A group of 66 former state attorneys general wrote a letter to President Trump asking him to take the advice of an Alabama official who once told the Klu Klux Klan “kiss my ass.”

The group referred to a letter that former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley sent the the KKK in 1976, when Baxley worked to prosecute white supremacists leaders for the Birmingham church bombing that left four African-American girls dead.

When the KKK leader at the time wrote Baxley a threatening letter, Baxley responded memorably.

“My response to your letter of February 19, 1976, is — kiss my ass,” the letter stated.

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The attorneys general writing to Trump commended that message, comparing it favorably to Trump's own response to a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Trump said both sides in that conflict — both white supremacists and those protesting them — were to blame for violence, a position that has been roundly criticized.

“As former state attorneys general, we take the liberty of reminding Americans as we remind ourselves — that events can call out the worst in us — and the best,” the attorneys general wrote in a letter obtained by Buzzfeed.

Of Baxley, the officials wrote: “We commend his response to the attention of all who seek to equivocate in times of moral crisis.”

The letter called on Trump to “respond directly to the voice of hate.”