Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, is catching heat for publishing a statement that critics say legitimizes the alleged anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim grievances of the New Zealand shooter.
But the congressman’s response couldn’t have possibly been written with a nod to the gunman’s supposed complaints, Connie Hair, Gohmert’s chief of staff, told the Washington Examiner. He knew “literally nothing” about what happened in Christchurch when he crafted his statement except for what he had been told by Fox News hosts during an interview early Friday morning, she said.
“All he knew was what the host of the Fox program had said,” Hair said. “When they were rolling out the breaking news, no one knew who the perps were. They just knew they had one in custody.”
She stressed the congressman wrote his response as he went “straight to the airport from Fox” where he immediately “checked in, sent his statement, then boarded an airplane” with no updates in-between.
The Fox hosts “never said anything about a white supremacist in that interview, and he had no other knowledge of it because it was a breaking situation for him,” Hair added. “He wasn’t watching the news or hearing anything about anything.”
On Friday, as Americans woke up to reports that an estimated 49 Muslim worshippers had been murdered at two separate mosques in New Zealand, Gohmert’s office released a statement condemning the slaughter.
“The shootings at the New Zealand mosques are egregiously reprehensible. The shooters need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law along with anyone who knowingly aided their efforts in any way,” reads the statement.
The next line, the part that has prompted a fierce online backlash, reads, “There are courts, dispute resolutions, and legislatures to resolve controversies – there is no place for cold blooded murders.”
The perpetrator (or perpetrators) of the Christchurch massacre is both anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, if his alleged manifesto is to be believed. Gohmert’s statement has been received so poorly precisely because many see his reference to “controversies” as an explicit legitimization of the gunman’s alleged immigration grievances. But Hair maintains timing is everything and that the congressman’s critics fail to recognize that he wrote the statement in the early morning hours when he had only a loose understanding of what transpired in Christchurch.
“He was talking in generic terms, being a former judge and a congressman now, what you do, you know, if you have a controversy or if you have any kind of conflict, you solve it in the courts, you solve it in mediation, or you solve it through legislation,” she said. “[Gohmert] didn’t even know what they dealing with, like, a domestic dispute at this point or just a nut like the guy who was down at the [Sutherland Springs church shooting].”
The congressman’s chief of staff added, “The bottom line is: You don’t shoot. We talk about things, smooth out any kind of problems, we don’t go and shoot each other. So that’s what he was talking about at 4:15 a.m. in the morning [on Fox News].”
After his cable news appearance Friday, at roughly 5:30 a.m., the congressman “banged out a statement” that was subsequently sent off to his communications director, Kimberly Willingham, who later published it at around 7:30 a.m., Gohmert’s chief of staff said.
Hair, who said her office has no plans to release an updated response to the mass shooting, also noted with some irritation that “nobody’s writing about” the fact that the alleged shooter claimed to be an “eco-fascist.”
Gohmert’s Friday statement concludes, “Though New Zealand does not have the death penalty, hopefully its people, through their justice system, will send the message loudly and clearly that such barbarity from anyone will not be tolerated.”
