Report: Senior HHS Official On Leave Over Conspiratorial, Racist Social Media Posts

WASHINGTON - AUGUST 16: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building is shown August 16, 2006 in Washington, DC. The HHS Building, also known as the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, is located at the foot ... WASHINGTON - AUGUST 16: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building is shown August 16, 2006 in Washington, DC. The HHS Building, also known as the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, is located at the foot of Capitol Hill and is named for Humphrey, who served as a U.S. senator from Minnesota and Vice President of the United States. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Jon Cordova, the principal deputy assistant secretary for administration at the Department of Health and Human Services, has been placed on leave in the wake of revelations about conspiratorial and racist posts he shared on social media, CNN reported Tuesday.

“Mr. Cordova is currently on administrative leave while we look into this issue further,” an unnamed agency spokesperson told CNN.

Cordova was suspended after CNN’s KFile team asked HHS about the posts, the network reported.

Cordova’s bio on the HHS website notes that he joined the administration in February 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and that his current duties include “providing direct support to the Assistant Secretary for Administration for HHS and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Office of Human Relations, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Office of Security and Strategic Information, Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance and Operations Office and the Program Support Center.” 

Among the posts flagged by CNN: a story Cordova shared on Facebook in July 2016 falsely alleging that Khizr Khan was a “Muslim Brotherhood agent” and “a Muslim plant working with the Hillary Clinton campaign.” In March of that year, he shared a false story alleging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), then competing with Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for President, “frequented prostitutes,” in CNN’s words, among other claims. 

In August 2015, Cordova shared a photograph of an African American man holding a photoshopped protest sign that read “No mother should have to fear for her son’s life every time he robs a store,” the report said. In a two-year-old tweet, according to a CNN screenshot, he shared a meme comparing MoveOn.org and Black Lives Matter protesters to Nazi Brown Shirts.

Read CNN’s full report here.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. When will Donnie John be placed on leave over his conspiratorial, racist social media posts? Asking for the country.

  2. In the words of Jim Lahey, “You’re known by the company you keep, boy.”

  3. Another one of those “best” people.
    And BTW, since That Orange Thing That Lives Down The Lane is constantly calling CNN, MSNBC, the NYT, WAPO, and every other non-Trump-ballsucking media outlet “fake news”, when is Trump going to call out his friends at InfoWars and Gateway Pundit (and, of course, the lovely and delightful Dinesh D’Souza and hunka-hunka-burnin’ has-been Bill O’Reilly) and the rest for spreading REAL “fake news” about the Parkland students being paid actors? Perhaps someone will ask Sarah Huffalump Sansabelt during the next PR session, which will probably be delayed so long it will last about 45 seconds.

  4. I think someone, as an experiment, should post almost identical comments on Twitter that Trump does just to see how long it takes to get banned.

  5. Among the posts flagged by CNN: a story Cordova shared on Facebook in July 2016 falsely alleging that Khizr Khan was a “Muslim Brotherhood agent” and “a Muslim plant working with the Hillary Clinton campaign.”

    So Atwater was friends with a supposed Muslim Brotherhood member, k.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

35 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for srfromgr Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for meri Avatar for sysprog Avatar for leftflank Avatar for teenlaqueefa Avatar for labman57 Avatar for chelsea530 Avatar for tamdai Avatar for sonsofares Avatar for lastroth Avatar for geofu54 Avatar for pshah Avatar for dommyluc Avatar for flamingprogressive Avatar for rickjones Avatar for canyoncountry Avatar for brian512 Avatar for not_so_fluffy Avatar for dannysgrandma Avatar for eisenst Avatar for rmfrank Avatar for motezart

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: