Secret Service to investigate Trump’s ex-butler
Man called for Obama’s execution, targets first lady, Hillary Clinton on Facebook
“We totally and completely disavow the horrible statements made by him regarding the president.” HOPE HICKS TRUMP SPOKESWOMAN
WASHINGTON— Donald Trump’s former butler has drawn the attention of Secret Service for online comments he’s made against U.S. President Barack Obama.
Anthony Senecal, who served the presumptive Republican nominee at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, has a Facebook page filled with incendiary comments.
Many of the posts are directed at the president and his family. Liberal magazine Mother Jones first reported on Senecal’s Facebook posts, including one from Wednesday in which he wrote Obama “should have been taken out by our military and shot as an enemy agent in his first term.”
In one message from September 2015, Senecal said the military should hang Obama for treason and other “high crimes.”
In another that month, he described Obama, a Christian, by using a slur for a member of the Muslim faith. In that post, he wrote that he does not speak for Trump: “This is my opinion, only!!!!”
The post was only visible to his Facebook friends, but Senecal confirmed its authenticity to Mother Jones, saying, “I wrote that. I believe that.”
Senecal declined to accept a reporter’s call placed to the antiques dealer in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he works, but told Mother Jones he wrote the posts.
“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of this matter and will conduct the appropriate investigation,” agency spokesman Robert Hoback said in an email Thursday. The Trump campaign denounced Senecal’s messages and distanced itself from the former butler at Trump’s estate, the Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.
“Tony Senecal has not worked at Mar-a-Lago for years, but nevertheless we totally and completely disavow the horrible statements made by him regarding the president,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said via email.
Wednesday’s Facebook post isn’t the first time Senecal has called for Obama to be killed, Mother Jones reported.
He also has made threatening remarks about the president’s wife, Michelle Obama.
Here is part of what Mother Jones published on its website Thursday: “Senecal regularly posts screeds on his Facebook page from a far-right perspective in which he decries Obama and his wife — along with Hillary Clinton, other Democrats and Republican leaders. He often refers to Obama as ‘zero,’ and several times he has called for the president’s execution. He confirms that he has written all the posts on the page that have appeared under his name. ‘It’s all me,’ he says.” With files from The Washington Post