Stuart Seldowitz, who previously served as national security adviser to former President Barack Obama, has been arrested and charged with a hate crime for harassing a halal food vendor in Manhattan, berating him with anti-Muslim insults.
“The former official, Stuart Seldowitz, 64, faces charges that include aggravated harassment and several counts of stalking, according to the police,” reported the New York Times.
“The charges were brought after the vendor, whom the police did not name but identified as a 24-year-old man, told the police that a person had approached him several times while he was working and had made Islamophobic comments, causing him to feel ‘afraid and annoyed,'” the Times added.
As Breitbart News reported, the video surfaced on X and appeared to show Seldowitz harassing a food cart vendor near 83rd and 2nd Avenue in New York City. Per Newsweek:
Among the remarks made in the video shot in Manhattan, Seldowitz asks the operator if he “raped [his] daughter” and calls Islamic prophet Muhammad a “rapist,” and suggests that the killing of around 4,000 Palestinian children in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas conflict “wasn’t enough.” Confirmation of Seldowitz’s identity arrived when his current employer, lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, announced that they had fully parted ways with him.
Video also surfaced appearing to show that Seldowitz had engaged in this type of bullying behavior on at least one other occasion.
Gotham Government Relations, the lobbying firm that employed Seldowitz, later announced that it had severed ties with him.
“Gotham Government Relations has ended all affiliation with Stuart Seldowitz, an individual who hasn’t contributed to our work in years,” it said. “The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm.”
According to Vice, Seldowitz served as “acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under Obama and was deputy director/senior political officer in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003.”
“More recently, he served as foreign affairs chair for Gotham Government Relations, which announced his new role in a press release in November 2022,” Vice added.
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