Leaked emails obtained exclusively by the Guardian have exposed senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller's efforts to promote racist conspiracy theories and white nationalist ideas to shape coverage on the far-right website Breitbart News during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The emails, provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), show Miller corresponding with then-Breitbart writer Katie McHugh. According to the SPLC, 80% of the 900 emails in their correspondence focused on race and immigration. In one message, Miller forwarded a link to a book claiming refugee resettlement is part of a UN-inspired plan to erase American sovereignty and culture.
Miller also disseminated the racist idea of demographic replacement, where white Americans are supposedly replaced by non-whites. In an email with the subject line “some articles you may find useful”, he linked to a Brookings Institution report on increasing diversity with the comment: “White youth population disappearing.”
Other emails reveal Miller's antipathy towards specific immigrant communities. He sent McHugh a video alleging Somali refugees' involvement in underage prostitution, and linked to an article arguing that stalled social mobility is related to “importing millions of low skill immigrants” from Latin America.
McHugh, who has since renounced the far right, told the Guardian that the emails typified Miller's attitudes. “They viewed immigration as a plot to undermine American sovereignty,” she said. “He wanted refugee resettlement cut to zero and an end to legal immigration.”
