The U.S. Government continues to employ a person who has a blog and podcast that targets Jews, people of color, LGBTQ+ and others.
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00:00 State Department employees are protesting a fellow employee they're calling an anti-Semitic blogger.
00:06 He has made several degrading comments about Jewish people, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color.
00:13 Several people, including members of Congress, have complained, but Alex Miller found despite that he still works at the State Department.
00:21 Who's the enemy? It's the Jew. The Jew. The Jew. The Jew. The Jew.
00:25 You're listening to the voice of a current State Department employee.
00:29 His name is Fritz Berggren. He's been hosting this podcast and blog called Blood and Faith for nearly six years,
00:36 all while being employed by the federal government.
00:39 I think there's reason for concern in terms of what that does to our country's image.
00:43 Ambassador Eric Rubin has served abroad for this country multiple times and now heads up the organization that represents U.S. Foreign Service officers worldwide.
00:52 Should State Department employees be afraid of their safety, for their safety?
00:56 I hope not. I think our employees need some assurance that somebody who thinks they should die, basically, is what he's saying,
01:05 is not working among them and potentially putting them at risk.
01:11 Now, Scripps News has learned these shocking views weren't confined to these blog posts.
01:16 A former colleague of Berggren's at the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain, where Berggren was once posted,
01:20 told us Berggren expressed similar sentiments in his time at the embassy.
01:25 A former colleague agreed to talk with Scripps News on the condition of anonymity.
01:29 The voice you're about to hear is not that of the employee.
01:32 He would always display magazines, very, very pro-right magazines in his office.
01:37 I know that he was definitely making certain groups of people, especially in the housing community where he lived, he made people feel very uncomfortable.
01:45 Ambassador Rubin told us under State Department policy,
01:48 service officers are not supposed to share their political opinions in any public forum, including in their workplace or in a podcast.
01:55 You cannot go out and speak publicly. You cannot contradict official policy.
01:59 We can't work this way. There has to be a clear set of expectations.
02:04 Is the line blurry in these situations?
02:07 I don't think so. We are on duty 24/7 representing our country, and our behavior and our actions reflect on our country.
02:17 We send people home all the time, you know, basically saying you have brought disrepute to our country.
02:24 And through his podcast, we have found criticism of the Biden administration,
02:27 particularly saying that Jews are running America's foreign policy,
02:31 criticizing the vice president's husband, Doug Emhoff, for his role in trying to combat anti-Semitism.
02:37 We reached out to Fritz Berggren for comment, but he never responded to us.
02:40 And when we asked the State Department to sit down for an interview, they also declined,
02:44 but gave us a statement that says, in part, the department views the content on the blog as anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, xenophobic,
02:51 and otherwise abhorrent, discriminatory, and inconsistent with the values and the mission of the U.S. Department of State.
02:58 But as of now, Fritz Berggren is still employed by the State Department, full time working in the Administration Bureau on internal facing matters.
03:05 It is unclear if he still has a security clearance, and if he does, if it will be renewed.
03:11 Alex Miller, Scripps News, New York.