A conservative author who has spread conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and written on social media that "competent white men must be in charge" has been named to a top post at the State Department.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio tapped Darren Beattie to be acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. The position, in a permanent capacity, requires Senate confirmation.
Beattie confirmed his appointment, first reported by Semafor, in a letter on his website, Revolver News.
“I have been given the great honor of serving once again in Trump’s administration, this time in the Department of State,” Beattie wrote, adding he was halting his involvement with his website for the time being.
“Helping Secretary Rubio and my esteemed colleagues in the State Department fulfill President Trump’s agenda will require every ounce of my focus and energy, and accordingly, I will for the time being suspend my direct editorial involvement in Revolver News,” he said.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Revolver News celebrated his appointment in a post sharing his announcement and called it “a real blow to the same smug hacks who love slapping the ‘conspiracy theorist’ label on anyone who challenges their narrative.”
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Beattie has a history of making inflammatory remarks, including a post on X in October that said: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men."
Beattie's site promoted a baseless theory that the attack on the Capitol was the handiwork of the FBI, or has he put it, a "Fedsurrection." Trump seized on and promoted Beattie's articles, including posting on social media in 2022 that Beattie and Revolver had "exposed so much of the Fake News' false narrative about January 6th."
Beattie touted that work in his post to readers.
"We are, of course, best known for directly challenging the official narrative of January 6—and we are especially proud that President Trump, who recently and heroically pardoned the January 6 political prisoners, has himself cited our reporting on this issue frequently and favorably," he wrote.
A former professor at Duke University, Beattie was fired from the Trump White House in 2018 after it emerged that he'd appeared at a conference with white nationalists in 2016. He told The Washington Post he'd "said nothing objectionable" and that he stood by his remarks "completely."
In 2019, now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz hired Beattie as a senior adviser. A year later, in the final months of the Trump administration, the White House appointed him to a three-year term with the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. Its mission includes helping to preserve Holocaust sites. The Anti-Defamation League blasted the appointment at the time as "outrageous."
The Biden administration asked for his resignation from the unpaid post in 2022.
Abigail Williams contributed.
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