Donald Trump adviser, NH state rep says Hillary Clinton should be executed by firing squad or electric chair
New Hampshire state Rep. Al Baldasaro, a veterans adviser and delegate for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, is not backing down from his call for Hillary Clinton to be executed.
The conservative Londonderry Republican and longtime Trump loyalist first said in a WRKO radio interview Tuesday in Cleveland that Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, “should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”
The comments were first reported on by BuzzFeed News.
https://soundcloud.com/buzzfeedandrew/trump-vet-co-chair-rep-al-baldasaro
Baldasaro called Clinton a “disgrace” for her handling of the 2012 Benghazi attacks and revelations about her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. He later added that Clinton was “a piece of garbage.”
Reached by phone Wednesday by The Boston Globe, Baldasaro was asked if he stood by his comments.
“Without a doubt,” he said.
“When you take classified information on a server that deals with where our State Department, Special Forces, CIA, whatever in other countries, that’s a death sentence for those people if that information gets in the hands of other countries or the terrorists,” the retired Marine told the Globe. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s information for the enemy. In the military, shot, firing squad. So I stand by what I said.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Baldasaro’s comments were picked up and widely reported on in the national media. Told by WMUR.com that his remarks had “gone viral,” the state representative replied “good.”
Baldasaro also revised his call for Clinton to be “shot for treason,” adjusting for modern means of capital punishment.
“Maybe it’s the electric chair now,” he told WMUR.com, reiterating his belief that Clinton’s handling of classified information on a private email server was treason.
Earlier this month, FBI Director James Comey recommended no criminal charges against Clinton after an investigation of her use of the private server, though he did say her actions were “extremely careless.”
Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, told NH1 that Baldasaro “doesn’t speak for the campaign.”
“We’re incredibly grateful for his support, but we don’t agree with his comments,” she added.
Hicks also told WMUR.com that Trump himself “does not agree” that Clinton should be shot for treason.
In a statement, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri tied Baldasaro’s remarks to Trump’s “constant escalation of outrageous rhetoric” and said the Republican nominee’s “overtaking” of the GOP endangers “mainstreaming the kind of hatred that has long been relegated to the fringes of American politics where it belongs.”
The campaign also sent fundraising texts off his remarks Wednesday afternoon.
.@HillaryClinton fundraising off of @Al_Baldasaro‘s call for her to be “shot for treason.” https://t.co/8qD1rZbpEC pic.twitter.com/zepHJTUNYi
— Casey McDermott (@caseymcdermott) July 20, 2016
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley issued a statement Wednesday calling Baldasaro’s remarks “disgusting, offensive and frighteningly commonplace in the party of Trump.” Buckley also called on the state’s Republican Party chair, Jennifer Horn, to ask for his resignation as a state representative.
Later Wednesday, Horn said she condemned Baldasaro’s statement “in the strongest terms possible” and urged him to “immediately apologize.”
A spokesman for the Secret Service told Politico in a statement Wednesday afternoon the agency was “aware” of Baldasaro’s comments and “will conduct the appropriate investigation.”
Though never to this extent, this was not the first time Baldasaro’s words thrust him into the national spotlight. Last December, he defended Trump’s proposed immigration ban on Muslims by comparing it (favorably) to the incarceration of Japanese civilians in internment camps during World War II.
Baldasaro is one of 400 New Hampshire state representatives.
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