President Trump’s personal lawyer on Wednesday forwarded an email to government officials and conservative journalists that said “there is no difference” between Robert E. Lee and George Washington.
“You cannot be against General Lee and be for General Washington,” the email reads, “there literally is no difference between the two men.”
John Dowd, who leads Trump’s legal team, sent the email to members of the media and government officials as a way to bolster Trump’s stance on the violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., in which the president defended those who had gathered to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general from the Civil War.
The email, the contents of which were reported by The New York Times, contained the subject line: “The Information that Validates President Trump on Charlottesville.”
The email’s author, Jerome Almon, runs websites alleging government conspiracies and arguing that the FBI has been infiltrated by Islamic terrorists, the Times said.
Almon, who is black, also claimed in the email that the group Black Lives Matter “has been totally infiltrated by terrorist groups.”
News of the email comes after Trump suggested Tuesday that a push to remove Confederate monuments could lead to an erasure of history, and statues of Washington also being removed.
“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “So this week, it is Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down.”
“I wonder, is it George Washington next week?” Trump added, noting that Washington and Thomas Jefferson were also slave owners.
In his email, Almon listed reasons explaining why Lee is similar to Washington. “Both rebelled against the ruling government,” the email reads, adding, “Both saved America.”
In an interview with the Times, Almon said he sent the email to Dowd hoping it would be spread widely, and reach Trump.
The Times said there is no evidence Trump received the email.
Almon sent the email to Dowd after the two spoke on the phone last week about a different matter.
He said had called Dowd to offer damaging information about James Comey, the former FBI director, and to provide information pertaining to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference, and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Dowd received the email on Tuesday night, the Times said, and forwarded it on Wednesday morning to more than two dozen recipients, including a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and journalists at Fox News and the Washington Times.
