Interim Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell Sends Out an Anti-Semitic Trope Campaign Fundraising Email

The Jerusalem Post reports, GOP-backed Minnesota politician: Jewish incumbent is controlled by Soros:

In a promotional video for her campaign, a Republican candidate for Minnesota’s secretary of state depicted the Jewish Democratic incumbent and another Jewish elections lawyer as being controlled by puppet strings held by Jewish philanthropist George Soros.

The Anti-Defamation League has called the frequent use of puppet-master imagery by conservatives to depict Soros antisemitic.

Kim Crockett’s campaign played the video at the state’s GOP convention last weekend, where Crockett, a former executive at a conservative think tank, also received her party’s endorsement. The video’s messaging played into popular right-wing conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that have collectively fueled several secretary of state races in purple states. Republicans have endorsed candidates who vow to implement tighter voting restrictions.

This type of unveiled antisemitism is straight out of the Great Replacement Theory.

Republicans are openly using antisemitism and Jew hatred to motivate their base. Join us in standing with @marceelias and in rejecting the dangerous antisemitism emanating out of the GOP. https://t.co/HWvGB3oGK2

— Jewish Dems (@USJewishDems) May 18, 2022

The video, which convention attendees posted to social media, depicts the state’s current secretary of state, Steve Simon, and prominent national Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias. Both are Jewish. Their heads are superimposed on the bodies  of the twins from the movie “The Shining,” with a caption reading, “Let’s wreck elections forever and ever.” Simon and Elias are then shown to be attached to puppet strings controlled by Soros.

A Holocaust survivor and prominent donor to liberal and left-wing causes who gave more than $125 million to a Democratic super PAC in 2020, Soros is routinely vilified by right-wing conspiracy theories depicting him as secretly controlling various aspects of society.

Elias, a former lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has led various Democratic legal challenges to new Republican-led voting restrictions in closely watched swing states like Georgia and Wisconsin, making him a frequent target of right-wing election conspiracy campaigns.Soros has donated millions to his efforts to challenge state election laws that Elias says lead to the disenfranchisement of poor people and people of color. Elias is currently testifying in a federal case against top Democratic lawyer Michael Sussman, who is accused of lying to the FBI during the 2016 campaign.

Crockett’s campaign website also includes multiple negative references to Mark Zuckerberg, the Jewish founder of Facebook. Zuckerberg also provoked conservative ire after he donated nearly half a billion dollars to election offices around the country in 2020 (a donation that he says was a one-time event).

The state’s Republican primary will be held August 9. With her party’s formal endorsement, Crockett is expected to win and take on Simon in the general election.

Hey, maybe Republican candidate for Maricopa County Attorney, and currently interim Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, can borrow this video as part of her anti-semitic campaign fundraising.

The Phoenix New Times reports, County Attorney Rachel Mitchell Invokes ‘Soros Machine’ in Campaign Email:

The race to become Maricopa County’s next top prosecutor, just weeks in, is beginning to heat up. And not in a good way.

On May 11, interim Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell — currently the Republican frontrunner for the vacated seat — sent out an email to supporters, urgently seeking donations.

“George Soros is at it again!” read the subject line.

The message marked a shift in the tone of the county attorney’s race — which will determine who steers the powerful Maricopa County Attorney’s Office out of troubled waters.

[If] her initial campaign messaging is any indication, Mitchell seemingly is taking a different tack. She presented herself initially as a reasonable, no-nonsense, conservative. It took only a few weeks for her to begin railing about Soros, a bogeyman for the tough-on-crime right.

“Soros and his daughter are behind efforts to ‘Defund the Police’ and are trying to undermine our criminal justice system at every turn,” she wrote in the May 11 email that sought donations. This had resulted in a “crime surge across the United States.”

If she were not elected, Mitchell implied, this surge would arrive in Maricopa County: “Can I count on your support to help fight off the Soros machine?”

Mitchell’s campaign explained the email in a statement to Phoenix New Times.

“The Maricopa County Attorney’s race is vitally important and it is critical that voters understand how special interest groups have contributed to failed policies in other cities like Chicago and San Francisco where violent crime is surging,” it reads. “The safety of this community is Rachel’s number one priority.”

