Republican senator fires aide over Nazi SS profile picture

Republican Senator Jon Husted of Ohio has dismissed his newly appointed political director, Stephen Woytek, after learning that the 25-year-old's Facebook profile picture and activity were tied to Nazi imagery. Woytek had joined the campaign last month as Husted fights a tight re-election battle against former Democratic senator Sherrod Brown.

According to the Washington Post, Woytek's Facebook showed he followed LAH Living History Unit, a military re-enactment group portraying the 1st SS Panzer division — the Leibstandarte, a Waffen-SS armored unit that began as Adolf Hitler's bodyguard detail. The group describes itself as non-political and says it disavows the wartime persecution associated with the Nazi regime.

It also emerged that a Spotify playlist under Woytek's name celebrated the former white-minority government of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, a regime some racist groups view as a symbol of white supremacy. One track on the playlist used a slur referring to African troops.

A spokesperson for Husted's campaign said Woytek's social media activity showed a complete lack of judgment and that the senator decided immediately to end the working relationship upon learning of the posts. The campaign did not say whether Woytek's online activity had been vetted before he was hired.

Woytek, a National Guard member and graduate of the Citadel military academy in South Carolina, expressed regret over his past posts, saying he rejects the racist and antisemitic ideology of the SS and Nazi Germany, and that he takes part in historical re-enactments for educational purposes. However, a 2018 photo surfaced showing a 16-year-old Woytek marching in an SS uniform near Nazi flags, along with a 2017 online comment citing a supposedly positive outcome of Hitler's rule.

The dismissal follows other recent controversies involving young Republicans expressing pro-Nazi sympathies in group chats, and a similar case in Georgia where Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins replaced a top aide over ties to a white supremacist group chat.