“At 8:07 AM on April 28, 2022, Jamie Raskin, the Democratic Congressman representing Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, tweeted “On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us solemnly remember the millions of people who perished in the Holocaust and recommit to defeating antisemitism, racism and fascism wherever they threaten humanity.”
Raskin, who is Jewish, had in 2020 proudly announced that he was an “original cosponsor” of a bipartisan House resolution commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers from the 472nd Infantry Regiment liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. They were treated as heroes by the more than 7,000 surviving prisoners—many of them Jewish. Over 230 Soviet soldiers from the 472nd Regiment, including the commanding officer, Colonel Sieman Besprozvanny, lost their lives liberating the main camp from the Nazi forces.
Historians estimate that more than 1.1 million people lost their lives in Auschwitz—including a million Jews.
Shortly after sending out his tweet, Jamie Raskin made his way to the House floor. There, wearing a blue-and-yellow tie—the colors of the Ukraine flag—Raskin proclaimed, “We stand for democracy here, not Vladimir Putin.”
Raskin was getting himself warmed up to deliver what he believed was a scathing indictment of a Republican lawmaker, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the representative from Georgia’s 14th Congressional district. “She [Marjorie Taylor Greene] said the aid that the taxpayers of America are sending to the people of Ukraine to defend themselves against Vladimir Putin and the Russian army falls into the hands of Nazis,” Raskin crowed. “I want to see her proof. Where’s her evidence?”
Raskin continued. “When Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Americans looked at what was happening in Europe during the Second World War,” he proclaimed, “when they saw the Nazis marching down the street, they did not see fine people on both sides of the street. They did not start cheerleading for Mussolini and Hitler and Franco. And yet we have people here who go out and speak on the side of Vladimir Putin and on the side of Russia.”
Raskin seemed oblivious to the fact that it was the Soviet Union—Russia—that bore the brunt of fighting those Nazis he alluded to, sacrificing more than 27 million of its own citizens—including the 231 Red Army soldiers killed during the liberation of Auschwitz. Roosevelt was on the side of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in fighting those Nazis. Now, with Vladimir Putin and Russia once again confronting the odious ideology of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Raskin—a staunch supporter of Ukraine—seemed hellbent on denying this scourge exists.
It was as if Roosevelt had tried to tell the men of the 472nd Regiment that the Jews in Auschwitz died of natural causes.
Raskin was elected to office in the 2016 election cycle. As such, he wasn’t in Congress when, on June 15, 2015, his future colleagues, led by Representative Conyers of Michigan, sought to amend the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2016 by inserting the following language: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.”
Conyers, in explaining the purpose of the amendment, declared, “This amendment that I propose this evening limits arms, training, and other assistance to the neo-Nazi Ukrainian militia, the Azov Battalion…I urge the support of my amendment and to make it US law that we will not equip this dangerous neo-Nazi militia.”
The amendment was agreed to and adopted.
The Pentagon, however, pressured the administration of President Barack Obama to kill the amendment, claiming it was redundant to the so-called Leahy Law, which banned funding for groups identified by the Secretary of State as having committed gross violations of human rights.
There was one problem, however: the State Department did not list the Azov Battalion as such a group, so the Leahy Law did not apply.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration killed the amendment, calling it an “ideological rider.”
Raskin did, however, support the inclusion of similar anti-Azov language in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2018. As his fellow Democratic representative, Ro Khanna, proclaimed, “I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the US from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Zazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine. White supremacy and neo-Nazism are unacceptable and have no place in our world.”
Jamie Raskin also signed a letter to Mike Pompeo October 16, 2019, seeking to have the Azov Battalion declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization, or FTO. “There are numerous examples of foreign white nationalist groups that fit these conditions,” the letter noted. “The American people deserve an explanation as to why these groups are not included on the Foreign Terrorist organization (FTO) list. For example, the Azov Battalion is a well-known ultranationalist militia organization in Ukraine that openly welcomes neo-Nazis into its ranks. The group is so well-known, in fact, that the 115th Congress of the United States stated in its 2018 omnibus spending bill that ‘none of the funds made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.’”
In 2021, Raskin voted in favor of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2022 which extended the prohibitions regarding Azov.
And yet, on April 28, 2022, Raskin stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and pretended that there were no Nazis in Ukraine.
This American son of Jewish parents, who so brazenly wraps himself in the shroud of Holocaust remembrance, is—literally—a Nazi denier.
Raskin went on to support a $43 billion appropriations bill for Ukraine where the language preventing US taxpayer funds from being used to equip or train the Azov Battalion was stripped out.
Nope, no Nazis here.
