Senior Says Fundraising Email Claiming ‘AOC Is A Domestic Terrorist’ Was Unauthorized

April 11, 2019April 25, 2019 Sean Newhouse

Tom Ferrall, a UD senior, former president of UD College Republicans and president of the Ohio Federation of College Republicans made international headlines on Wednesday for the subject line of a fundraising email with his digital signature that read “AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] is a domestic terrorist.” Ocasio-Cortez condemned the tweet, but Ferrall told cleveland.com today that the email was sent by an outside firm without his organization’s knowledge or permission.

The fundraising email asked donors to support College Republicans; it included the quote, “My peers are being brainwashed on a daily basis by Marxist professors who hate America and capitalism.”
Ocasio-Cortez condemned the email on Twitter, saying “This puts me in danger every time;” the New York representative claimed rhetoric used in the email causes spikes in death threats against her.
The Ohio College Republican Twitter tweeted on Wednesday that “[It] does not condone the unauthorized email sent out in our name….” and apologized to the congresswoman.
Ferrall said today the email was sent out by an “out-of-state fundraising firm,” who “violated an agreement that no emails would be sent out on behalf of the Ohio College Republican Federation” without Ferrall’s approval.
The UD senior did not give the name of the outside firm but said he severed ties with them.
The university said in a statement that Ferrall “improperly used a campus mailing address” in the fundraising email; however, he “agreed to discontinue use of this address for this purpose and to remove it from past communications.”

Flyer News will continue to follow this story.

Cover photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.