Emails reveal Stephen Miller had editorial sway at Breitbart
Stephen Miller, the controversial senior White House policy adviser with hardline immigration views, coordinated with editors at far-right news site Breitbart to shape its immigration coverage, pushing criticism of Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s immigration policies, and otherwise directing editorial coverage, newly released emails from 2015 show.
The emails were released Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, after they were leaked to the organization by a former Breitbart editor, Katie McHugh. McHugh was fired in 2017 after anti-Muslim remarks following a terrorist attack in London.
In the years since her time at Breitbart, McHugh has renounced her views and worked to expose members of the far right.
Tuesday’s email release is the third in a series from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Earlier email releases indicate that Miller promoted stories from white nationalist and fringe media organizations to Breitbart staffers.
Neither Miller nor the White House responded to a CNN request for comment about the latest batch of emails. Rubio’s office also did not respond to a CNN request for comment.
Elizabeth Moore, a Breitbart spokesperson, told CNN: “It is no surprise to us that the SPLC opposes news coverage of illegal-immigrant crime and believes such coverage is disproportionate, especially when compared to the rest of the media, which often refuse to cover such crimes.”
The emails show that Miller, an aide to then-Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions at the time, often made editorial suggestions to Breitbart staff. On more than one occasion, the website’s staff aggregated stories at Miller’s suggestion and placed certain stories prominently on their website when Miller emailed them about it.
Breitbart also ran a press release authored by Miller under the byline “Breitbart News,” which Miller suggested.
“I think Breitbart News (should be the byline),” Miller told Breitbart editor Matthew Boyle. “Then it can be introduced as something shared exclusively with Breitbart by the Senate’s Subcomittee (sic) on Immigration and the National Interest, with the graphic and explanatory text underneath.”
Others copied to the email include Steve Bannon, who was leading the far-right website at the time, Sessions aide Garrett Murch, McHugh and three other Breitbart employees.
The press release ended up in a story entitled: “Exclusive — Senate Immigration Subcommittee Releases Chart Proving Immigration Will Outpace American Population Growth 7 To 1 Through 2065,” under the byline “Breitbart News.”
In another email, Miller said the publication should aggregate a piece written by a conservative pundit criticizing Rubio’s presidential run. An article on the subject was posted to Breitbart’s website hours later.
“My editors were expecting me to take white nationalist material from Stephen Miller and put it into News stories in order to boost the campaign of Donald Trump,” McHugh told CNN in a phone interview.
On at least 10 occasions, Miller pushed the website’s staff to criticize then-presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s immigration policy stance, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center report released Tuesday.
“Been a long time since anything anti-rubio was pub’d,” Miller wrote in an April 2015 email, according to the center’s report.