The Republican National Convention canceled one of its Tuesday night speakers after she promoted an anti-Semitic conspiracy earlier in the day.
Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of the Trump campaign’s advisory board whose son was a law enforcement officer who was killed in the line of duty by an undocumented worker, encouraged her more than 40,000 followers to read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on Tuesday, which was first reported by the Daily Beast. The RNC decided not to show her speech in response to her promotion of the conspiracy theory, according to multiple outlets.
Mendoza, who is also a consultant for the We Build The Wall group that had four people arrested earlier in August, including Steve Bannon, issued an apology on social media.
“I retweeted a very long thread earlier without reading every post within the thread,” she said. “My apologies for not paying attention to the intent of the whole message. That does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.”
Mendoza’s tweet telling her followers to “do yourself a favor and read this thread” has been deleted, but the thread she was referring to is still on the site.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is literature that was created by the Czarist secret police at the turn of the 20th century, and it describes an alleged secret plan of Jewish leaders to take over the world. The document has continued to be used by anti-Semitic groups in the decades since its creation.
Mendoza did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
