Several media outlets are reporting that the gunman who killed 20 people and wounded 26 at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas claimed in a manifesto that his white supremacist views had nothing to do with President Donald Trump.
The Washington Post reported Sunday: “Authorities believe … [the shooter] wrote the document, though they are still gathering evidence.” It also noted that the author “stresses that he has maintained his white supremacist ideology for many years, predating President Trump and his 2016 campaign, which he says did not influence his reasons for carrying out the attack.”
CNN added: “The writer wrote that their opinions on immigration predate President Trump, and the writer appears to have held these beliefs for years.
Portions of the alleged manifesto were published by LatinoRebels.com. In it, the author supported the terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand, who killed dozens of Muslims earlier this year; rails against the “Hispanic invasion of Texas”; condemns interracial relationships; and calls for a racial partition of the country.
The author predicted that some people will blame Trump for the attack, but says that would be “fake news,” since he held his views before Trump.
Though the author reserved much of his political bile for Democrats, he also attacked Republicans and espoused some left-wing views, claiming that “our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country.”
The El Paso shooting was followed several hours later by a mass shooting outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio, in which nine people were killed and dozens wounded.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.