Deleted social media comments and an interview with an acquaintance undercut Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s claims this week that he only recently learned that a tattoo on his chest had Nazi origins.
A KFile investigation has uncovered mounting evidence that Platner — a Marine veteran— was aware of and defended the use of Nazi symbolism that had come to be embraced by some members of the military.
In one thread from 2019, Platner weighed in on a conversation about the “Totenkopf” — the skull-and-crossbones emblem worn by Nazi SS units that his own tattoo would later draw scrutiny for resembling — to note that many US service members had adopted similar imagery, such as the Punisher skull used by some Navy SEALs.
Using his longtime Reddit handle P-Hustle, the former Marine infantryman and future Democratic Senate hopeful also argued in a 2020 online discussion that “SS” lightning-bolt tattoos were a “culture” marker within Marine Scout Sniper units, not an expression of White supremacist ideology.
When commenters in the 2020 thread described the lightning bolts as a Nazi or racist symbol, Platner dismissed the criticism, writing that outsiders “have no idea what they’re talking about” and added, “I will be sure to inform the Black guys I know with bolts that they’re Nazis now.”
Copies of the threads were archived through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and on a separate Reddit archiving website.
CNN also spoke with an acquaintance of Platner from more than a decade ago who said Platner spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
CNN also reviewed a text chain between the acquaintance and another person discussing Platner’s Nazi-like tattoo several months ago, before the story became public.
Platner’s campaign declined to comment for this story.
Platner said in an interview this week he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007 when he was in his 20s and in the Marine Corps during a night of drinking while on leave in Croatia, adding he was unaware until recently that the image has been associated with Nazis.
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Platner said on the “Pod Save America” podcast hosted by former Obama administration officials.
Following a wave of news coverage this week, Platner has had the tattoo covered up.
His campaign has since fielded questions about whether Platner was aware of the tattoo’s resemblance earlier than he has said. Jewish Insider first reported about the former acquaintance, who recalled Platner referring to the image as “my Totenkopf” in a joking way more than a decade ago. CNN spoke with that same acquaintance, who reiterated the recollection.
Genevieve McDonald, Platner’s former political director, told the Bangor Daily News that she had been aware of the tattoo since at least August and that Platner himself acknowledged it “could be problematic.”
Platner’s campaign has dismissed both the Jewish Insider report and its former political director’s claims as false.
Scrutiny on Platner, a political novice, increased earlier this month after KFile revealed that he’d used the deleted Reddit account to call himself a “communist,” dismiss “all” police as bastards, and to say rural White Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, among other inflammatory remarks. Platner disavowed the posts and said they came at a time in his life when he was angry.
Discussed and dismissed Nazi-style tattoos and symbols
The 2020 Reddit discussion that Platner joined centered on a viral photo of a man at a Las Vegas Black Lives Matter protest who appeared to be a police officer and had an “SS”-style tattoo visible on his arm.
“Vegas cop with $10k+ of gear and an SS tattoo. This is where our tax dollars go,” was the title of the thread on the subreddit r/liberalgunowner. Authorities later discovered the man was not law enforcement and he was charged with impersonating a police officer.
Platner argued in the thread that such tattoos were common in the military and not a display of hate or Nazism, pushing back on claims from other users. Platner referred to Marine Scout Snipers who used the acronyms HOG — short for Hunter of Gunmen — and STA, meaning Surveillance and Target Acquisition.
“I was on Lejeune, and know lots with bolts,” he wrote. “The amount of people in this thread who have no idea what they’re talking about it pretty epic. Dude was a ‘51, took the STA indoc, became a HOG and got his bolts. Then got out and became a cop. This is not some complicated timeline. Although I do understand that our world is very foreign and insulated, most normal people really have no idea how it works.”
The Marine Corps has long faced scrutiny over Scout Snipers’ use of SS-style insignia — a practice denounced by military officials and Jewish civil rights groups after photos emerged in 2012 showing Marines in Afghanistan posing with an SS flag. The Schutzstaffel or “SS” was a paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party responsible for many of the regime’s war crimes and atrocities during World War II.
In 2012, the then Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. James Amos, apologized to “all offended by this regrettable incident,” adding, “I want to be clear that the Marine Corps unequivocally does not condone the use of any such symbols to represent our units or Marines.”
Platner in the Reddit threads repeatedly argued that some US military members used the symbols in a different way and not to reference the Nazi units.
“I know a bunch of black and latino HOGs with bolts, they’d be quite surprised to hear they are part of a conspiracy to infiltrate white supremacists into the Marine Corps,” he said in another comment, later adding that “Bolts were a STA icon since the ‘80’s at least, if not longer. It was never official, but it sure as shit was tattooed on almost every HOG I knew between 2004-2012.”
Platner also wrote in the posts that he was liberal and was merely explaining military culture.
“You could read through my post history and see that I’m pretty radically left,” he wrote. “But this is a specific culture that I am close with, and know intimately. I’m not being willfully obtuse, I’m explaining something that is far more nuanced than you’re willing to understand.”
In the 2019 Reddit thread titled “Battle-weary SS,” featuring a wartime photo of Nazi soldiers, users discussed the “Totenkopf” — or skull emblem — visible on one soldier’s cap.
Platner joined the discussion, noted that skull imagery remained common among US military units, citing the Punisher logo.
“When I was in Ramadi in ‘06 as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers. There’s no question it’s far more prevalent on all the dumbass Grunt Style and Nine Line shirts these days, but the teams definitely adopted it for a while,” he said.
CNN’s Em Steck contributed to this report.
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