be ready to protect ourselves. Everyone should know that part of their social responsibility is to learn how to use a firearm effectively and carry one with them at all times. I know some of you will freak out at that suggestion, but the only law I can imagine that would have stopped what happened in Connecticut is if every one of the teachers was armed with a gun and trained in how to use it.”
Talley—who seemingly outed himself in December 2014 when he posted a Washington Post link with the title “Washington Post Did A Feature On Me”—did not disclose these writings on his congressional questionnaire, which asks nominees to list “published material you have written or edited, including material published only on the Internet,” according to BuzzFeed. Talley also writes horror fiction.
According to White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley, Talley did nothing wrong.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire asks for published writings and public statements—not everything that’s ever been typed on a keyboard,” Gidley said in an email to BuzzFeed. “Alabama football fans’ internet message board conversations are not deemed ‘published writings’, ‘public statements’, or ‘published material;’ nor are they deemed the equivalent of ‘books’, ‘articles’, or ‘reports.’”
