Trump's personal lawyer forwards email equating Robert E. Lee to George Washington

John Dowd with Raj Rajaratnam. — (Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

That uncle that always sends FWD: fwd: fwd: emails is now representing the president of the United States of America.

On Wednesday, the head of President Trump's personal legal team, John Dowd, forwarded to more than two dozen conservative journalists and government officials an email with the subject line: "The Information that Validates President Trump on Charlottesville," The New York Times reports. The email stated that "you cannot be against General Lee and be for General Washington, there is literally no difference between the two men," since "both rebelled against the ruling government" and "both saved America," and said the Black Lives Matter movement "has been totally infiltrated by terrorist groups."

Dowd received the email on Tuesday night, not long after Trump said during a press conference that he blamed "both sides" for the violence Saturday at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He sent it to The Wall Street Journal editorial page, journalists at Fox News and The Washington Times, and a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, and one of the recipients provided a copy to the Times. When reached by the Times, Dowd said, before hanging up: "You're sticking your nose in my personal email? People send me things. I forward them."

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The email was written by Jerome Almon, a man who runs websites featuring government conspiracy theories and believes Islamic terrorists have infiltrated the FBI, the Times says. Almon, who is black, once sued the State Department, unsuccessfully, for $900 million, claiming he had been discriminated against. Almon told the Times he was hoping his email "would get in the hands of President Trump — I quite frankly hope he would review it right now because his presidency is on the line." Read more about Almon and how his email echoes secessionist Civil War propaganda at The New York Times.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.