Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has accused her Republican opponent for the 3rd Congressional District of Washington State, Joe Kent, of being an “extremist,” even while there is evidence that she herself supported far-left extremists.
Gluesenkamp Perez’s auto body shop offered free help to Antifa rioters during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, according to an Instagram post on July 26, 2020.
The post, on the Instagram account of Dean’s Car Care, @deanscarcarepdx, showed a picture of her husband Dean getting a hair cut, with the caption:
If you and your leaf blower have been getting busy supporting human rights, we’d like to do what we can to help keep that little machine working right (pro bono) shoot us an email and check your fluids.
According to numerous media accounts, members of Antifa used leaf blowers to try to clear tear gas used by law enforcement to control the crowds of rioters.
According to The Washington Post, “a group of self-identified Portland dads” known collectively as “DadBloc” and “Leaf-Blower Dads” turned up to the protests wearing orange shirts to compliment the “Wall of Moms” who formed human shields at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse.
An account associating itself with the dads has identified itself as Antifa and has sent messages of support to other members of Antifa in other cities.
Richard here playing ukulele and singing Viva Antifa
— @PDXDadPod (@pdxdadpod) August 22, 2021
Hey man, you got a leafblower?? pic.twitter.com/Qvfd8RrfFy
— @PDXDadPod (@pdxdadpod) July 21, 2020
Meanwhile, Gluesenkamp Perez has tried to paint Kent as an “extremist,” calling him “a radical right-wing extremist” in numerous social media posts. She has not mentioned her support for Antifa or Black Lives Matter on her Twitter account.
A spokesman for Gluesenkamp Perez told Breitbart News in a statement that it was an employee at her shop who made the Instagram post:
This is a disingenuous and ridiculously misleading attack. Any claim Marie or her husband have ever supported Antifa is a lie. In 2020, as tear gas and pepper spray were causing harm to Portland residents, an employee at Marie’s shop once wrote an Instagram post offering to repair broken leaf blowers. That’s it.
Nothing Marie or her husband said or did was in any way anti-law enforcement. Let’s be absolutely clear on this: Marie’s small business has suffered multiple break ins so she knows first hand the important work that police do to protect public safety and address crime. Marie supports fully-funding our police and opposes political violence in all its forms — unlike her extremist opponent Joe Kent, who claims ‘we’re at war’ with federal law enforcement officers and wants to defund the FBI along with other federal law enforcement.”
Kent’s campaign responded to his opponent calling him “extremist” again.
“The ad from Marie’s repair shop offering free repairs to those ‘getting busy for human rights’ is an undeniable offer of material support for Antifa during the height of their riots and attacks on the police,” a campaign spokesman said.
“Marie pretends to support the police because she’s running for Congress in a red district, but when it mattered, she turned her garage in Portland into an arsenal for Antifa,” he said.
“Local law enforcement has been unanimous in their public endorsements of Joe Kent, and the people of the Washington’s 3rd District know that Antifa belongs in prison, not in Congress.”
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