September 30, 2016 | No Comments
A group of 136 people calling themselves the “Scholars and Writers for America” released an announcement endorsing Donald Trump for president earlier this week.
The group is largely composed of conservative writers and scholars. It also includes the names of some already prominent Trump supporters, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who made headlines for announcing that he was proud to be a gay Republican at the party’s national convention in July.
“Given our choices in the presidential election, we believe that Donald J. Trump is the candidate most likely to restore the promise of America, and we urge you to support him as we do,” the group wrote.
The New Republic reports that some of the listed experts have controversial pasts within the academy. Specifically, TNR points to historian Christina Jeffrey, whom Gingrich himself fired from her post of House historian in the 1995 after learning that she had “complained Nazi views weren’t represented in a Holocaust course” in 1986, according to The Associated Press.