The United States Government’s nominee for Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy, Anthony Tata (pictured), says he regrets and denounces Islamophobic and offensive tweets he made two years ago.
The retired Army Brigadier General and a long-time defender of President Donald Trump, caused a firestorm in Congress when a news organisation revealed the 2018 tweets that referred to former President, Barack Obama as a Muslim and a “terrorist leader”.
In a letter sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr Tata said he had come to deeply regret the tweets and called them an “aberration in a four-decade thread of faithful public service”.
“I have a strong record of inclusivity and bipartisanship in my commentary,” ,” Mr Tata said.
“However, I did misspeak in 2018 on Twitter in hyperbolic conversations,” he said.
“There is no excuse for those comments, for which I take complete responsibility and also fully retract and denounce.”
Mr Tata used much of the eight-paragraph letter to bolster his case for the top policy job at the Pentagon, touting his military service in Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, and his work at home in public school systems.
He retired from the military in 2009 after the Army found that he had committed adultery with at least two women during a past marriage and forged a court order in the case.
However, his letter did little to assuage Democrats on the committee, with six publicly opposing his nomination.
Mr Tata has been nominated to replace John Rood, whom Mr Trump fired in February after Mr Rood opposed the White House’s freeze on military aid for Ukraine.
Washington, 23 June, 2020
