The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday accused President-elect Donald Trump of diminishing “the horror of the Holocaust” by comparing U.S. intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany.
“The President-Elect’s use of Nazi Germany to make a political analogy is not only an inappropriate comparison on the merits, but it also coarsens our discourse and diminishes the horror of the Holocaust,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
His statement comes after Mr. Trump slammed U.S. intelligence agencies for allegedly leaking an unsubstantiated Russian report to the media.
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
“One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?” the president elect tweeted Wednesday.
Mr. Trump later repeated the comparison when asked to defend the tweet during his news conference Wednesday afternoon.
“I think it’s a disgrace,” he told reporters. “That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do. I think it’s a disgrace that information that was false and fake and never happened got released to the public.”
Mr. Greenblatt said analogies between America and totalitarian societies are invalid.
“ADL always has maintained that glib comparisons to Nazi Germany are offensive and a trivialization of the Holocaust,” he said. “We have a long record of speaking out when both Democrats and Republicans engage in such overheated rhetoric. It would be helpful for the President-elect to explain his intentions or apologize for the remark.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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