Mitchell’s current chief of staff at the county attorney’s office, Jennifer Liewer, said she couldn’t comment on campaign matters.

[As] it stands, Mitchell and Gina Godbehere, both of whom have spent decades as prosecutors at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, are vying for the Republican nomination. Gunnigle, a private attorney who narrowly lost to Adel in November 2020, is the lone Democratic contender.

Last month, the county board of supervisors appointed Mitchell to serve as the interim county attorney until voters choose a full-term replacement. This means Mitchell is approaching the August primaries armed with the advantage of incumbency.

Good choice: you picked an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. Check her social media posts for that anti-semitic QAnon shit.

Mitchell has had a long tenure with MCAO, and has served in its highest ranks, working for a time as the second-in-command. She is perhaps best known for her role at the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, when she [was the hack hired by Senate Republicans to] interrogate him and Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused him of sexual assault.

You may recall that she was so ineffective, that Senate Republicans became frustrated and quickly shunted her aside, and decided to do their own dirty work on Christine Blasey Ford. Her performance was roundly criticized by former prosecutors. Why didn’t Rachel Mitchell know her role in Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation was a sham?

Mitchell has positioned herself as a seasoned, well-respected conservative prosecutor. In prior interviews with New Times and while making other public statements, Mitchell has emphasized that she has the experience required to address the issues and instability that many saw in the office during Adel’s tenure.

But although she has touted a focus on victim’s rights, she has paid less lip service to broader questions of criminal justice reform than her predecessor.

This recent email signals that, unlike Adel, Mitchell is beginning to adopt the tough-on-crime posture that had once defined the agency. Crime was surging, she wrote in her email last week, due to liberal prosecutors advocating criminal justice reforms, and the “special interests” backing them.

Gunnigle was quick to bash Mitchell for her latest statements, calling it a “conspiratorial and anti-Semitic campaign stunt.”

“Anti-Semitism should always be rejected and I think will be firmly rejected by the voters,” she said, adding: “My finance records are public. Rachel Mitchell’s comments, as usual, are lies to her base.”

Mitchell’s campaign was dismissive of Gunnigle’s accusations: “[Mitchell] is focused on addressing issues like prosecuting dangerous criminals and drug cartels to make our neighborhoods safe, not making baseless accusations against those running against her.”

Baseless accusations? You put that anti-semitic trope in writing for all the world to see, you dumbass. It’s right there in black and white. You own it.

Gunnigle declined further interview requests and said she stood by her claims.

Soros, a philanthropist and businessman, is Jewish. At times, criticisms of his philanthropy deploy anti-Semitic tropes, as Jewish civil rights organizations like the Anti-Defamation League have noted. It is true, though, that Soros has spent millions on local prosecutor races over the last few years, among other political causes.

And he has stepped into this county’s politics in the past, most memorably in 2016. That’s when he donated $2 million to a group working to prevent Joe Arpaio’s re-election as sheriff of Maricopa County. He also spent over $1 million in the county attorney’s race that year. A review of all active and inactive independent expenditure committees registered with Maricopa County shows that Soros has not spent money independently in a county race since 2016.

Gunnigle never has received any direct funding from Soros, records show. In 2020, Gunnigle reported donations from five political action committees. Two were trade unions, two were local political groups supporting Arizona Democrats, and one was Emily’s List, a Washington, D.C.-based group that gives money to pro-choice Democratic female candidates.

Mitchell’s campaign didn’t provide any evidence of independent expenditures by Soros in the 2020 county attorney’s race. “There is little doubt that Soros is interested in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office so we must be prepared,” the email said of the 2022 race. [That’s called insinuation, a favorite tactic of conspiracy theorists without any evidence.]

Though it’s still early, in first-quarter reports in the county attorney’s race, Gunnigle reported $39,133 in funding, all from individual donations. Mitchell did not report any fundraising in her first-quarter filing, save for $25,000 of her own money.

The MAGA/QAnon white Christian Nationalists will be contibuting to her campaign now after her anti-semitic dog whistle fundraising email. They heard that dog whistle loud and clear.