United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has hired as its first “chief of diversity and inclusion” a person who posted anti-Trump memes on his Facebook page, including one that compared the former president to Adolf Hitler.
SOCOM posted about Richard Torres-Estrada’s hire on Thursday:
After his hire was announced, some of Torres-Estrada’s apparent social media posts began circulating.
A Facebook account appearing to belong to Torres-Estrada posted on June 2, 2020: “Here I leave this and slowly retire (to continue working from home)…” along with a meme of then-President Donald Trump, holding up a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church after Black Lives Matter protesters set fire to it, next to a photo of Hitler.
Torres-Estrada also posted on July 8, 2020, another anti-Trump meme with quotes from his former advisers criticizing him. He added the caption, “I just have to post this.”
He more recently, on February 19, 2021, posted a meme critical of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Breitbart News reached out to a spokesman for SOCOM on Friday afternoon, asking, “Does SOCOM have a statement on why he was hired at SOCOM to be the diversity and inclusion chief when his posts could be seen as partisan, and concerning for members of the military and SOCOM community who supported Trump?”
The spokesman responded, “We are aware of the allegations and are looking into them now.”
Joe Kent, retired U.S. Army Special Forces chief warrant officer 3, who spent more than 20 years in special operations and completed 11 combat deployments, criticized Torres-Estrada’s posts.
“Looks like the new diversity officer loves celebrating diversity with those who agree with him. Here is what he thinks of the rest of us- Mr. Torres-Estrada was not placed in US Special Operations command by mistake,” Kent tweeted.
Kent added: “The left is not hiding the fact that they are in control & have the power to cleanse the ranks of those who do not submit…He is one of the reason you see so much woke tweeting from Sr Mil leaders They are pledging their loyalty to the new order & cleansing themselves of the old.”
He added: “Special ops leans heavily right, that’s why Biden’s team put such an outspoken monitor in SOCCOM & is not having him tidy up his social media, it’s a not so subtle warning. Special ops leans right but honorably serves our nation, regardless of what party POTUS is from.”
Mike Egan, a fellow Green Beret veteran and former Trump administration official, also weighed in on Torres-Estrada’s partisan posts.
“#SOF is a meritocracy. Anything short undermines their effectiveness,” he tweeted.
“To add insult to injury the Woke DOD is filling this needless role with this [clown] who’s most relevant experience is with a perpetually unreliable public transit system,” he added, referring to Torres-Estrada’s former employment with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
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