The New York Daily News reported Friday that court documents revealed that Donald Trump’s campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, did not want their daughters to attend Los Angeles elite School because it had many Jewish students, and didn’t want his daughters going to school with Jews.
Bannon’s ex-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, made the accusations of anti-Semitism against her husband in a June 2007 court declaration, which the Daily News said “came about during a custody battle regarding their two daughters.” She said at the time that he did not want the girls attending the Archer School for Girls, because he did not like the way Jews “raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats'”.
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Piccard’s response? “I told him that there are children who are Jewish at (a competing school), and he asked me what the percentage was. I told him that I didn’t know because it wasn’t an issue for me as I am not raising the girls to be either anti-Semitic or prejudiced against anyone, ” she wrote.
He then allegedly asked for “the percentage” of Jewish students at another school, she said. “I told him that there are children who are Jewish at (The other school), and he asked me what the percentage was.” she wrote. “I told him that I didn’t know because it wasn’t an issue for me as I am not raising the girls to be either anti-Semitic or prejudiced against anyone.”
And while visiting a third school, the statement read, Bannon allegedly asked an official why there were “so many Chanukah books in the library.”
The documents also include charges of domestic violence. According to court records, Bannon was charged with three misdemeanors for attacking Piccard inside their home on New Year’s Day 1996, prompting her to file for divorce.
She subsequently wrote that Bannon and his attorney pressured her to leave the city before the case went to trial, under threat of not providing any financial support to her or the children.
“I went to court he and his attorney would make sure that I would be the one who was guilty. I was told that I could go anywhere in the world, ” she wrote.
According to Bloomberg, Bannon, the former head of Breitbart.com, was described by Breitbart “with sincere admiration, as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement”– referring to the Nazi propagandist and director of the film Triumph of the Will.
Bannon’s spokeswoman, Alexandra Preate, denies these claims, saying “Mr. Bannon said he never said anything like that and proudly sent the girls to Archer for their middle school and high school education.”