On Thursday night, Supervisor Nathan Fletcher responded to a letter sent to him by Santee mayor John Minto urging him to resign his position as the San Diego County Board of Supervisors' chair because of comments he allegedly made about those leading a recall effort against California Gavin Newsom.
Above an image of his official response on Facebook and Twitter, Fletcher posted, "That moment when the City of Santee officially lost their mind."
In the letter addressed to the County Board of Supervisors on Thursday, Minto said he spoke on behalf of the City Council in urging Fletcher to publicly apologize and resign from his position as the board’s chair for his “divisive language.”
“The Santee City Council condemns the divisive language used by San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher when he called those participating in the Governor Gavin Newsom recall effort 'extremists,' 'conspiracy theorists,' 'neo-Nazis,' ' right-wing militia groups' and 'white supremacists.' ”
The full letter from Minto and other Santee officials is below:
An undated, unverified recording Tweeted by former San Diego city councilman Carl DeMaio on Jan. 13 allegedly contains audio of Fletcher, in which the speaker says the Newsom recall is being fronted by extremists.
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“But these same extremists, these same Trump-inspired conspiracy theorists, are now seeking to undermine our democracy in California,” the speaker says. “They’re involved in recall elections against our governor, Gavin Newsom. The recall efforts led by pro-Trump extremists seek to undermine the Democratic process across our state. There is substantial evidence that those who are leading this recall effort are linked and associated with neo-Nazis, with white supremacists, with right-wing militia groups, and we cannot stand for this here either.”
NBC 7 has not verified that the speaker in the recording is, in fact, Fletcher.
However, in his official response to Santee officials, he expressed exasperation that they tried to falsely inflate his statement to include anybody who supported the recall movement when he had leveled the accusation against just the members of its leadership.
“I never once made any statements about all people involved in the recall efforts of Governor Newsom,” Fletcher said in his response. “I suspect you know this and yet you continue to promote a lie. My comments said that some elements of the recall movement are tied to various right-wing groups. I stated, ‘these same extremists. They are involved in recall elections against our governor, Gavin Newsom.’”
The full letter from Fletcher sent to Minto is below:
To read Supervisor Fletcher's response in its entirety, see below.
