Trump campaign CEO accused of anti-Semitic remarks

New York: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks by his ex-wife, who has also alleged emotional and physical abuse, media reports said.

Bannon’s former partner, Mary Louise Piccard, wrote in a statement included in court documents from 2007, that Bannon did not want his daughters to enrol at the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles because of ‘the number of Jews that attend’, the New York Daily News reported.

“I told him that there are children who are Jewish and he asked me what the percentage was. I told him that I didn’t know because it wasn’t an issue for me as I am not raising the girls to be either anti-Semitic or prejudiced against anyone,” she wrote.

At one school, she said, he asked the director why there were so many Hanukkah books in the library. At another school, he asked Piccard if “it bothered her that the school used to be a temple”.

According to divorce papers filed by Piccard, Bannon physically attacked her inside their Santa Monica, California, residence in 1996 and later told her to get out of town so their divorce case would fail.

Bannon, former head of Breitbart News, took the helm of Trump’s campaign last week in a leadership shake-up. His campaign has been plagued by negative stories about staffers, including charges lodged against his former campaign manager following an altercation with a reporter, and questions about his former campaign chairman’s links with Russian interests.

Alexandra Preate, a spokeswoman for Bannon, denied on Friday night that he made anti-Semitic remarks about the private school, reported the Guardian.

“Mr Bannon never said anything like that and proudly sent the girls to Archer for their middle school and high school education,” she said.

–IANS