Thread by @AndrewFeinberg

INBOX: @TeamTrump is still trying to make @JoeBiden look like a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer for delivering a eulogy at the funeral of Senator Robert Byrd, D-WV and for not making a redundant "declaration" that the KKK is a "terrorist organization."

Here's why it's bullshit. 1/

Yes, Byrd did start a Klan chapter in the early 1940s. But by the time he ran for the House in 1952, he was out, and said this: "After about a year, .dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." 2/

Byrd later said joining the group "the greatest mistake I ever made," and wrote that he'd been "sorely afflicted with tunnel vision—a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions." 3/

And in 2005, Byrd said this on the subject of his KKK membership: "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized for a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened." 4/

When Congress debated legislation to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr Day as a holiday, Byrd said the following to staff: "I'm the only one in the Senate who must vote for this bill." 5/

When he died in 2010 after serving 57 years and 176 days in Congress (second only to @JohnDingell), no less than the then-President and CEO of the @NAACP, @BenJealous, issued a statement mourning his death. 6/

Oh, and as far as @JoeBiden not making some statement declaring the KKK a terrorist organization, the U.S. Congress did this in 1871 when it passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which many consider the first piece of anti-terrorism legislation in U.S. history. 7/7 en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_K…