California Department of Ed official linked to antisemitic beliefs gets reinstated

(JNS) — An official in California’s Department of Education accused of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Holocaust and the Sept. 11 terror attacks has recently been reinstated, reported The Sacramento Bee.

California state superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond said during an April 23 call with reporters that a third-party investigation into Craig Heimbichner, who works as an administrator in the Department of Education’s charter-school oversight division, determined that there was no basis for disciplinary action. He was reinstated “immediately.”

Thurmond pointed out that “obviously, if there was some evidence or circumstances otherwise, we’d be having a different conversation today.”

Heimbichner had been on paid leave since a Sacramento Bee investigation in late February revealed that for more than a decade, he wrote material supporting conspiracy theories, including the claim that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were an “inside job.” He also said that the Holocaust was used in history lessons and museums to “promote a permanent Jewish state as part of a global cabal,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

Heimbichner joined the call on Friday and told reporters, “I wish to make it crystal-clear that I denounce every form of antisemitism completely.”

He said some of his past work had been manipulated and “put out in my name, but not my words” by an antisemitic author he has since distanced himself from. He added that his other writings about conspiracy theories were written from “a scholarly standpoint.”

“This work derided conspiracy writers and further showed that some theories tend to align themselves with antisemitic tropes, which as I said, I utterly denounce,” he explained.