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Trump attends wedding of white nationalist aide Stephen Miller at his own hotel

Getty Images
Getty Images

Donald Trump has attended the wedding of his top aide on immigration and national security just days after senators called for his removal after he was found to have been advancing white nationalist ideology.

Stephen Miller, the 34-year-old whose influence over the president has triggered controversy throughout his time in the White House, married Vice President Mike Pence’s spokeswoman Katie Rose Waldman, 28, at a ceremony in the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC on Sunday evening.

“The President is at Trump International Hotel for the wedding of Mr and Mrs Stephen Miller,” a White House statement said.

The event marked the end of a day for the president which saw him travel from his Mar a Lago golf resort, to the Dayton 500 speedway race where he rode in a lap of honour of the track before briefly returning to the Oval office.

Mr Miller, who has maintained a presence in Mr Trump’s inner circle since his electoral campaign, has been behind some of the president’s most hard-line policy decisions – particularly when it comes to immigration.

He is understood to have pushed for the policy that has seen children separated from their parents at the southern border, while also assisting in the formation of the president’s travel ban, which initially attempted to restrict travel from seven majority Muslim countries.

His wedding came just days after prominent Democratic officials called for him to be removed from the West Wing after it was revealed he had sought to advance white supremacist conspiracy theories while operating in politics.

Emails revealed by advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center showed him promoting white nationalist and racist books to a Breitbart editor in an apparent attempt to influence reporting.

Among the documents exchanged was the book The Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America by James Simpson, which claims American sovereignty was being erased intentionally by people of colour through immigration programmes – while baselessly arguing migrant relocation is part of an intentional plan by the UN to “dilute” western culture.

Of the 900 emails sent by Mr Miller to editor Katie McHugh, who has since renounced the far right, 80 per cent are believed to have focussed on immigration and race.

On 13 February former presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Democratic representative for Texas Joaquin Castro brought forward a resolution in congress condemning Mr Miller and calling for his resignation.

“Stephen Miller is the hateful force behind the cruel and xenophobic policies that have defined the Trump administration”, Ms Harris said in a statement. “His white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology has no place in our country, let alone the White House.

“I'm proud to lead this effort on behalf of immigrant families in California and throughout the country.”

Mr Castro added: “Americans, and in particular the Latino community, will never forget it was President Trump and Stephen Miller’s hateful rhetoric that helped inspire the deadly attack in El Paso where 22 individuals were killed for being Latino.”

“When we see the families suffering at the border or being torn apart by ICE raids, we can look to Stephen Miller as the main architect of the Administration’s cruel anti-immigrant policies. He must be removed from the White House immediately to stop further damage to our country and our communities.”

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