Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the genius who invited conspiracy theorist Charles “Chuck” Johnson as his guest to the State of the Union, offered a wild defense of the move on Monday night: an email from famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz assuring that Johnson is not an “antiSemite.”

Gaetz drew controversy when he invited Johnson, a notorious far-right troll, to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union in 2018. Johnson is notorious for the racist and otherwise offensive comments he has churned out over the years. In one instance, when asked on Reddit about the “JQ” (Jewish Question), Johnson said, “I do not and never have believed the six million figure.”

“I think the Red Cross numbers of 250,000 dead in the camps from typhus are more realistic,” he continued. “I think the Allied bombing of Germany was a war crime. I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real.”

On Monday night, Gaetz defended the invitation by posting a screenshot of a purported email from Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus, vouching for Johnson.

“I’ve known Charles Johnson since he was a high school student who worked for me,” Dershowitz wrote in an email to Gaetz. “He is certainly not an antiSemite or a Holocaust denier. He is a provocateur who sometimes does foolish things to make a point. He has apologized for his insensitive misuse of the Holocaust to test censorship and has promised never again to do anything like that. I take him at his word.”

Behold:

Johnson recently filed filed for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to court records obtained by Splinter, after he faced legal action for labeling a teenager as the white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer at the Charlottesville alt-right rally in 2017.

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