Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Republican Congressman Brought Holocaust Denier To Capitol Meeting

Updated 4:10 p.m.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher brought a Holocaust denier to a meeting last week with Sen. Rand Paul to discuss Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the Daily Caller reported.

The publication noted that Rohrabacher, a California Republican, “brought along top aide Paul Behrends and conservative journalist Charles C. Johnson.”

Johnson, an internet troll and vocal “alt-right” defender, is well-known for false attacks against political rivals, both on the Democratic side and within the Republican Party.

He is also a Holocaust denier. In a since-deleted Reddit discussion, Johnson argued that the number of Jews killed in the camps was around 250,000, not six million, and questioned the existence of gas chambers. And while stating in the post that he is not a Holocaust denier, he wrote: “I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real. Why were their swimming pools there if it was a death camp?”

Johnson reached out to the Forward to reiterate what he said in the post: that he is not a Holocaust denier.

The political blog Little Green Footballs wondered aloud if Paul knew who he was hosting. “It really only takes a few minutes to Google Chuck C. Johnson’s long history of racism, sexism and the kind of blatant hate speech that got him permanently banned from Twitter and suspended multiple times from Facebook.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.