A
Facebook post quoting conservative former presidential candidate Michele
Bachmann saying that Muslims are out to destroy Christianity briefly appeared
on the Facebook page of Sangamon County circuit clerk Paul Palazzolo on Tuesday
night.
“The
movement of Muslims into Europe and the U.S. is a planned invasion for the
specific purpose of destroying Western Christendom,” read the quote attributed
to Bachmann, whose photo also appeared on the post.
Bachmann,
a former congresswoman from Minnesota who was a Tea Party politician during her
time in the U.S. House of Representatives, made the controversial remark in
2016, after leaving the House, where she held office for eight years. She made an
unsuccessful run for president in 2012.
The
post originally appeared on the Facebook page of someone in Kansas and was
posted on the circuit clerk’s Facebook page by Palazzolo. It was soon taken
down.
Palazzolo
said that he didn’t do it. Indeed, the circuit clerk said, he doesn’t have the
expertise or time to post on Facebook and delegates that task to his staff.
Five people in his office, Palazzolo said, have authority to post on Facebook.
“We
believe that one of our folks was hacked,” Palazzolo said.
Palazzolo
acknowledged having no proof that an employee whom he did not name was hacked
so that someone else was able to post unauthorized material on the circuit
clerk’s Facebook page from a personal account of the employee. It boils down to a
matter of trust, the circuit clerk said, and he trusts his employee, whom he
has known for years.
“He
would not have done anything like that,” Palazzolo said. “He also had other
weird things go out under his name to other people who also informed him that
they got stuff that they would not have received from him.” The circuit clerk
said he didn’t know what other things other people had received from the
employee.
“He gave me anecdotal testimony, for lack of a better word,” Palazzolo said.
Contact Bruce
Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2019.
