Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) speaks to reporters at Trump Tower, November 29, 2016 in New York City. Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

By Aiden Pink February 11, 2018

President Donald Trump wrote a tweet on Sunday praising Rep. Lou Barletta, who is running in the Republican primary for a Senate race in Pennsylvania and has been dogged by criticism for his repeated run-ins with Holocaust deniers.

CNN’s KFile team revealed last month that Barletta gave an interview with the American Free Press, an outlet that publishes Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, while serving as mayor of the town of Hazleton in 2006.

Barletta was at the time gaining national attention for his crackdowns against illegal immigrants by fining landlords who rented to them and employers who paid them — moves that were eventually struck down by the courts.

At a 2007 rally he headlined to support his policies, one of the speakers was singer Paul Topete, whose band Poker Face also performed. The band had previously performed at conferences of anti-Semitic organizations, and their website featured forums that pushed Holocaust denial and 9/11 conspiracy theories. After the Anti-Defamation League labeled Topete an anti-Semite, he denied the charges but claimed that questioning the Holocaust “should not be construed as hate, rather it should be a way of mandating historical accuracy.” He also claimed it was possible that Israel was behind 9/11.

A spokesman for Barletta told CNN that Barletta had a small staff at the time and was unable to properly vet every interviewer or guest speaker. The spokesman also pointed to Barletta’s 2007 denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan and his 2008 renunciation of an endorsement from former KKK leader David Duke.

Barletta, an early supporter of Trump, is in a six-way race for the right to face incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in November. Barletta received the state Republican Party’s endorsement on Saturday. The primary election is on May 15.

Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

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

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount