Guy Reschenthaler, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional district, said Friday he wouldn’t have written the foreword to a controversial 2012 book if he had known what views were represented in it.
The defense comes amid growing scrutiny of Mr. Reschenthaler’s relationship with conservative commentator and former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie, who made a number of racist, homophobic and xenophobic claims in “Battle on the Home Front: A Navy SEAL’s Mission to Save the American Dream,” which featured an introduction by Mr. Reschenthaler. The left-leaning outlet Media Matters reported on the book foreword on Thursday.
“Let me be clear. I don’t stand behind the statements that were said in that book,” Mr. Reschenthaler said in an interview with the Post-Gazette. “I don’t stand behind those remarks and those comments.”
When asked if he had read the book before writing the foreword, Mr. Reschenthaler replied, “No.”
“I wrote that foreword as a placeholder for Carl, who at the time was my client in the Navy, and I represented a lot of members,” Mr Reschenthaler said. "I represented a member on SEAL Team 10 who is friends with Carl. Then I represented Carl during a dispute he had with the Navy, so I wrote that as a friend and as a lawyer.”
“I thought it was going to be a placeholder,” he added. “It went to print with my foreword in the book.”
According to a review of the book by Media Matters, Mr. Higbie referred to Hurricane Katrina survivors as “human parasites,” said Puerto Ricans should “go back” to their country if they’re so proud of it and labeled the widespread acceptance of LGBTQ people as “wrong.” He also asserted that undocumented immigrants who attempt to cross the border should be shot “dead.”
On the topic of slavery, Mr. Higbie claimed, “I certainly don’t agree with slavery, but I do think that you should play the hand you are dealt, and good physical genetics are definitely dealt to many blacks.”
In Mr. Reschenthaler’s introduction to the book, he wrote he was “impressed by [Mr. Higbie’s] no-nonsense, commonsense approach that has the power to persuade and captivate.”
“At times, I found myself getting frustrated by the examples of political correctness and poor decision-making he brought to light,” Mr. Reschenthaler continued in the foreword. “At other points, I laughed out loud when Carl wrote about anecdotes he experienced over the last few years.”
Now, a number of years later and locked in a tight race for the Republican nomination against Rick Saccone, Mr. Reschenthaler sought to distance himself from Mr. Higbie and from the book.
“Carl has disavowed the statements in that book. He’s done everything he can to move away from that book as well,” Mr. Reschenthaler said. “Those certainly are not my words. Let me be clear: there’s no room for bigotry, racism, homophobia and xenophobia in the United States and certainly not in my Republican Party.”
Mr. Reschenthaler co-hosted a radio program with Mr. Higbie called “Sound of Freedom,” but left the show after a handful of episodes because he became uncomfortable with the conversation, he told the Post-Gazette in 2015 during the special election campaign for the state Senate’s 37th District. He claimed then that he functioned as a counterweight to the more conservative Mr. Higbie.
First Published: April 27, 2018, 8:46 p.m.
