White House promotes Biden official who compared police to slave patrols, wants to abolish ICE

Tyler Cherry, the former Interior Department communications director in the Biden administration, has been hired in a new role and will be working on communications inside the Biden White House, despite sparking controversy last year over social media posts attacking police, criticizing Republicans and supporting the anti-Israel movement.

‘After more than three years at Interior working for Secretary Deb Haaland, Cherry started last week as an associate communications director at the White House,’ Politico reported this week.

Cherry sparked controversy last year after social media posts surfaced in which he blasted law enforcement and promoted ‘Russiagate.’

‘Praying for #Baltimore, but praying even harder for an end to a capitalistic police state motivated by explicit and implicit racial biases,’ Cherry posted in 2015 amid riots that were sparked following the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man, in police custody in Baltimore.

‘Apt (sic.) time to recall that the modern day police system is a direct evolution of slave patrols and lynch mobs,’ he stated in a separate post months later.

In 2018, Cherry called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Homeland Security Department agency tasked with preventing cross-border crime and illegal immigration, to be abolished. 

Cherry was also posting support for ‘Palestine’ on social media in 2014 during the Gaza War in which Palestinian forces, led by the radical Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, launched hundreds of rockets into Israel, sparking a forceful Israeli response that involved airstrikes and a ground invasion.

‘Cheersing in bars to ending the occupation of Palestine — no shame and f— your glares #ISupportGaza #FreePalestine,’ Cherry said on July 25, 2014, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Cherry also has a history of criticizing Republicans on social media, including in 2017 when he said that conservatives in the Republican Party were focused on ‘white grievance politics.’

‘The Tea Party was never about the debt/deficit but about racism and white grievance politics,’ he wrote on X.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said, ‘We’re very proud to have Tyler on the team.’

Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.