The hirings are the latest controversies enveloping Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office following a mass of staff firings and resignations. | G-Jun Yam/AP New hires create minefield for Illinois governor

CHICAGO — Illinois Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has long portrayed himself as a social moderate, this week hired two staffers who have taken stances at sharp odds with that image, including one who recently compared abortion to Nazi eugenics.

Newly-hired communications specialist Brittany Carl authored an April 20 piece for Smart Girl Politics titled “An Inconvenient Analogy: Abortion, Eugenics,and Nazi Germany.”


“While HuffPo and other media outlets were busy covering the outrage generated by the video, they conveniently failed to mention why anyone would make this comparison in the first place,” Carl wrote. “Certainly nothing matches the atrocity of the Holocaust, but it’s undeniable that abortion is being used to rid the world of ‘disabled and other ‘unwanted’ persons’—a fact the Left and their pro-abortion allies don’t want discussed.”

On Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League called on Carl to back away from the statement.

“Any analogies comparing the Holocaust to abortion is historically inaccurate, inappropriate, and offensive, especially to survivors and their families,” Lonnie Nasatir, an ADL regional director, said in a statement.“We call upon Ms. Carl to retract her statement.”

A second newly-hired communications specialist, Meghan Keenan, deleted her Twitter account just after she was hired Monday as a $45,000-a-year communications specialist for Rauner’s office. But POLITICO has obtained screenshots of her tweets questioning climate change, calling for defunding the Affordable Care Act, and seeming to support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, saying “religious objections can actually expand access to abortion, birth control, etc."

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"Relevant to the week’s news on UN climate summit — No significant warming trend in average temp for the past 18 years,” she wrote in another tweet .

The hirings are the latest controversies enveloping Rauner’s office following a mass of staff firings and resignations. Since last week, nearly two dozen Rauner employees have been fired or have resigned in protest after the governor hired a series of individuals who worked with the Illinois Policy Institute, a lightning rod conservative think tank. Rauner began the wave of departures with the firing of top aides last week in response to a punishing override of his budget veto.

Many Illinois Republicans have complained that the IPI has advocated extreme positions, with some GOP legislative members blaming the group for promoting a hostile environment on social media in the days leading up an intense budget override vote. The furor surrounding the vote grew so heated that one lawmaker received a death threat.

The fallout from the office shake-up has created a brand new minefield for the governor, who has insisted he isn’t moving to the right as he heads into what’s expected to be one of the costliest reelection fights in U.S. history.

Some of the new hires have taken hard-right stances on issues that Rauner himself hasn't fully weighed in on — including health care. And part of Rauner's formula for winning in a blue state was his liberal stance on abortion — both he and his wife, Diana Rauner, cut TV ads in the 2014 race insisting Rauner had no social agenda.

On Monday, Rauner’s office fired Ben Tracy on the same day he was hired as a personal aide to the governor after it was disovered Tracy had a history of writing racially-charged, homophobic and sexually explicit tweets.

Rauner’s office did not immediately respond to the latest questions.

But earlier this week he downplayed the massive staff turnover. “It's just part of the process," Rauner said. "The critical thing for me is, everybody who serves in government should put the best interests of the people of Illinois first. I demand that of everyone. Loyalty anywhere else is wrong.”