Several Republican Congressional offices received American flags bearing “obscured” swastika symbols, Rep. Dave Taylor, the hapless boob who is responsible for hiring a Congressional staff that either can’t recognize a Nazi emblem or doesn’t see anything wrong with displaying it, finally explained as he tried to spin how one ended up hanging in his Rayburn Building office by the Capitol.

Taylor, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement yesterday that numerous Republican offices had been targeted by an unidentified group or individual who distributed altered American flags that had a Nazi swastika their center. They were “initially indistinguishable from an ordinary American flag to the naked eye,” he said. “My office was among those that were subjected to this ruse.” And was apparently the only one that didn’t immediately see the swastika and decide, “Holy crap! That’s no American flag! That’s a trap! Burn the thing! Quick!” Do you believe that sinister symbol in the flag above wasn’t visible to the naked eye?

One GOP Hill staffer, not from Taylor’s office, told POLITICO that the flag was “obvious and unusual enough for us to take a photo before throwing it out. It was plainly obvious to us that there was a swastika on the flag with the naked eye,” the staffer said. There was no investigation, and the flag was thrown away, “like we would hate mail,” the staffer said. Ah, So there is at least one Republican Rep’s office that isn’t staffed by morons….or undercover Democrats.

Taylor’s office has not responded to multiple media requests regarding whether the Rep. ever saw the flag and whether the Congressional aide who had it on the wall behind him during a Zoom call, Angelo Elia, realized what it was or if he is still employed by Taylor. “After a full-scale internal investigation, I am confident that no employee of this office would knowingly display such a despicable image, and the flag in question was taken down immediately upon the discovery of the obscured symbol it bore,” Rep. Taylor said in his statement. “As I’ve said previously, I unequivocally condemn hate in any form and continue to collaborate with Capitol Police and the Committee on House Administration to uncover additional details in this investigation.”

It is unclear how the flag in Taylor’s office came to be displayed, how long it was there, and why Elia seemed unaware of it during a video call if in fact he was. “It was clearly behind him, on the screen,” the Hill staffer on the call said. As for Taylor, that he never saw the flag in his office is “plausible,” but it is “not at all plausible that every other staffer had no clue that flag was there,” said Eric Schmeltzer, the former press secretary for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). “Everyone [in a congressional office] sees how everyone else has their area decorated .”

Interestingly, the young Taylor staffer who sat in front of the flag was involved in Democratic organizations during his time at Youngstown State University. In 2020, Elia was the university’s College Democrats chapter treasurer, and was its president in 2022. Elia was also a member of the Mahoning County Young Democrats.

I wonder what made him become a Republican just two years later…