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Twitter Hack
in
the
Jewish Republican Senate candidate portrayed as David Duke supporter.
RONELLE GRIER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
L
Lena Epstein
A random sample screen shot
of Lena Epstein’s Twitter page
ena Epstein, who is seeking
the Republican nomination in
2018 to run against Democratic
incumbent Debbie Stabenow for U.S.
Senate, reported that her Twitter
account was hacked earlier this month
to make it appear that she “liked” posts
made by Ku Klux Klan leader David
Duke.
Epstein, who served as co-chair of
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign
in Michigan, accused state Democratic
Party Chair Brandon Dillon of exploit-
ing the situation by disseminating
screen shots of her Twitter account
before her campaign team had time
to discover the hack and remove the
content.
“Any suggestion that I support this
type of hateful ideology is extremely
disturbing to me, my family, the
Jewish community and my base of
supporters in Michigan and around
the country,” Epstein, who is Jewish,
wrote in an email to the Jewish News.
“Whoever illegally hacked into my
account chose to try and portray
me as a supporter of all that I stand
against. This is an affront to the
Jewish community, and I am dis-
gusted by Chairman Brandon Dillon
and the Michigan Democrat Party for
exploiting what is so obviously false.”
After Epstein reported the hack, the
matter was turned over to the Michigan
Cyber Commander Center (MC3) of the
Michigan State Police for investigation,
according to police department repre-
sentative Shannon Banner.
Dillon said he assumed Epstein’s
Twitter posts were legitimate and dis-
tributed the screen shots because he
found the posts “disturbing.”
“I hope the investigation finds that
she was hacked and that she didn’t do
that,” Dillon said, “but it did not seem
implausible because of the campaign
she’s been running, her unapologetic
embrace of Donald Trump and her
association with unsavory characters
like Ted Nugent.”
Rocker and former Detroiter Nugent,
an avid Trump supporter, has endorsed
Epstein and is campaigning on her
behalf. The two appeared together on a
national segment of Fox News on Aug.
16 to defend the president and his han-
dling of the deadly white supremacist
rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12
that resulted in the death of 32-year-
old Heather Heyer. Trump condemned
hatred and racism while claiming there
was blame on both sides of the protest,
which included neo-Nazis and those
counter-protesting the white suprema-
cists.
Epstein declined to comment when
asked by the JN about Trump’s remarks
defending some of the white suprema-
cist protestors in Charlottesville as
some “very fine people … that were
there to protest the taking down of, to
them, a very, very important statue.”
While the president’s comments were
praised by Duke, they incited a wave of
criticism from politicians and leaders
throughout the country on both sides
of the political aisle.
She also declined to comment on
whether, in advance of accepting
his endorsement, she was aware of
Nugent’s inflammatory, anti-Semitic
Facebook posts in 2016 that superim-
posed the Israeli flag over the faces
of 12 prominent American Jews who
favored gun control laws, including for-
mer Michigan Sen. Carl Levin.
At the time, Duke congratulated
Nugent in a Facebook post for telling
“the truth” about Jews. Nugent subse-
quently apologized for the post after
facing calls by fellow gun owners for
his removal from the National Rifle
Association’s board of directors.
“Her [Epstein’s] claims of hack-
ing would be more believable if she
weren’t holding hands with people like
Ted Nugent and Donald Trump,” said
Dillon.
While Epstein said she could not
comment further about the hacking
because of the ongoing investigation,
she included the following in her email
response to the JN:
“As a Jewish woman with deep roots
in the Jewish faith, a proud lineage
of Jewish leaders and relatives who
were killed in the Holocaust because
of blind hatred and prejudice, there
is little that could be more offensive
to me than the suggestion that I sup-
port, ‘like’ or condone David Duke,
neo-Nazis or any group that promotes
hatred and prejudice.” •
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