Report: WH blocked State Dept from issuing its own Holocaust statement

The White House last week prevented the State Department from issuing its own statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day that included the mention of Jewish victims specifically, Politico reported Thursday.

The White House’s statement on the day sparked criticism for not mentioning Jewish victims. The White House stood by its statement.

Three people familiar with the process told Politico that State, as it has in past years, drafted a statement commemorating Holocaust victims. 

{mosads}A White House official told the news outlet that there was no ill intent, and that the White House didn’t see the State’s draft until issuing its own statement, and told the department not to release its version because it was by then after 7 p.m.
 

“It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror,” Trump said in a statement.

“In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”

White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told CNN the statement was meant to be “inclusive” since “priests, gypsies, people with mental or physical disabilities, communists” and many other groups were killed in the Holocaust.

And in an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus brushed off suggestions Trump’s team was trying to “whitewash” history and said he didn’t regret the statement.

“I mean everyone suffering in the Holocaust, including, obviously, all of the Jewish people affected in the miserable genocide that occurred,” Priebus said, “is something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad and something that can never be forgotten and something that, if we could wipe it off of the history books, we would. But we can’t. And it’s terrible.”