On October 24 Raskin was one of 30 Democratic members of the Progressive Caucus to sign a letter to President Joseph Biden urging him to “pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.” Explaining their position further, the undersigned declared that “as legislators responsible for the expenditure of tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military assistance in the conflict, we believe such involvement in this war also creates a responsibility for the United States to seriously explore all possible avenues, including direct engagement with Russia, to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement.”
In the end, Raskin and his colleagues urged Biden “to make vigorous diplomatic efforts in support of a negotiated settlement and ceasefire, engage in direct talks with Russia, explore prospects for a new European security arrangement acceptable to all parties that will allow for a sovereign and independent Ukraine, and, in coordination with our Ukrainian partners, seek a rapid end to the conflict and reiterate this goal as America’s chief priority.”
Less than 24 hours later, on October 25, the chair of the Progressive Caucus, Representative Pramila Jayapal, representing Washington’s 7th congressional district, ordered that the letter be withdrawn. “The letter was drafted several months ago,” Jayapal explained, “but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”
The letter was dated October 24 and contained the signatures of all 30 members. You don’t sign drafts; you do sign final documents.
The Progressive Caucus turned to none other than Jamie Raskin to further explain why it decided to withdraw that letter. The letter, Raskin said, “led to the conflation of growing Republican opposition to support for Ukraine” with that of Democrats, “who have passionately supported every package of military, strategic and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people.”
Raskin left out the part where, up until 2022, these “packages” were contingent on no taxpayer money being used to fund the neo-Nazis of the Azov Battalion.
He also left out the part where members of this very same neo-Nazi organization were invited into the US Congress, where they lobbied for the end of all restrictions on using US taxpayer money to fund the Azov Battalion. A delegation of four Azov fighters, led by Giorgi Kuparashvili, and two wives of Azov personnel captured by the Russians, received a hero’s welcome by more than 50 members of Congress. At one of the receptions, the Azov Nazis auctioned off their unique unit patch, which superimposes the wolfsangel, or Nazi runic symbol, over a blue and yellow background. It was here Kuparashvili lobbied Congress to permanently lift the ban on funding him and his fellow Nazis.
Kuparashvili, a native Georgian, had been with the Azov Battalion since 2014. During the battle for Mariupol, he had been badly wounded before being evacuated by helicopter, thereby escaping being captured by the Russians, a fate shared by the other three Azov Battalion personnel in the delegation, who had been released by the Russians in a prisoner exchange negotiated earlier in September.
The Azov fighters were joined by Kateryna Prokopenko, the wife of the far-right commander of the Azov Regiment, Denys Prokopenko. Prokopenko had been captured in May during the battle of Mariupol and was released in the prisoner exchange negotiated in September. Prokopenko has been a member of the Azov Battalion since its inception and is deeply indoctrinated in its Nazi culture.
The other Azov wife was Yulia Fedosyuk, whose husband, Arseniy, was captured at Mariupol and remains in Russian captivity. Like Porokopenko, Fedosyuk joined Azov in 2014, and has been involved in all the atrocities carried out by this unit since then. Yulia herself is the leader of an anti-feminist, anti-gay group linked to the Azov movement called “Silver of the Rose.”
The irony—no, the hypocrisy—of Jamie Raskin knows no bounds. After having the gall to forget his own record in—rightfully—calling out the Azov Battalion as Nazi thugs undeserving of US taxpayer support, Raskin called out a fellow representative for having the gall to—rightfully—point out that Raskin, in seeking passage of Biden’s appropriation in April, was funding Nazis.
And only a few months later, Raskin and his fellow Democrats were welcoming these Nazis into the very halls of Congress.
In his October 25 explanation regarding the withdrawn letter to Biden, Raskin declared that “Moscow right now is a hub of corrupt tyranny, censorship, authoritarian repression, police violence, propaganda, government lies and disinformation, and planning for war crimes. It is a world center of antifeminist, antigay, anti-trans hatred, as well as the homeland of replacement theory for export.”
Correction, Jamie—apparently the US Congress is the new hub of white supremacy, neo-Nazi ideology, and anti-gay, anti-trans hatred. That’s what happens when you invite in the representatives of the very organization you yourself sought to have included on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. Having labeled the Azov Battalion as a white supremacist, neo-Nazi terrorist organization, that makes you and your colleagues veritable state-sponsors of terrorism.
Shame on you. Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor would be rolling over in their graves if they knew how you invoked their names to support the very cause—Nazism—they had struggled so long and hard to defeat.
I’m certain if he were alive today Franklin Roosevelt would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin in support of that most righteous of causes—the defeat of Nazi ideology in Europe today.
We know where you stand, Jamie. There’s a special place in hell for those who facilitate the murderous ideology of modern-day Nazis, and you have a reserved spot.”
Credit: Scott Ritter. Publication: Scott Ritter Extra. Published: November 3rd 2022. Source Link: https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/jamie-raskin-nazi-supporter-extraordinaire?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
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