Gosar family says he should apologize for Soros Charlottesville allegations
Oct 25, 2017, 4:38 AM | Updated: 11:23 am
(AP File Photo)
PHOENIX — The siblings of U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) wrote he owed George Soros an apology after alleging the investor may have funded white supremacists at a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“We watched the interview of Paul Gosar on Vice News and believe Paul owes George Soros a personal apology,” his siblings wrote in a letter to the Kingman Daily Miner.
“This is a matter of right and wrong, not politics. We are aghast that [Gosar] has sunk so low that he now spews the most despicable slander against an 87-year-old man without a shred of proof, and then doesn’t even have the guts or decency to apologize?”
In an interview with Vice News, Gosar was asked if he believed Soros funded the neo-Nazis who marched in the Virginia city at a rally that turned violent.
Gosar responded, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?”
His siblings wrote they would be outraged if some “sleaze” made such allegations against their parents, who are Soros’ age. They also took offense to Gosar’s allegations that Soros, a Jewish man who escaped from Hungary during the Holocaust, “turned in his own people to the Nazis.”
“[Gosar] confabulated horrendous lies about Soros as a young boy who survived the Holocaust, and followed it with invented notions that Soros was behind the Charlottesville Nazis,” the letter read. “[Gosar]’s deceit was uttered without a shred of evidence.”
The idea that Soros helped fund the Charlottesville rally was first promoted by Alex Jones, a radio host who is known for promoting conspiracy theories in the past, most notably surrounding the Sandy Hook shooting.
Gosar’s siblings wrote the congressman’s statements went against their small-town family values.
“Character assassination wasn’t revered. Lies and distortions do reveal much about the character of the congressman of Arizona’s 4th Congressional District, however,” the letter read.
The siblings closed the letter by again demanding a full retraction and apology, not a press release or statement recognizing his words offended people.
“It is extremely upsetting to have to call you out on this, [Gosar], but you’ve forced our hand with your deceit and anti-Semitic dog whistle,” they wrote.