Veteran in Steve Knight Ad Posted Racist, Violent Threats on Social Media
GOP congressman helped veteran get a lung transplant
A veteran who appeared in a television ad for Rep. Steve Knight thanking the California Republican for helping him get a lung transplant has a long history of posting racist rants and violent threats from his Facebook profile.
David Brayton, 64, has dozens of posts where he denigrates blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims and has urged people to resort to violence to stamp out negative media coverage and protesters of President Donald Trump.
“CNN should be indicted, found guilty and face a firing squad,” Brayton wrote above his post this week of a Breitbart story about CNN’s Jim Acosta.
In another post, Brayton remarked that the KKK “hates blacks cuz they’re jealous of them since blacks have killed more blacks than the KKK could in 100 years.”
Knight’s campaign strategist, Matt Rexroad, told the Los Angeles Times that Brayton’s political views and incendiary social media were not factors in Knight’s decision to help him get a lung transplant — so a social media background check was unnecessary.
“Congressman Knight does not choose to help people based on their political views, period,” Rexroad told the Times. “I think the timing of this is ridiculous.”
Knight is running for a third term in California’s 25th District, one of the Golden State’s many swing districts this cycle, against Democrat Katie Hill.
Hillary Clinton carried the district over President Donald Trump by 7 points in 2016, and Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race a Toss-up.
The discovery of Brayton’s account — and his appearance in a television commercial for a vulnerable GOP incumbent — comes on the heels of federal authorities arresting a 56-year-old Florida man for sending packages with unexploded bombs to multiple political rivals of Trump, including Clinton, former President Barack Obama, and former Attorney General Eric Holder.
After law enforcement apprehended bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc last week, the president called for national unity.
Hours later, he brought back a trademark line of his, tweeting that certain media outlets were the “enemy of the people” and were responsible for stoking division in the U.S.
