A Republican state lawmaker in New Hampshire who has ties to the birther movement drew a bizarre connection between President Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler during a state legislative committee Thursday.
State Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-Auburn) began by telling the state House State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee that she wanted to use the last day of Black History Month to outline what she said were contributions from African Americans. She then launched into a somewhat unintelligible claim about abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass before asserting that Wilson agreed with Hitler.
“Woodrow Wilson, because he was a sympathizer and he believed in the Aryan race, he believed that Hitler was correct in the races, where our Founding Fathers believed that all men were created equal," she said. "He went through all the educational material and wiped out all the -- all anything that he could about the true history, about how the slaves were a really good integral part.”
Wilson left office in 1921 and died in 1924. Hitler was largely unknown internationally during Wilson's lifetime.
Granite State Progress, a liberal advocacy organization, filmed Tremblay's Thursday committee testimony. She did not return a phone message seeking comment.
Tremblay was speaking in support of her bill to have New Hampshire recognize what she has deemed the original 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which she said would strengthen the ban on titles of nobility.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that a constitutional amendment covering titles of nobility was ratified by the states in the 1800s and then taken out of the Constitution around the time of the Civil War and replaced by the existing 13th Amendment, which bans slavery. Newsweek reported in 2010 that such claims are largely due to poor record-keeping and that the amendment concerning nobility is still pending before the states for ratification.
Tremblay's legislation asserts the absence of the nobility amendment has rendered the Constitution void, and she has raised questions about the federal government's actions.
On Thursday, Tremblay cited a book by conservative activist David Barton as the source of her claims, but the book's title was not identified in the video. One of Barton's books, The Jefferson Lies, was taken out of publication due to questions regarding its historical accuracy.
This is not the first time Tremblay has received attention for her actions in the legislature. In October, she forwarded an email to the entire 400-member state House of Representatives containing a doctored video that claimed President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Tremblay used the email to say that she did not know if the video was real, but that she wanted an investigation into whether the president is a citizen.
UPDATE: 5:30 p.m. -- David Johnson, an adviser to Tremblay, told The Huffington Post that he takes issue with Granite State Progress's video, saying it did not give the complete context of the lawmaker's remarks to the committee.
Johnson said a complete account of Tremblay's testimony would illuminate Wilson's connection to Hitler, along with what he said is proof that the United States is no longer a country, but rather a corporation chartered in the District of Columbia, as Tremblay's proposed legislation notes.
"Granite State Progress -- and I have not seen their video, but I have seen many of their videos -- they give you bits and pieces," he said.
Johnson, who advises Tremblay on historical matters, cited many of the beliefs held by supporters of the alternative 13th Amendment. He said that the amendment was ratified and then removed from the Constitution by President Abraham Lincoln, adding that Lincoln's actions dissolved the United States and that the president did not emancipate the slaves. Johnson also claimed that the United States is still subject to Lincoln's declaration of martial law and is now under the control of Queen Elizabeth II.
On Wilson, Johnson called the president's decision to sign the legislation creating the Federal Reserve Bank "stupid and dumb." Johnson claimed the Fed is not a U.S.-controlled entity, but rather a "foreign bank."
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