A Trump speechwriter who was sacked in 2018 for meeting white nationalists has been rehired to oversee US Holocaust memorials

• A White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for meeting with white nationalists has been rehired to join an agency that oversees US Holocaust memorials abroad.
• President Donald Trump appointed Darren Beattie to join the board of the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad on Wednesday.
• The White House had fired Beattie after CNN reported that he had appeared on a panel with white nationalist Peter Brimelow in 2016.
• Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement: "It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered."
• Beattie told The New York Times: "I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader."

A former speechwriter for President Donald Trump, who was previously fired for attending a meeting of white nationalists, has been given a new role to help oversee memorials commemorating the Holocaust genocide.

Trump nominated Darren Beattie to become a board member of the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, the White House said in a Wednesday statement.

The body was founded in 1985 and is tasked with seeking out, and overseeing, the preservation of overseas sites related to the Holocaust.Beattie was fired from his speechwriting role at the White House in 2018 after a CNN investigation found that he had attended a meeting with white nationalists in 2016.

CNN found that Beattie spoke on a panel alongside Peter Brimelow, the founder of anti-immigration website Vdare, at a conferences hosted by the right-wing society the H.L. Mencken Club.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said Brimelow "regularly publishes works by white supremacists, anti-Semites, and others on the radical right."

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After CNN's report was published, the White House asked Beattie to step down in August 2018, but he refused, and was subsequently fired, according to The Washington Post.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement: "It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials in Europe."Business Insider has contacted the White House for comment.

After The New York Times reported on the backlash to the appointment on Wednesday, Beattie attacked the story's author, Maggie Haberman, tweeting that she was a "foot washer for Hillary Clinton."

Beattie also told The Times in a statment: "The ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats. As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader, Jonathan Greenblatt."

—Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) April 19, 2019

Nearly a year after his firing from the White House, Beattie was hired as an advisory speechwriter for Republican Party congressman Matt Gaetz.

The White House hired Beattie to be a speechwriter after he wrote a series of pro-Trump while studying for a doctorate political theory at Duke University, according to The Daily Beast.