Donald Trump staffer fired over past racially charged Facebook posts

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/02/donald-trump-staffer-fired-sam-nunberg-facebook-posts

Version 0 of 1.

A political adviser to Donald Trump has been fired from the real-estate mogul’s presidential campaign over racially charged posts on Facebook.

Related: Donald Trump backlash intensifies within GOP ahead of first 2016 debate

The Trump campaign confirmed to the Guardian on Sunday that longtime aide Sam Nunberg had been fired, after Business Insider reported on an eight-year-old social media post.

In 2007, a post on Nunberg’s Facebook page referring to the veteran civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton read: “Meeting Rev Sharpton today, no joke – he will tell him that his daughter is N---!”

The profile contained a number of other charged posts, which included references to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as “Huckahuck” and to Barack Obama as a “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser”.

In an interview with CNN on Friday, Nunberg did not acknowledge writing the posts, which were still viewable on his Facebook page.

“Anything that was posted under my name does not mean I posted it,” he said. He added: “I am not adept at social media.”

Nunberg took pains to emphasize that postings from more than a half-decade ago predated his association with the current Republican frontrunner.

“I have a long record of working with diverse people,” he told CNN. “And anything you are reporting on does not reflect anything on Mr Trump or Mr Trump’s campaign.

“I would also point out that all of these things were done before Mr Trump’s campaign, if I even did them – which I deny. In any event, this is the problem with politics … politics as usual is wrong.”

Nunberg, an associate of veteran operative and Trump adviser Roger Stone, was fired and rehired by Trump in 2014. His sin then was arranging for BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins to write a profile that Trump disliked.

Related: Donald Trump's lawyer threatens reporter over ex-wife's allegations: 'You cannot rape your spouse'

The controversial Facebook posts, the most recent of which is from 2009, also represent the second time a Trump staffer has come under scrutiny in the past week.

The first was when Michael Cohen, a special counsel for the Trump organization who has frequently appeared on television as a surrogate for the candidate, repeatedly threatened a reporter and insisted spousal rape was legal.

Trump has stood by Cohen, who issued a series of vulgar threats to Tim Mak, a reporter for the Daily Beast.

Trump, who himself has faced increased scrutiny from Democrats in recent days, has led in every national poll of the Republican field since early July.