Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and frequent peddler of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
In 2007, Wilkerson appeared in a Dutch documentary, claiming that American foreign policy was dominated by "the Jewish lobby".
In a May 2013 interview with Current TV (owned by Qatari state-media Al Jazeera), Wilkerson suggested that the genocide in Syria "could’ve been an Israeli false-flag operation." His outlandish accusations were broadcasted and echoed by various controversial news outlets including Haaretz, Iran’s Press TV, and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar.
In 2015, Wilkerson was tapped to serve as a military and foreign policy adviser for the Bernie Sanders campaign. However, in the wake of yet another controversial interview, he was allegedly dropped by the campaign. In April 2016, after speaking on The Real News Network, Wilkerson claimed "The ultra-right wing of Israel has captured AIPAC and AIPAC has captured the United States Congress. And to a certain extent the oval office as well."
Wilkerson, in a 2018 New York Times opinion article, accused Jewish businessmen Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer of financially coercing the Trump administration into a war with Iran. There was mass about the false allegations, and after a few short hours the Times issued four separate corrections. They essentially removed all of Wilkerson's antisemitic finger-pointing.
Despite Wilkerson's history of inflammatory antisemitic rhetoric, CNN had the audacity to feature him earlier this week in a discussion about election fraud. Currently, Wilkerson is a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises.
Antisemites like Lawrence Wilkerson should not be given airtime to spread their hateful and dangerous views to the American public, especially on issues that impact our safety and security.