Trump's VA pick, a longtime aide to polarizing politicians, has defended extreme views
Source: WaPo
But the conservative Washington insider, whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, first must defend a career working shoulder to shoulder with polarizing figures in American politics — and the moments when he came to the defense of their most divisive views.
Wilkie, 55, has impeccable credentials: Three decades at the center of the country’s most important military policies. The son of an Army artillery commander severely wounded in Vietnam — and a reserve officer in the Air Force himself. A trusted lieutenant of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis with contacts in Congress spanning at least five administrations.
He started as a young aide to Jesse Helms, the five-term Senate firebrand who denounced Martin Luther King Jr. and once called homosexuals “weak, morally sick wretches.” He served as a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who lost his leadership post after defending a fellow senator’s segregationist campaign for president decades prior. And he joined the inner circle of former defense secretary and Iraq War architect Donald H. Rumsfeld before returning to the Pentagon last year to run military personnel policy for the Trump administration.
Wilkie grew up visiting American battlefields with his father and developed a lifelong fascination with military history, including that of his ancestors, who fought for the Confederacy. He was, as recently as 2005, a fixture at the annual memorial ceremonies in Washington held by descendants of Confederate veterans around the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Wilkie also was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that defends public displays of the Confederate symbols.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-va-pick-a-longtime-aide-to-polarizing-politicians-has-defended-extreme-views/2018/06/26/d74affde-69d8-11e8-9e38-24e693b38637_story.html?utm_term=.22eb58dd9555
Racist, homophobic, misogynistic --Jesse Helms' acolyte, aide to Trent Lott and praise for Strom Thurmond.
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NEW: Trump’s nominee to lead the VA defended Confederate insignia, attended Confederate memorial events, joined and then left Sons of Confederate Veterans.
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Trump comes up with real winners. 
