A Republican candidate for US Senate in North Dakota shared a story on Facebook in 2014 about anti-Israel protesters clashing with riot police, adding the comment, “Bunch of Arabs… what do you expect?”
The comment is just one of several inflammatory posts Gary Emineth, the former North Dakota Republican Party chairman, shared on social media, a CNN KFile review shows. In other posts, Emineth called former President Barack Obama a “POS” (an acronym for piece of shit) and retweeted an image that called for no more mosques in America.
Emineth is one of two declared candidates in this year’s GOP primary to determine who will challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in what is anticipated to be one of the competitive races in the 2018 midterm elections. Emineth joined the primary race at the end of January after Rep. Kevin Cramer, reportedly resisting an entreaty from President Donald Trump, announced he would not seek the seat. Emineth’s sole GOP opponent is state Sen. Tom Campbell, a potato farmer who has been spending his own money on advertising to gain more name recognition.
Shortly after launching his campaign, Emineth’s personal Facebook posts became inaccessible. KFile was able to screenshot some of Emineth’s posts before his page was locked down.
Emineth’s Twitter account was also made private before he announced his run and then later made public again. Screenshots of the number of tweets before and after show that 100 tweets were deleted during this time.
Reached by email, Emineth told CNN’s KFile, “Yes I did take down a few tweets, obviously when, as a citizen, you see articles and opinions that frustrate a person, comments are made that may not always be appropriate.”
He continued, “The tweets were removed because I didn’t want the noise of a few tweets drown out the signal. The message is Senator Heidi Heitkamp is a liberal Senator out of step with North Dakota values.”
Emineth said in a follow-up email the same sentiment applies to his Facebook posts.
Here’s KFile’s review of Emineth’s social media postings:
In a 2014 post, Emineth derided anti-Israel protesters in France as a “bunch of Arabs.”
In a tweet in 2016, Emineth retweeted an image saying no more mosques should be built in America.
In a 2012 Facebook post, Emineth called Obama a socialist and liked a comment that called Obama a Muslim.
In 2014, Emineth called then-President Obama a “POS” in a Facebook post.
Emineth in 2014 shared an image on Facebook that compared people on food stamps to animals.
In one 2016 comment on a Facebook post about climate change, Emineth referred to it as “an Anti-American effort to bring America down.”
Emineth shared an article on Facebook in August 2016 from the far-right site The Gateway Pundit. The article suggests that Hillary and Bill Clinton were behind the death of the man who served the Democratic National Committee with a lawsuit alleging that the DNC was guilty of fraud in tipping the 2016 primary process in Clinton’s favor.
“This is scary,” Emineth wrote in sharing the piece, which also insinuates Clinton involvement in other deaths.