Merritt Corrigan, the deputy White House liaison at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is not holding her anti-LGBTQ thoughts back anymore… and she’s been fired after going on a Twitter tirade.
Corrigan says that she’s going to hold a press conference on Thursday to “discuss the rampant anti-Christian sentiment at USAID,” which apparently includes “U.S.-funded Tunisian LGBT soap operas.”
Related: Here are all the times the Trump administration has attacked LGBTQ rights since he became President
Corrigan is a former employee of the Republican National Committee and previously worked for Hungary’s Embassy in the U.S. – she even called Hungary’s autocratic and anti-LGBTQ ruler Viktor Orbán “the shining champion of Western civilization.”
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She had a history of anti-LGBTQ tweets before Trump appointed her to USAID two months ago, calling out the U.S.’s “homo-empire” that supports a “tyrannical LGBT agenda.”
Now she’s leaving USAID after she went on a Twitter diatribe. She says that “for too long, I’ve remained silent as the media has attacked me for my Christian beliefs.”
She laid out her most important beliefs: “Gay marriage isn’t marriage. Men aren’t women. US-funded Tunisian LGBT soap operas aren’t America First.”
Corrigan claimed that the U.S. is losing influence abroad “because we now refuse to help countries who don’t celebrate sexual deviancy.”
She also claimed that she “watched with horror” as she was given information at USAID about how to work with transgender people.
“I’m not cis-anything. I’m a woman,” she wrote. She probably wasn’t coming out as transgender; refusing to acknowledge that a cisgender person is cisgender is a common tactic used by anti-trans advocates to malign transgender identities.
The United States is losing ground in the battle to garner influence through humanitarian aid because we now refuse to help countries who don’t celebrate sexual deviancy
Meanwhile, Russia and China are happy to step in and eat our lunch
— Merritt Corrigan (@MerrittCorrigan) August 3, 2020
On Thursday at 1:00 PM I will be holding a press conference with Project 1599 to discuss the rampant anti-Christian sentiment at USAID
— Merritt Corrigan (@MerrittCorrigan) August 3, 2020
In the tweets, she called out two Democratic members of Congress who sent a letter to USAID Administrator John Barsa to tell him that Corrigan’s past statements are “in direct opposition to the work USAID supports.” She accused them of mounting “a corrupt campaign to remove me from USAID.”
She said that Democratic Senators “demanded my ouster from USAID, purely because of my Christian beliefs.”
“I WILL NOT be bullied into submission by radical anti-Christian leftists like [Sen.] Cory Booker [D-NY],” she wrote.
Senators @TimKaine and @CoryBooker have demanded my ouster from USAID, purely because of my Christian beliefs
I WILL NOT be bullied into submission by radical anti-Christian leftists like Cory Booker
— Merritt Corrigan (@MerrittCorrigan) August 3, 2020
She said that conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman – who have allegedly paid people on multiple occasions to make false sexual misconduct claims against political opponent – would be at her Thursday press conference.
“Sadly, Merritt Corrigan is not unique in the Trump Administration,” HRC Government Affairs Director David Stacy said in an emailed statement. “She is the exact type of anti-LGBTQ zealot that Trump recruits and places in positions of power. Corrigan’s biased and harmful beliefs are not shared by the vast majority of Americans.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said that Corrigan had quit and then went on a Twitter tirade, but the Daily Beast is now reporting that she was told to resign or be fired after the tirade was posted and she was fired when she didn’t respond.
She is now claiming that her phone was taken from her and someone else sent the messages in question. Her Twitter account has been deleted.
