Ohio Sen. Jon Husted fired his campaign's political director Friday after the Washington Post excavated years-old social media posts showing the 25-year-old staffer once used a Nazi SS soldier photo as his Facebook profile picture — the latest case of legacy media digging through Republicans' digital histories to shake up a tight race.
Husted is locked in a close contest against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown that has drawn millions in outside spending. The Post's reporting on Stephen Woytek's social media activity forced an immediate campaign response and raised the question nobody in the press wants to answer: would the same forensic effort be applied to a Democrat's staff?
The facts, per the Post and confirmed by Ohio statehouse reporters: Woytek, an Army National Guard lieutenant and Citadel graduate who joined Husted's campaign in August, used a photo of soldiers from the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler division as his Facebook profile picture in 2018 — when he was 16. The Leibstandarte began as Hitler's personal bodyguard before becoming a Waffen-SS armored division. Woytek participated in a reenactment group called the LAH Living History Unit that portrays the division; the group's website claims to be "non-political" and says it disavows "political and religious persecution."
The Guardian went further, reporting that Woytek followed several SS uniform suppliers on Facebook and answered a Quora question in 2017 about whether anything good occurred under Hitler, writing that "Hitler started an anti-smoking campaign." A Spotify account under his name featured a playlist called "Tales from Rhodesia" — captioned "homesick for a place that no longer exists" — that included a song using a slur for African troops. Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was ruled by a white-minority government and has become a symbol adopted by white supremacist groups.
Woytek said he "reject(s) the racist and antisemitic ideology the SS and Nazi Germany represented" and participates in historical reenactments to educate younger generations, adding he should have "exercised better judgment."
Husted's campaign said it learned about the posts Friday and cut ties immediately. "While he denies negative intent, his social media activity displays a complete lack of judgment and disregard for its impact on others," spokesperson Amy Natoce said. "Sen. Husted demands better of those who represent him." The campaign did not respond to questions about its vetting process.
The Guardian framed the firing as part of "a series of damaging episodes" linking it to Georgia Rep. Mike Collins replacing an aide after Slate revealed group chat ties to white supremacists. The Akron Beacon Journal noted this is Husted's second staffing controversy, after a volunteer resigned over a prior criminal case involving allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.
What none of the coverage addresses: whether the Post has dispatched reporters to excavate the social media histories of Sherrod Brown's staff — or any Democrat in a competitive race. The Rhodesia playlist and the SS profile pic are real and damaging. So is the press corps' consistent pattern of treating opposition research as breaking news when the target has an R next to his name.
Woytek handed them the shovel. The question is why only one side of the aisle ever seems to get dug up.
