Welcome to McClatchy’s Voter Survival Guide, an interactive presentation of daily events from one of the strangest presidential campaigns in modern history.
Trump adviser accused of anti-Semitism
One of Donald Trump's foreign policy advisers allegedly bragged about forcing Jewish employees out of the Defense Department over a decade ago.
Joseph Schmitz was named as one of Trump's five advisers back in March, but back in the early 2000s, he served as the Pentagon's inspector general. Three of his colleagues from that time claim Schmitz openly offended Jews and other minorities.
Daniel Meyer, a senior official in the intelligence community previously in charge of whistleblower cases, described Schmitz's remarks in a complaint file thusly: “His summary of his tenure’s achievement reported as ‘…I fired the Jews.’ ”
Meyer also accuses Schmitz of an exchange with another former top Pentagon official in which he allegedly called concentration camp ovens “too small to kill 6 million Jews.”
All three people who cited the remarks currently have pending employment grievances with the federal government. Schmitz, a private lawyer in Washington, calls the allegations “false and defamatory.”
Elsewhere, in potential ethical lapses
State Department records are unable to prove Hillary Clinton or her top aides completed a federally mandated ethics training when they joined the department. According to documents obtained by the RNC, only three of nine aides are known to have taken the training. The records further indicate none of the aides required to take additional training completed it.
Many of these aides still work for Clinton on her presidential campaign.
Trump’s national policy director, Stephen Miller, slammed the revelations, saying they “skipped” the ethics training because “Hillary was planning criminal enterprise trading government favors for cash.”
Clinton’s campaign didn’t respond to questions about the documents.
Clinton and Trump get on each other’s level
Both presidential candidates have been given two floors of federally funded office space to plan their White House transition teams. It’s the first time in history that two presidential campaigns are working to set up their governments literally side-by-side.
Rejoice! You made it through another week of the grueling 2016 election. Just 80 days to go.
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They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!
Donald Trump, via Twitter
Your weekend reads
- Clinton and Trump supporters have drastically different views of America.
- Could Donald Trump, Roger Ailes, and Steve Bannon have ulterior motives?
- All those efforts you put into crafting a Facebook post to convince your family you're right could be fruitless. A new study shows Facebook isn't the right medium to change political opinions.
- Looking for something a little more cultural this weekend? Check out Foreign Policy's podcast on how Chekhov explains Donald Trump.