Politico Editor Resigns After Doxxing White Nationalist Leader

Michael Hirsh/ Flickr
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A Politico editor has resigned after publishing what he said were addresses for prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer on Facebook.

The Daily Caller reported that national editor Michael Hirsh had resigned after publishing a Facebook post Tuesday that read “Stop whining about Richard B. Spencer, Nazi, and exercise your rights as decent Americans.”

“Here are his two addresses,” Hirsh continued, before listing two addresses he claimed belonged to Spencer. The post the Daily Caller piece referenced are no longer accessible on Hirsh’s public page.

After receiving criticism below his Facebook post about publishing the addresses (“Send a letter?” one commenter wondered), The Daily Caller reported that Hirsch wrote “I wasn’t thinking of a fucking letter, Doug. He lives part of the time next door to me in Arlington. Our grandfathers brought baseball bats to Bund meetings. Want to join me?”

Hirsh also had tweeted on Monday “it’s good that neo-Nazi Richard Spencer is moving to Washington. It’s important that we know where he lives.”

Politico editor-in-chief John Harris and editor Carrie Budoff condemned Hirsh’s post Tuesday afternoon.

“These posts were clearly outside the bounds of acceptable discourse, and POLITICO editors regard them as a serious lapse of newsroom standards,” they said in a statement emailed to TPM. “They crossed a line in ways that the publication will not defend, and editors are taking steps to ensure that such a lapse does not occur again.”

Spencer has received a lot of media attention lately for his leadership of a white nationalist organization called the National Policy Institute, which held a well-publicized conference in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to celebrate Donald Trump’s electoral victory. Spencer also claims to have coined the term “alt-right.”

This post has been updated.

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