COLUMBUS, Ohio—The chair of the Ohio College Republican Federation says a recent fundraising email calling Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “a domestic terrorist” was sent out by a third-party fundraising firm without the federation’s knowledge or permission.

The email, sent out Wednesday, provoked immediate and widespread condemnation on social media. Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed socialist whose outspoken views have quickly made her a favored target of Republicans, tweeted that the use of such rhetoric has led to “a spike in death threats” against herself and others.

This puts me in danger every time.



Almost every time this uncalled for rhetoric gets blasted by conserv. grps, we get a spike in death threats to refer to Capitol Police.



Multiple ppl have been arrested trying to harm me, Ilhan, & others.@GOP, what’s it going to take to stop? https://t.co/vpous77RbT — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 10, 2019

The fundraising email was sent in the name of Ohio College Republican Federation Chair Tom Ferrall, a University of Dayton senior. But Ferrall told cleveland.com on Thursday that neither he nor any other Ohio college Republicans were involved with creating the email, nor did they even know it existed until they saw people tweeting about it.

In a fundraising email today, the @OhioCRs describe @AOC as a “domestic terrorist” — a term often reserved for the likes of Timothy McVeigh and people who kill children in their school classrooms pic.twitter.com/fn8n2pmQOm — Dave Levinthal (@davelevinthal) April 10, 2019

Ferrall said the out-of-state fundraising firm, whose name he declined to provide, violated an agreement that no emails would be sent out on behalf of the Ohio College Republican Federation before Ferrall, as chair, first had a chance to review and approve it.

Ferrall said when he found out about the email, he became “quite upset” and notified the fundraising firm that his group was immediately severing ties with the firm and would never work with them again.

Ferrall said he asked the firm why they decided to send a fundraising email labeling the freshman congresswoman from New York City as a “domestic terrorist.

“They offered some boilerplate [explanation] like 'We try to maximize our donations by sending out some provocative subjects” or something like that,” Ferrall said. “They didn’t offer a full explanation, even though I requested one.”

Ferrall said he didn’t know how many people the email was sent to, as the firm didn’t share such information with the federation.

He also said he wasn’t sure whether anyone made a donation to the Ohio College Republican Federation as a result of the email. If the group finds that any such donations were made, Ferrall said organization leaders are already “exploring the options about how to rectify that.”

Ferrall reiterated that the Ohio College Republican Federation apologizes to Ocasio-Cortez for the email.

“The views expressed are not something that I endorse and especially not something that any of our members would endorse,” he said. “No matter who it comes from, it’s a deplorable message to send out.”

While Wednesday’s fundraising email was the first to label Ocasio-Cortez as a “domestic terrorist,” she was also aggressively ridiculed in a number of previous fundraising requests from Ohio College Republicans.

After a reporter with the Center for Public Integrity posted on Twitter some of those previous emails on Wednesday, officials with the University of Dayton called Ferrall because they noted that some of the emails listed Ferrall’s campus mailing address.

School officials told Ferrall that he was not allowed to use his campus address for political fundraising, and Ferrall agreed to erase the address from past messages and not use it in the future, according to both Ferrall and a statement released by the university.