Dem Rep. Ilhan Omar tries to gaslight over Covington student smears, then deletes tweet

Amid the fallout of the Covington Catholic media fiasco, some who joined in the online mob to attack high school kids from Kentucky have been busy trying to wipe the egg of their faces. Meanwhile, others are finding new and creative ways to double down.

Highly controversial Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., took to Twitter to defend the Black Hebrew Israelites — the group that started the affair by hurling slurs and insults at the students — as merely “5 black men.”

The Twitter responses were swift.

After being called out and corrected, Omar deleted the tweet, but screenshots are still a thing, folks.

The Black Hebrew Israelites are a black nationalist group whose theological beliefs blend elements of Christianity and Judaism and have even been described as a “black supremacist group” in a movement that is “growing more militant” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"They called us 'racists,' 'bigots,' 'white crackers,' 'faggots' and 'incest kids.' They also taunted an African-American student from my school by telling him that we would 'harvest his organs.' I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear," Covington student Nick Sandmann wrote in a statement about the incident. Extended video of the incident backs up his account.

But to hear Omar’s version of things, they were apparently just a group of innocent black men minding their own business when a bunch of mean high-schoolers from a pro-life event showed up.

Furthermore, as conservative writer James Hasson points out, the video that Omar is referring to indeed shows Covington students dissociating themselves from another teenager who made the rape comment she cites. Furthermore, blogger AG Conservative claims to have confirmed that the student who made the vile comment goes to a different school.

Finally, there’s Omar’s statement that Nick Sandmann’s family hired a “right-wing PR firm” to draft his “non-apology.” She’s referring to RunSwitch PR, a Louisville-based firm that is co-run by Scott Jennings, campaign adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Wait, you mean to tell me that a successful PR firm in the state of Kentucky has an adviser to a Kentucky senator on its roster? You’re also saying that, after their son became the focus of a high-speed lynch mob after being at a pro-life event, citizens of Kentucky got help from said PR firm? You also say that a Democratic congresswoman isn’t pleased with the statement that the firm helped draft?! In that case, stop the freakin’ presses!

There’s been a lot of “gaslighting” over last week’s incident at the Lincoln Memorial. Given the outright misrepresentation of events in Omar’s tweet, it seems that the gaslighting attempts are far from over.

Of course, Omar is no stranger to controversy. Her past and present anti-Semitic stances have drawn criticism from Israel supporters. There’s also the lingering question of whether or not she committed immigration and student loan fraud by allegedly marrying her brother.

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